Chicago, IL renamed "Bean" Town

The Chicago "Bean"

Cloud Gate on the AT&T Plaza in Centennial Park, Chicago, IL

Cloud Gate, which Chicago residents refer to as "the Bean" is British artist Anish Kapoor's work installed in the United States. The sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect the city's famous skyline and the clouds above. There is a 12-foot-high arch providing gate to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture, inviting visitors to touch its mirror-like surface and see their image reflected back from a variety of perspectives.

Inspired by liquid mercury, the sculpture is among the largest of its kind in the world, measuring 66-feet long by 33-feet high. Cloud Gate was made possible by a gift from AT&T to the City of Chicago.

MA and I flew up to Chicago, IL to see the grandkids, Jim and Sue.  It has been a fun filled weekend watching Jason play two baseball games and witnessing him make a triple play to end the second game.  He was playing shortstop with runners on 1st and 2nd.  He caught a line drive ran over and touched second and ran to 1st to beat the runner there, 3 outs in about 3 seconds.

  Jason playing 1st base      

We took the train into Chicago on Friday for a picnic in Millennium Park while Jim made a sales call.  Chicago is a beautiful town with lots to do.  The park has a two fountain towers with hundreds of kids playing in the cool water.  The inside of the towers are changing faces and wouldn't you know it, Obama's face is on one of the walls.  When his face appeared no one really cared.  After lunch we watched the kids play in the water.  We made our way back to the train station for the 3:40 home.  It is an hour and 30minutes by train from Elburn, IL to downtown Chicago.

That's us next to the "Bean"

 The chamber to the clouds

Looking up into the chamber