A little scary . . .

So, living in Chicago brings both the good and the bad.  I was on my way home from work today, driving down Kedzie, and noticed a group of high schoolers all dressed in white walking quickly down an abandoned part of the road toward another group of kids dressed in red.  My initial thought was,  "Boy that's a little strange and rather disturbing."  Not 15 seconds later, as I was driving down the road, I heard three gunshots and saw a dozen or more people scatter like jack rabbits.  As I drove, I saw people come out of their businesses looking in the direction of the shots, and then a cop car screamed by.  There was no denying it.  I just drove by a gang shooting.  About a minute later five more cop cars pulled out from the local high school with their lights flashing, where a group of women stood anxiously awaiting some news.  Then an ambulance, fire truck and another ambulance.  My heart was racing and I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that this is just over a mile from my school.

The not so good part of living in Chicago.

Chicago Tribune article

The beach and Frances'

This picture is definitely not from my wanderings this morning, but I just downloaded some pictures from my camera and thought this came out really well.  I went for a long walk up to North Avenue Beach a couple weeks ago and took this from a pier that goes quite a ways into the water.

This morning I went to breakfast at Frances' with Joy.  They honestly had some of the most heavenly french toast I have had in quite a while.  We walked in and were a little shocked by how loud it was - it seemed as if all the noise was just reverberating off the season.  But once you get used to it, you can really enjoy the atmosphere.  It's a great little deli that has been in Lincoln Park for almost 80 years that has outside seating and a room where the front window completely opens up.  It was so beautiful this morning (about time!) that everything was opened up and the breeze was absolutely lovely.  Joy had a great fried egg sandwich with spinach, avocado and loads of other goodness.  The Bloody Mary was the perfect amount of spiciness with plenty of goodies and the coffee kept coming.  It was reasonably priced, and I will definitely be going back to this place SOON.