The weather this past weekend was so beautiful and dry (unlike the rainy weekends we’ve had lately) that we spent as much time as possible outdoors. Saturday we took advantage of Morton Arboretum’s reciprocal agreement to visit the Chicago Botanic Garden for free. Can you believe it’s been three years since our last visit? I can’t believe how quickly time passes! We decided to check out the gardens at dusk for a different perspective. At first we were kicking ourselves for the poor timing since there was a ton of Ravinia Festival traffic going into the lot when we arrived but luckily the two lines eventually went their separate ways.
Our first stop was the Model Railroad Garden which we’ve never visited before, probably due to the additional admission fee (because we can be so cheap sometimes). The theme was Landmarks of America, although it featured both Comiskey Park (now called U.S. Cellular Field – blech!) and Wrigley Field which I thought was interesting. Apparently they change the theme periodically so we’ll have to keep an eye on it for the future.
After the trains we just walked around the gardens taking pictures of anything that caught our eye, like this carp who I guess was expecting us to feed him.
His little carp friends quickly joined him looking up at us expectantly. It reminded me of the carp at Indiana Beach. Later on a group of ducks approached us when we sat down by one of the ponds so I’m guessing these animals get fed by guests regularly.
After we got tired of walking around (for two hours) it was pretty dark so we decided to leave. We consulted our Yelp app for somewhere to eat and found ourselves at a little organic burger joint. Unfortunately despite the glowing reviews we were not impressed. The meat was dry and had a funny flavor to it. I’d rather eat hormone-injected beef I guess.
Sunday was another beautiful day so we packed a picnic lunch and headed to Pottawatomie Park. We claimed a picnic table, ate lunch, people-watched, and played frisbee. It was so relaxing and peaceful.