Red in the morning...

...sailors take warning. Is that really true? 

From my 1 of 1 experience, no. 

I took this photo Saturday at 5:15 a.m. The image is not retouched (pretty good for 22 floors up and looking out the window). 

Most of the day was cloudy, but it cleared up and was sunny before the sun set.

Beautiful.

First lake visit of the season

Linda and I had the chance to visit Rachel at the lake earlier this month. We wanted to see Rachel's parents - Barb and Stu - while they were in town (although they will be back this way later this summer). 

We took the scenic route - unplanned - to Wisconsin. But that's OK. We enjoyed our visit with the parents, the cats (and even the lake cats Rachel is taking care of), and the birds, even though it was cooler than expected. 

Little did we know that Rachel has become a "bird nerd." She has the binoculars and the book to show for it (on, and the "Framily" hummingbird). 

Until next time.

A first for Chicago

The National Weather Service issued the first dust storm warning for Chicago earlier this month. Now, before I get to that, I have to say that on the day I saw a post on social media from NWS that there would likely be a dust storm for portions of Illinois just south of Chicago. Within minutes of seeing that, my watch alerted me (much like an Amber Alert) that a dust storm had been issued for Chicago. Still thinking they got it wrong, I texted my Dad and my sister to let them know of the "weird" warning, to which my sister (yes, who knows all) said that warnings were relatively new an were implemented after an accident in Illinois a few years earlier that left a number of people dead (the culprit, a dust storm). 

So, I looked outside and saw this:

That "white cloud" looked more like a storm cloud to me. But soon, I realized it was not. These are some photos (in chronological order) of the "dust". 

The storm lasted a few hours (2 rounds, I counted). 

Who says our planet isn't experiencing an environmental crisis?