Finally Saw The Bean

Sunday Mornin' Coming Down - A post about my Dad each Sunday, named after a song that he loved.

For a long time I didn't know where Stonehenge was. This was because I visited England between Grades 5 and 6 for over month with my family, and we never saw it. We saw so many sites in England the idea that my parents didn't take us to this Wonder of the World was unfathomable to me, so I spent all of high school and most of university thinking that was somewhere else. When Steph finished at Carlton, we celebrated by going on a trip to London and she wanted to see Stonehenge, we actually fraught a bit about it being in the country (and Steph is obsessed with Stonehenge so I have no idea why I argued.) We ended up seeing it and now I obviously know what country it is in.

I had been having a similar experience with The Bean. It can't be in Chicago, cause if it was, why hadn't my dad and I visited it when we came in 1994?

As I mentioned before, the only other time that I had visited Chicago was when I came with my parents over 20 years ago. My mom had a conference to attend, which meant that my dad and I hung out together during the day. We stayed at the Blackstone Hotel (some of The Untouchables was filmed there), which is next to the Hilton where my mom's conference was. These hotels are on South Michigan Avenue, just across from the big park area on Chicago's waterfront, we walked along the lake when it wasn't too cold or windy.

The only major attraction we visited here was the big aquarium, besides that we just went to all the free art galleries. Dad loved this because they were free and he has a certain cursory interest in art. Also, because I was young, we probably were moving through them in at a good pace. So, with this emphasis on art, visits to the waterfront parkland, and desire to see things that didn't cost anything, how come I never saw The Bean (which I hear K is pretty obsessed with and likes to visit it multiple times when she visits the city.)?

Turns out it wasn't even there! The planning for Millennium Park didn't start until 1997, and Cloud Gate (The Bean) wasn't added until 2006.