Book Summary

Our Hello Beautiful trip, November 1-3, 2024, was Set in Chicago’s Pilsen Neighborhood and Northwestern Campus in Evanston.  We booked an Air BnB in Evanston which was perfect for us, a renovated home on Ashland Avenue, with room for 9.  It was one of Tracy’s last trips with us. The book really brought to life the Pilsen Neighborhood; Northwestern Basketball; and Lake Michigan for us all, so we wanted to make sure we saw a lot of the sites she wrote about. We visited the Pilsen Library where Sylvie worked; Throop park where we imagined William played basketball and found his calling; Northwestern Campus where Julia and William met and we shot around a little at an outdoor court; a few of us got up early enough to watch the sunrise off Lake Michigan.  We visited a bakery which was a family Padavano tradition; and took a photo in front of their imagined church.  Something else that made this weekend extra special was the Day of the Dead happens to be a huge event in the Pilsen neighborhood.

We drew free-form portraits of each other trying to channel the artist of the Padavano family Cecelia who drew family member’s portraits.  But somehow neglected to put Lindsey’s name in the hat and instead put in two Angela’s.  We were all thrilled with the resulting artistry except Lindsey of course!

On the way home we found a park in Schaumburg called the Prairie Center for the Arts with this beautiful sculpture called Awakening Muse: