Chicago Winter

I knew that the spring semester of 2007 would be my last at Moody Bible Institute. I had a realization near the end of the previous semester that I needed to change the course of my life. So I allowed one more semester to give myself a buffer of time to figure out what that meant.

Knowing this full well, I wanted to make the most of my (tentative) last 5 months in Chicago. I decided to take a walk every day, and that I would also take my new camera with me. But it was winter in Chicago.

In January, two weeks into the semester, I set out on one of these daily walks. I knew of a spot a bit north of the school where I could always escape to. It was a beach on Lake Michigan with a pier that went far out into the water enough that the noise of the city was barely audible over the gentle waves. This was my favorite place in the city, and more than one girl accompanied me on various walks there.

But the weather was against me. It could not have been over 20 degrees Fahrenheit, and it was your typical windy day in Chicago, leaving your wind chill probably somewhere around 10 or below. I got a little past halfway and stopped to consider my future for a moment. I was COLD. I was about to turn around, but the inner artist/rebel won the battle, and I continued walking. From that moment forward, most of the pics I snapped were above average; and it only got colder once I got to the lake. Now there were no buildings blocking the wind for me.

I pulled my jacket tight and kept going. I walked out onto the pier, and after 30 or so feet, it became a solid sheet of ice (from the waves that occasionally crashed over the concrete pier and on top). I have pics of this that I will almost definitely post at a later date...maybe even tomorrow.

But another perk of my favorite spot in Chicago was this view. On a day this cold, it was extraordinarily clear, and the short winter day was already waning and the sky had this lovely pinkish hue that you see. This is a panoramic of 3 photos stitched together to give you a sense of the huge, wide skyline of The Windy City.