6 Facts About the Cloud Gate - Chicago

1. The Cloud Gate's design was inspired by Liquid Mercury.
2. The sculpture was chosen after a design competition.
3. The Cloud Gate is located in the second most popular tourist attraction in Chicago, Grant Park.
4. The sculpture is made of steel and weighs 100 tons, or 10 elephants. The interior of the sculpture is hollow and contains support beams which keep it from collapsing into itself,
5.  The bottom part of the sculpture is cleaned twice daily with windex, and the entire sculpture is cleaned twice yearly with Tide.
6. Conservatively, The Cloud Gate is expected to last for 1,000 years.

5 Facts About Chicago

1. There are actually four different reasons that Chicago is called "The Windy City."
2. Chicago is one of the top visited cities in the United States.
3. Chicago was established in 1833, with a population of 200.
4. Chicago is one of the most important transportation hubs between the eastern and western United States.
5. During Chicago's first 100 years of existence, Chicago was one of the fastest growing cities in the world.

Beer Tuesday; The Beers of Chicago

So I was recently in Chicago for a visit and I took the opportunity to check out some of the local beer offerings.

Chicago is obviously a very vibrant city, full of many people with all sorts of tastes in beers. I actually found the local craft brewing companies to have quite a bit of selection, which was great. I'm obviously no expert on Chicago beers, but it was fun to visit the local Chicago bars trying to track them down.

Goose Island seemed to be one of the more popular Chicago craft beer companies. I tried several of the different beers they make and they seemed to be sort of hit or miss. The 312 Urban Wheat Ale was one that I didn't really particularly care for at all. The Honker's Ale was pretty good but at 4.2% was also pretty weak. The Green Line is definitely a perfect session beer, I only tried this one on draft though. And last, I tried the Matilda, their Belgian Style Pale Ale. I'm not a big fan of belgians but this one was actually pretty decent. For a belgian style, of course. Overall I'd say Goose Island has a lot of different selection, if there is one style you don't like they certainly have a lot to choose from. I didn't visit either of their brewpubs, although I probably should of. I probably would have come across even more of their beers to try.

Half Acre Beer Company's Daisy Cutter Pale Ale. The Daisy Cutter was by far my favorite. I found Daisy Cutter on draft at several of the bars around the area.

Chicago at night #chicago2012n

Two Prudential Plaza

Marina City I and Marina City II

Interior of Mercadito's on Kinzie St.

Walkway looking west down E. Hubbard St.

DuSable Bridge aka Michigan Avenue Bridge

I'm in Chicago

Tim Horne's Hospitality Inn, Marietta GA. Delk Road

I stayed here from Early to Late July of 2009.

I chose the Hospitality Inn due to the cheap weekly rates. Also on the recommendation of a friend who had stayed there many years before.

Apparently several years ago this used to be a nice place. Not so much at all anymore. And I do agree with the other reviewer here who states Tim needs to clean the place up.

The anemities are basically that it has hot water, a bed, and a toilet. Whoever cleaned my room had done a terrible job prior to me renting the room. It was very disgusting. I probably should have checked out at that point but I am a lazy person, so I went ahead and cleaned it all myself, since I happened to have many cleaning supplies handy anyways. I was given new sheets for my bed after noting that the prior sheets were covered in cigarette burns.

The mattresses were old and very uncomfortable. Fortunately my room had two mattresses, so I picked the most comfortable one. Also the carpet was pulled away from the wall in several spots. Some of the furniture was in disrepair. The refrigerator didn't work very well and some of my food spoiled.

There are also not many good restaurants in the immediate vicinity (i.e. walking distance) and Delk Road is a busy road and impossible to cross during day time hours. On one occasion as I was walking to a nearby gas station at 11pm, I was stopped and questioned by the Marietta Police.

There is a bar right at the front of the hotel, McTavishs Tavern , which was in a nice convenient location. However the motel is advertised as an Inn. Inns, by definition, serve food. The associated tavern does not serve food at all. Just alcohol. Most of the patrons at the bar were not friendly, and neither was the bartender. I found the quality of the liquor/beer selection to be disappointing. Also, the beers were not very cold at all.

The laundry area was in dire need of new equipment. When I stayed there, there was one working washer and one working dryer to serve the entire motel complex. Also, the dryer was vented into and blowing hot air in the laundry room. It made doing my laundry very difficult in Georgia's 95 degree July weather.

Speaking of Georgia's 95 degree July weather, the AC in the room sounded like a jumbo jet taking off, and even turned up all the way it didn't really keep my room cool.

I was woken on one occasion by maintenance trying to kick me out. I had paid the weekly fee and the clerk "forgot" to write down my payment in the proper place. After a short telephone conversation this was straightened out but it still interupted my rest/sleep.

Pros: The weekly rate was cheap. It was very quiet (probably due more to there not being many other patrons). I was not disturbed at all by anyone while staying there. The Inn is also very near the freeway and the I-75/I-285 interchange so I was able to easily commute to work.

Cons: Not much within walking distance. Crappy housekeepers. Maintenance lacking in general. Almost everything is rusty, nothing really seemed to work right (the AC / The dryer / even the snack machines), and the roof leaked in the awning outside my room.

Overall, I would never ever consider staying at Tim Horne's Hospitality Inn ever again. It was an interesting experiment to spend three weeks there, however. In the end, a depraved experiment. Fortunately, I spent most of the time I had off duty hanging out with friends rather than that craphole. It served as a cheap (albeit repulsive) crash pad to house my clothes and provided me a place to shower for a few weeks.

A reader commented

If you liked that location to stay, and need to again. Suites 6 is not much more expensive than the NOW Condemed Jim Horne’s. It is right next door. Rooms are quiet, AC works great, Fredge is small but works good, beds are very comfortable, cleaning staff and maintanece are top notch, water is very hot or cold as need, microwave and coffee pot work great, TV large, internet slower than turtle — but only $5.00 for whole stay. Fresh clean decent towels (full sets) tp, and bedding. All motels don’t change the bedspreads often – just ask and the seem to be glad to change it for you. Get towel service mid week no extra fee… or take yours to office for exchange for free. Free cleaning weekly. All the trash bags you need. Full servie of dishes, pans, silverware and cookware. Elevator nice touch. Laundry has 3 washers and dryers and seem to work great or just call the servce and they seem to come the same day. NO bugs in my room. The area is creapy due to Motel 6 so close, some of the people are very questionable, and generally not my favorate place to be, BUT it seems to be safe. I am white female and have not had ANYONE appear harmful, and so far, my car has beeen safe. Been here for a few months due to work. Hate GA and hate cheap motels, but like the price. Seems to be a guard on duty at night, and cops are on speed dial it seems. They come pretty quick. Yes, I have watched them take a huge man down, a druggie to the hospital, and more. I care less what goes on as long as they leave me and my car alone. Most of the staff are friendly. It is close to the interstate, but do’t really hear any of the road traffic. Don’t even hear the neighbors tvs or phones. Sometimes hear someone upstairs – but not often. Most of the issues come from the Motel 6 side. Also huge clean pool during the summer.

Hollywood Cemetery Atlanta Georgia

I took these pictures back in June 2009.

I read a book, and in the epilogue it said where the author of the book is buried. W. H. Andrews. He only wrote one book; His diary, which someone found and published decades after he died as a book called, "Footprints of a regiment." Its basically his civil war recollections.

I noted the cemetery was about a 30 minute drive away, so my friend Eric and I made a day trip to try and find this guy's tombstone.

I had a hard time locating the cemetery since it wasn't listed in the phone book. I lucked out and found directions on a website, but it the directions were very vague. I also stumbled across this blogspot blog, Hollywood Cemetery/Magnolia Cemetery.

Anyways, we got to the area and drove around for 30 minutes. I thought my GPS was wrong and we literally drove around in circles for 30 mins trying to figure out where the hell the cemetery was. Anyways, Hollywood Cemetery turned out to be a forgotten and overgrown area overlooking the Chattahoochee river. The cemetery was right smack in the middle of the ghetto in Bankhead.

If you want to find Hollywood Cemetery, the best description is Hollywood Cemetery just East of where Hightower Road intersects with Hollywood Road NW.

Eric and I just stopped by the side of the road and started walking back into the woods because my GPS told me we were at the right place...As we walked back in the woods I spotted one gravestone, then another, and another. I realized there were gravestones all over the place.

We wandered around about an hour but we were unable to find the gravestone I was looking for. Eric and I will probably be going back at some point. It was pretty cool but definitely difficult to try and go from plot to plot to find what we were looking for. Dodging wait-a-minute vines and poison ivy. It was just a crazy and unmaintained old cemetery.

Again, I just went there on a whim because we were bored and didn't really expect to find what we found!



















This was the road leading into the cemetery. You can see why we had such a hard time finding it.









Aerial photo of the site. You can see the two roads that lead into it, but they were completely overgrown and since it was on a hill, a there were gigantic ruts from rainwater.. I don't think they'd be passable except with an ATV or 4x4. I didn't realize until after I got home and looked at the aerial photo that there was a huge clearing behind all the woods with more graves. That's the area we are planning on exploring next to find this dude's tombstone. Once we eventually find it we're gonna take a weedwhacker and some shears and clean his grave up.

BTW the records from the cemetery are completely long gone. Apparently the next cemetery over owns the property and the records/plot maps were lost sometime back in the 70s when the original cemetery office closed down(per someone I found on the internet who has a relative buried there).

All of the graves we saw were from the late 1880s to 1940s. There were a lot more that we didn't see. It was 90 degrees and we were taking our time.

I'm sure there are tons of cemeteries like this, but it was the first time I had ever seen one. It was just weird to be in the middle of a forest and suddenly realize you're surrounded by hundreds of gravestones all over the place.

You can read more about the history of Hollywood Cemetery on this page at StephensRoots.com.

Here is also another fantastic article, "Search for relative reveals ramshackle and forgotten Jewish cemetery"
(courtesy of the Jewish Times).

If you'd like to see more pictures of Hollywood Cemetery, see AtlantaLarry (Larry Felton Johnson)'s blog post. Atlanta's Hollywood Cemetery.

Hollywood Cemetery/Magnolia Cemetery has a lot of information. Unfortunately, it hasn't been updated in around two years. There is a little news contained and bits of information contained in there, which I'll sum up;

If you want information about this Hollywood Cemetery, you need to call The Lincoln Cemetery office, which is located 2275 Simpson Rd NW Atlanta, GA 30314, phone number (404) 792-2220. The people at the Lincoln Cemetery office seem to sometimes be helpful and sometimes not. At the least they may or may not be able to look at old records and find where your loved one is buried. Unfortunately over the years it sounds like some of the records may have been lost. They may need a couple of days to locate the burial site you want to find. It can't hurt to inquire. Unfortunately, as of 2010, the person or persons working at the Lincoln Cemetery office seem to give family members problems as far as providing maps of the burial sites. It sounds like sometimes the office will provide copies, sometimes they won't.

However, if you are interested in finding a relative and are willing to do some footwork, you can check out this page at Stephen's Roots, which offers partial documentation of some of the people buried at Hollywood Cemetery. These are volunteers who are working very hard to provide information related to burial locations within the cemetery.

In March of this year (2011) thieves stole the bronze markers off most of the crypts. Therefore, if you have a loved one buried in a crypt it is probably unmarked at this point.

The road leading into Hollywood Cemetery is most "transversable" (and I used this word lightly) from Thanksgiving to Easter. This is because of the insane amount of foliage that has overgrown the cemetery. Really, you wont be able to see anything if there are leaves on the trees, as the above pictures demonstrate.

If you plan on going, you need to wear long plants and long sleeves. Like everywhere else in Georgia, there is poison ivy everywhere.

Click here for a blog post containing helpful links related to Hollywood Cemetery.

El Rey, Cancun Mexico January 2008

This site dates from 1200 - 1550 A.D, when the native population was more or less wiped out by smallpox.


there were these iguanas all over the place...catching some rays

Looking down the "main street" to the temple(s)

Remains of the mayan pyramid

apparently they built their huts on these rock platforms

Some type of firepit or storage area. It was unique versus the other houses so I took a picture of it.

One of the older houses that had pillars. Most of them had altars in the back. Apparently the mayans would bury their dead around the foundations of their houses. Once all the available area around the house was filled up, they would then build a new house on a new platform. The old house would then be built up as a monument/temple to their ancestors. They would burn incense in the altar on holidays for their ancestors (the altars are still plainly visible).

View from the backroom of one of the mini-temples. The altar is immediately left of the "doorway."


Front view of the pyramid. You can see the stairs don't look very stair-like anymore. As a matter of fact all the stairs were very steep and hard to climb. This was a feature in mayan architecture. Something about climbing to the gods or something like that. You can see the Cancun Hilton hotel in the background there.

Back side of the pyramid (crappy pic, sorry)


A ruin protected by a roof for some reason. Some of the buildings had evidence of murals/paint that they were trying to preserve from the elements.


View from the top of the pyramid back down the "main street." That overgrown area to the right of the photo is unexcavated and overgrown, but there are more foundations in there somewhere. The "mini-temples" are the buildings with walls that are the furthest out. Those people in the photo were some poor tourists trying to find some shade (the sun was very bright and hot).


More foundations in the other direction, take from the top of the pyramid. There were more foundations and ruins stretching all the way out through those trees, but it was very overgrown and difficult to pass through. There was a trail but it wasn't really worth trying with shorts on and without a machete or something like that to hack a path.

And last, there was this fallen over tree...it was just kind of neat because the roots pulled up a bunch of mayan bricks and stuff.


Overall it was a neat little 2 hour diversion/day trip. I can only imagine how the first european explorers must have felt when they viewed the place - Which at the time was thickly populated with the native people (Cancun/El Rey is right next to Cozumel - a large trade center at the time, where Hernan Cortes first stepped foot in Mexico and fanned out to conquer the Yucatan back in the 1500s.)

Travel Monday - Hart Plaza, Detroit #313

Hart Plaza, Detroit

Big Beaver Road, Exit 69

For Travel Monday I bring you the Big Beaver Road exit off I-75 in Michigan. Exit 69 (of course).

Sounds like I might be making a rare Michigan appearance around the Christmas holidays

Carter's lake Ellijay