Jackson Park
My typical running route has been to Promontory Point since I have been in Chicago. I decided today, that I was silly for not having branched out sooner. So I jogged over through Jackson Park today, and it was rather pleasant. There is an interesting mixture of lagoons with waterfowl and large grassy expanses abutting the lake. I also noticed some remarkable historical indicators. There were a couple of odd statues of people who are apparently famous in some capacity (I am consistently amazed by the amount of historical significance in Hyde Park and the South Side). There was also a sign describing a missile launch site that existed in Jackson between roughly 1950 and 1970. I'm not sure who they were planning on bombing... I know we always suspected that Michigan would defect to the Soviets... Sadly the missile site was built over a meadow that was completely destroyed by the activity. Only today is the area beginning to recover from the decades of soil compaction. It is an interesting experiment in natural succession.
Despite the recent bout of good weather, everything is still dead and snow is predicted for later in the week. I have become convinced that Chicago has one of the more inhospitable climates in the US. It seems similar to Siberia, I believe, although tempered somewhat during winter. I guess spring is later here than on the west coast.
Still, Jackson Park is very pleasant. My next running expedition is to Washington Park, following which I want to explore the ghetto directly south of my dorm. I figure that a runner with nothing more than an ID card is a pretty bad target for a mugger. Besides, if you're a mugger, I might just outrun you.
That missile site was a Nike missile site- it was an antiaircraft missile designed to shoot down russian bombers. There were a number around the city. The missile itself was underground. The blast doors would open, and the missile launcher would elevate to about a 45 degree angle. They did drills all the time.