BeigeJournal

I spent the first and second days of the month in Champaign and Urbana in central Illinois. I was there for KittenCon, my dear friend Barb’s annual birthday party and general get together. It was delightful to see her and her family, and the other friends who visited.

It was also a chance to wander around Champaign. I went to school at the University there, from 1989 through 1995, so it is nice to see the place again. When Chambanacon moved from Champaign to Springfield I lost one reason to visit.

I did not have a lot of time to wander the campus, but I did spend a few hours on Sunday out with my camera. There have been some changes. This

is new. I have no idea how usable the interior is, but the exterior is interesting:

Further north, something else is under construction:

I have no idea what this will be.

Traveling south, I saw this

and thought, didn’t that used to be one of the uglier sections of Boneyard Creek, a place I used to walk through often, a place so ugly that I kind of liked it, reveling in its brutally utilitarian appearance? Indeed, it was, but not anymore:

The whole Boneyard area, at least between Loomis Lab and the east end of the engineering area, has undergone a dramatic makeover. This didn’t used to be there:

Nor this:

They have the streamflow gaging station housed in an attractive little brick building, with windows so you can see the equipment. A nice plaque describes the station:

Also new to Champaign is Moonstruck Chocolate.

This was a pizza place back when I was a student. It was an OK pizza place, but this is better. We need one of theses in Milwaukee. The chocolate milkshake was superb.

Wright Street used to be one-way, northbound. You could go one way. Occasionally people would try to go the other way, but that didn’t work well. Now, um, I’m not sure it’s any way. At least, I couldn’t figure out what you’d be allowed to do on it.

That thing that looks like a red “8” by the walk lights is, in fact, an 8. They have count down displays indicating how many seconds you have left to cross. This is a great idea. Speaking of traffic,

ideally, motorists would yield to the bright yellow signs, too.

University campuses have lots of laboratory buildings with interesting stuff around them.

It’s part of what makes walking around fun.

I used to spend a lot of time walking around the campus and around town when I was a student, and although I didn’t spent much time wandering while visiting at the beginning of the month, it reminded me of how much I enjoyed wandering around. When I moved to Milwaukee I retained the walking around habit for a while, but it gradually diminished. I drive out to parks to hike, and I cycle, but my neighborhood really isn’t as interesting a place as the University of Illinois campus.

It was this line of thinking that inspired my recent time wandering in the city. There is a bit of industrial wasteland near my neighborhood, like the local scrapyard, which is sort of fun if you are the kind of person who photographs liquid nitrogen tanks, but there is no place to actually go. The highlight of local retail is a Walgreen’s, which, from my apartment, is fairly convenient to walk to on the Oak Leaf trail.

As my two posts on my Milwaukee walks describe, there are more interesting places to wander. The strange stuff in the Menomonee valley, the 3rd ward, the shops on Wisconsin and nearby, the riverwalk, plus, at least outside of the industrial Menomonee valley, not being the only person walking.

I grew up in the Chicago area, but rarely went into the actual city. We made some trips to museums, but didn’t really see anything else. These days I do occasionally have business in the central city, and I always enjoy walking around. Chicago is a much different place, and it always amazes me how many other people are out on foot.