A Tour of the Neighborhoods Along the Blue Line

Today, I met up with Luis outside his hotel pretty early in the morning. We talked about getting him a Ventra card (for the CTA) and touring a few neighborhoods along the Blue Line.

We got him set up with a 7 day pass, and headed out to Logan Square. We arrived right at 9:00 AM and got in line at Lula’s.

Timo joined us for breakfast, and the three of us got some fuel and coffee in us.

Afterwards, we walked down the boulevard a bit.

Had to stop at our old apartment. It was lovely to see again. And also noted that: there’s still no tree in the courtyard.

My old landlord currently has a 1 bedroom garden apartment for rent. And we had arranged for a showing bit East of here.

While Luis is still figuring out what he wants in terms of his living situation, today was more about showing him areas outside of downtown and giving him a few options.

After the showing, the three of us made our way to the California Blue Line stop. I had originally planned on us taking the Blue Line or bus to Damen, but we decided to just walk down Milwaukee instead.

Interesting tidbit: Timo had been in the area around the same time that I’d been in the area. So we both had the same references (and remembered the same restaurants/buildings), and were equally surprised at all the newer restuarants/businesses.

Milwaukee Avenue, near Bucktown/Logan has definitely changed!

After a ways, we hopped over onto The 606, and made our way towards Damen.

What a lovely trail. The hipster in me always thinks back to how I “knew about this before it was cool.”

Near North/Milwaukee/Damen, Timo said his farewells and headed back home. Luis and I made our way down Damen and walked around Ukranian Village a bit.

We meandered down Division a bit, then sidetracked south to get a feel for the area. We stopped in for some coffee and parted ways around 1:30 PM near the Division Blue Line.

I ended up taking a Lyft home, and Luis ended up navigating his own way on the Blue Line back downtown.

At home, I arrived when Liz had just finished up her day of house work. And boy, was she busy!

She started her day around 8:30 AM, and got a ton done on the first floor. She cleaned the main hall walls, sealed things up with Great Stuff, and put up insulation all along the North wall (with several custom cuts).

She was totally beat, and when I arrived home we pretty much talked through the work remaining. And it was a kind of baton passing situation, as she went up to shower while I suited up.

For my part, I ended up focusing on the living room. So I fired up the shop vac and cleaned all the walls, pulling out any remaining nails and clearing out any remaining plaster debris.

It’s been a very busy few weeks.

Another look at all of Liz’s work.

I have to tell you, she’s been this cyclone of energy all week. While I’ve been working a lot (I started at 2:00 PM today, and got done around 5:30 PM)… I’m a good day or two behind her, in terms of the hours she’s put in.

As I’m writing this (8:10 PM), she’s been fast asleep in the bedroom. I think she was watching a movie for a bit after her shower, but had to sleep because of how exhausted she was.

The good news is: we’ve made a ton of great progress on the first floor. Maybe soon, we can slow things down again.

Related:
Welcome, Luis!
Revisiting Wicker Park
Logan Square Apartment for Rent, Logan Boulevard and Sacramento
Moving to a New Apartment (Under Construction), Logan Square
Moving to Logan Square
Recap
Goodbye Rena

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