Marilyn L. Schweitzer’s
Favorite Sites
Here are web sites of some of my favorite places and things:
- The Forest Preserve District of DuPage County has an excellent web site. Beyond enjoying the various trails, a couple other favorite aspects are the Willowbrook Wildlife Center, Graue Mill & Museum, and Mayslake Peabody Estate.
- Chicago Wilderness and Wild Things Community are two of many resources that show what Chicagoland has to offer and what people are doing to help preserve and restore habitats. The Conservation Foundation, Somme Prairie Grove, and the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum are some other examples.
- The Morton Arboretum and Chicago Botanic Garden have brains as well as beauty! They are superb resources for designing home landscapes and other great places to show out-of-towners what Chicagoland has to offer. A bit further afoot is Anderson Japanese Gardens in Rockford. It gives the same sense of space you would find in temple gardens in Japan.
- My earliest memory of Brookfield Zoo is being in a baby stroller controlled by my father. (Bumping down steps was a little worrisome.) The zoo is fantastic year round! It's predecessor, Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, is free and more intimate.
- The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago is probably why I love Egyptian stylization. The Field Museum was another great influence and probably my favorite Chicago museum. (It was founded to house what as left of the Columbian Exposition and Marshall Field was encouraged to donate a large amount to it. Field's name lives on at the museum though his department store was consumed by Macy's.)
- I am constantly treated to my husband's Shakuhachi music, but do have some other favorites, such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Haymarket Opera.
- In Naperville, Illinois there is:
- Naper Settlement which has a wonderful History Speaks lecture series.
- One the 4 largest carillons in the world
- A lovely 1.75 mile riverwalk along the West Branch of the DuPage River
- Anderson's Bookshop that has survived while many of the big-box bookstores have failed. (The Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver though is largely responsible for my book addiction.)
- A Municipal Band which has been playing around town since 1859.
- The Naperville Garden Club which was founded in 1929. Check it out—it's a lot more than gardening!
- A commitment to Environmental Sustainability and Native Plantings!
- The Naperville Astronomical Association
- In Geneva, Illinois some favorites are:
- the Colonel Fabyan's Villa and Japanese Gardens.
- a very cool Dutch Windmill that Colonel Fabyan had brought over to his estate
- the Viking Ship from the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition
- I love Chicago's maritime history! Check out the McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum, Chicago Maritime Museum, and Chicago Portage.
- My parents took the family on cruises and tours on the lake and river via the Wendella Sightseeing Company which has been going strong since 1935. (In my mind, it's a better tour and more affordable without the Ticketmaster hassle than the CAF water tours, though the CAF has great land offerings.) I like the Shoreline Water Taxis for getting around pleasantly by water and avoiding surface traffic congestion.
- Some day I hope to capture some the Chicago Loop Bridges during their lift schedule and when I'm not trying to drive over them!
- Chicago has a ton of fantastic and famous buildings, but in terms of Frank Lloyd Wright, my favorites are the Unity Temple and Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio in Oak Park, Illinois.
- Most people who come to Chicago easily find out about the Art Institute Of Chicago, Buckingham Fountain, Millennium Park, Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium , Field Museum, and Museum of Science and Industry. These are great, but some personal favorites beyond the Field Museum are:
- Graceland Cemetery (My parents and other Chicago area relatives are buried there along with many people who made Chicago what it is today.)
- the Chicago Cultural Center, consists of two adjoining buildings which were formerly the Chicago Public Library, home to the world's largest Tiffany stained-glass dome, and the Grand Army of the Republic Memorial Hall with a gorgeous stained-glass dome by Healy and Millet
- Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary near Lincoln Park is the place to be seen if you're a bird!
- Glessner House Museum and the Second Presbyterian Church of Chicago are two of more more recent historic treasures.
- Two favorite small, but exceptional museums in the Chicago area are the Garfield Farm Museum in LaFox, Illinois and the Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art Oakbrook, Illinois.
- There is also nothing more midwestern than a corn maze:
- Keller's Farmstand Corn Maze in Oswego, Illinois is 13 acres
- Richardson Farm in Spring Grove, Illinois has a corn maze that is 33 acres, the world's largest
- Finally, a couple of other websites that I recommend for Chicago tourists are: Early Chicago, Encyclopedia of Chicago, Choose Chicago, and Metra Rail.
- Evolution makes me happy and this site captures some of the joy: WTF, Evolution?
- Nothing kills living in the moment like technology, but the Haiku of Kobayashi Issa brings me back. Thank you David G. Lanoue for my daily Issa!
- The Slug Site:
A few years ago, I found a haiku by Shiki:
- Doing nothing at all, the sea slug has lived 18,000 years.
- The Other Pages: My mother, who had a fantastic memory especially for poetry, was struggling to remember who wrote the poem with the line:
- Old parson, red-eyed as a ferret
From nightly wrestlings with the spirit;.
- Old parson, red-eyed as a ferret
- There is a wealth of bookbinding, origami and other craft project shared by some very generous people on the Internet. For example, please see these Japanese Stabbindings by Becca Hirsbrunner.
- While looking for some public domain images of fairies, I discovered the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Wee Folk. I particularly need to pay attention to Designing a Fairy-friendly Garden.
- Chikuzen Studios : Michael Gould is a master shakuhachi player and teacher.
- Art quilts by M. Kamenskaya: Check out these amazing quilts! A friend of mine makes them.
- College of DuPage is the community college is where I studied graphic arts, advertising, design, art, photography as well as Japanese language. They also have a excellent center for the performing arts. We saw Kodo there who literally brought down a ceiling tile!
- The Nature Conservancy: Besides an great conservation organization, their field trips (day or longer) are fantastic. Through it, we went on our first dinosaur dig near the Pine Butte Guest Ranch.
- See Here, here, and here for links to opt out of stuff.