Traveling Fool

  It has been an interesting month and a half for my concert attendance. October was supposed to be filled with Genesis music: two Genesis concerts in the UK and then Steve Hackett in Newcastle, followed by Genesis in Chicago and The Musical Box in St. Charles, Illinois. Whew. Except it didn't happen like that. The two UK Genesis concerts were cancelled/postponed due to COVID in the band. Sadly, it's not possible for me to just pop over in March for the re-scheduled show, however, all was not lost in my unending quest for Genesis music. O2 City Hall, Newcastle, before Big Head sat in front of me I did get to the Hackett show, featuring the entirety of the Seconds Out  live album, in Newcastle, England. He and the band put on an amazing show, and even though my view was blocked by someone's very large head (hence, no photos), I still had a great time. If you're a Genesis fan and you haven't seen Steve Hackett, I totally recommend catching one of the shows he is doing...

Well, not every mountain, exactly, but I do like to climb things, mainly stairs. In lieu of any great adventure any time soon, here are some things I've climbed: Most recently, today in fact, I climbed the 35 flights of the AT&T Building in downtown Minneapolis, and treated myself to a caramel-pecan roll. Rock on: This past June, I climbed up the 387 steps of Notre Dame, the only way to see the chimeras:  I also walked down the 300 steps of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona; you have to take an elevator up.  I walked partially up Arthur's seat in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 2006, I climbed the first two level of the Eiffel tower, over 600 steps...because I was cheap and didn't want to wait in the queue. It seemed like a great idea at the time. Looking down during the climb to the top of St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City. I didn't want to pay the 4 Euros at the time to take an elevator.  ...

After four days with my brother in Minnesota, we headed off to Chicago for the Peter Gabriel/Sting concert. I've mentioned before that I like to plan and my brother is a "let's see how it goes" kind of guy. We did have sort of an idea where we wanted to go, but there is so much to do and see and eat in Chicago, I wanted to make sure he had a great visit. We stayed at a hotel near the Midway airport which had a free shuttle to the Orange Line connection at the airport which worked perfectly for us (when I booked the tickets I had NO idea that Taste of Chicago was going on, which is why hotels in the city were booked or really expensive). My brother had not been on a plane in about 10 years, so he was super excited and really wanted a window seat; it was like he was 10 years old again. We got to the hotel and ordered pizza from Giordano's, which was extremely cheesy, but also filling enough for us to finally head into downtown. Chicago is a lot bigger than Cleveland...