I've been doing a lot of traveling. In the past two months I've been to Chicago, Los Angeles, and Denver twice. Been to three weddings. The first took place in Chicago.
My college friend, Julie, got married July 12th. Since I had never been to Chicago I decided to make it a full-fledged trip and visited for a week. I stayed in a hostel downtown. I walked much, and visited two wonderful art museums: the Art Institute of Chicago and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. I did sketches of artwork at each, at times feeling like a rock star as small crowds gathered around me to watch. MCAC had a 30 piece exhibit of one of my fave modern figure/portrait painters -- John Currin. Amazing exhibit. And the AIC speaks for itself. While there is no shortage of astounding artwork present, I found myself particularly engaged by their collection of American artists like John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer. I hit the Field Museum, took an elevator to the top of the Sears Tower, peddled a boat around a Lincoln Park pond with Kim, meandered around The Loop, sketched Buckingham Fountain while sitting in Grant Park, bought a shirt on Michigan Avenue, saw the penguins at the zoo, took The L out to Wicker Park/Bucktown and strolled along Damen Avenue where I got a tasty bite to eat. I interleaved my adventures in the hot humid sun with air conditioning, and this frequent swimming between the two took its toll on me, and a few days in, I found myself sick. Nothing like coughdrops, cough medicine, aspirin, and the will to live to help me recover.
A little over a week later, I visited Kim in Denver, and we attended her brother, Kyle's wedding. Had a wonderful time in Denver. For my birthday, Kim took me to Emma's for dinner. It was one of the best meals I've ever had. I felt adventurous and went with an appetizer of Oven roasted wild boar cassoulet with white beans, lamb sausage and tomato con fit. For dinner I opted for the Blue crab stuffed quail topped with a red onion salsa with pan roasted fingerling potatoes, asparagus, sweet corn and a lemon chardonnay butter pan jus. Is your mouth watering wet? I thought that they were going to throw me out when I started licking the plate, but they were quite understanding. I have a fancy membership to the San Diego Museum of Art, which entitles me to free admission to seventeen other museums, including the Denver Museum of Art. Checked out the Sargent exhibit they have there. His efficiency amazes me. Standing close to his paintings, you'll see a quick economic brush stroke, but stand back and he's perfecly replicated the look of a statue's shadow or the texture of a brick. I particularly loved his watercolors. While I think watercolor is arguably the most challenging medium out there, you rarely see watercolor displayed in museums. Kyle and Beth's wedding was stunningly beautiful. Here is a picture of Kim and I at the reception:
I followed my Denver trip with a return to Denver, this time staying for ten days. Kim and I had another amazing time. We saw Sheryl Crow at Red Rocks. Fantastic show, and Sheryl must have received my love letter because she performed three of my fave songs: Home, Leaving Las Vegas, and Steve McQueen. Kim also took me to see The Taming of the Shrew performed at the Mary Rippon theater on the University of Colorado Boulder campus. We couldn't have had better weather as we watched the show underneath the stars.
I came back from Denver only to hop in the Mustang and shoot up to Los Angeles to see my college friend Brett get married. Shared many laughs as other college friends converged onto the Redondo Beach event.
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