Heat Wave
Moving doesn't let you escape everything
Having grown up in Tennessee, with many trips over the years to Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and other places, I can confidently say that the South is hot. Summers are very warm, sunny, and humid. Nashville, and much of Middle Tennessee, is located in a natural basin, which also has the effect of stagnating the air. It reaches a point (usually in early August) where it is so deeply, unpleasantly hot outside, where you just sweat immediately, even in shade, and you just stay hot and gross and sweaty because the humidity is also just high enough to prevent the sweat from really evaporating at all. Fun stuff.
If you were in, I think, basically the entire eastern half of the United States last week, then you can attest to the brutal heat wave that struck… basically everywhere.
And you can imagine my dismay of discovering that, in the summers, Chicago is only slightly cooler than Nashville, and that heat and humidity will likely haunt me (and especially my shirts) forever.
Unfortunately, I didn’t capture any new photos on my Canon Powershot. Oh well.
However… the ridiculous temperatures outside haven’t deterred me much at all from doing the things I would’ve done anyway. Bike rides on the lakefront trail, to church, to the grocery store, to hang out with friends. Yeah, I got a lot more sweaty, but… it’s the summer, and it feels nearly impossible to stay inside and do nothing all day (that’s winter behavior, which I’ll probably be yapping about in a future blog post).
I’ve continued to do fun things, like more outdoor classical concerts with the Grant Park orchestra—this time with some new friends! And one where we got caught in the rain. Or when I got slightly lost in an underground mall connection between the Blue Line subway station and… a staircase back to ground level.
And learning how to use my brain for biking around the Loop, instead of Google Maps (which frequently loses my location, and rotates the whole view by about 45°) or Apple Maps (which doesn’t know that construction has closed several important streets) has been surprisingly fun, and slightly challenging in the demands for thinking on my feet, while moving on my bike, while avoiding, you know, cars and people and buses.
I also enjoyed going on a little solo mini-adventure to an art festival by the very tall Hancock Tower, where I found some amazing painting and photo displays (unfortunately, purchasing said art is not ideal for people in my tax bracket).
And barely 100 feet away, and up a couple of floors, was another very unique view of the Chicago skyline.
On perhaps the hottest day so far, a Sunday, I finally took my oft-talked-about ebike for a spin for the first time in Chicago—because I was running late to church, and finally able to mentally justify the nearly Herculean effort of getting the darn thing down my apartment’s 2.5 floors of steps.
After that, I had another great Sunday of fellowship and hanging out with other folks, with lunch after church, and a large group of us heading to the beach for several hours. Although I got a bit sunburned, I feel like the fun was worth it!
To cap off the busy two weeks, I drove back to Nashville one last time for a music video shoot with my choir (it was awesome and WAY cooler than I just made it sound), for a collaborative project with a major artist that’ll be coming out sometime later. I had a bit of time to hang out with family just a bit more, and then I started my journey home.
Most people who’ve talked to me end up (willing or not) hearing me gush about (among other things) biking, or walking, or public transit. And during my time in Chicago so far, I haven’t once used my car, or really felt much of a need for it. So, my return journey consisted of a (delayed) flight back to O’Hare, and a ride on the Blue Line back to my apartment—interrupted by a stop in Logan Square for dinner, and also some cookies (in true Brett fashion).
I didn’t need a car at all for the journey. Given how interesting it is to people-watch and look out the train windows, or to bike through the slightly crazy but energetic city, I think there’s a great chance I’ll be just fine staying like this.
And now, I put my money where my mouth is, because now, there isn’t a car key on my keyring, or a car to be worried about.
But again… we’ll see how I feel about it in the winter! See you next post. Thanks for reading!