Events

Atlas Obscura published a map of 1,500 places mentioned in 12 books about American cross-country travel: The above map is the result of a painstaking and admittedly quixotic effort to catalog the country as it has been described in the American road-tripping literature. It includes every place-name reference in 12 books about cross-country travel, from Mark Twain’s Roughing It (1872) to Cheryl Strayed’s Wild (2012), and maps the authors’ routes on top of one another. You can track an individual writer’s...

Chicago experienced its hottest summers (June 1st through August 31st) in 1955 (24.7°C), 1995 (24.6°C), and 2012 (24.5°C). As of Thursday, we've had an average temperature of 24.6°C—already tied for 2nd place. If the 10-day forecast holds, we will end the summer a week from Monday with an average temperature of 24.7°C, tying the 1955 record. WGN-TV's Tom Skilling explains why we have this situation, despite none of the three months of 2020 making it into the top 3. (Hint: all three made it into the top...

Brewery closed permanently in June 2024. Welcome to stop #31 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Light the Lamp Brewery, 2 S. Lake St., GrayslakeTrain line: Milwaukee District North, GrayslakeTime from Chicago: 76 minutes (Zone I)Distance from station: 1.0 km A friend and I planned to have dinner up in Lake County yesterday, so I managed to squeeze in two breweries. We've had sunny and warm weather, perfect for sitting in a quiet beer garden with a book. Light the Lamp Brewery totally fits the...

Former vice president Joe Biden accepted the Democratic Party nomination for president last night: Speaking before a row of flags in his home state of Delaware, Mr. Biden urged Americans to have faith that they could “overcome this season of darkness,” and pledged that he would seek to bridge the country’s political divisions in ways Mr. Trump had not. “The current president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long — too much anger, too much fear, too much division,” Mr. Biden said. “Here and...

Geographer Randy Cerveny heads up an ad hoc committee of the World Meteorological Organisation tasked with validating weather records: Since 2007, Cerveny has been in charge of organizing ad hoc committees to independently verify superlative weather measurements — such as the highest ocean wave or the strongest wind gust. Now, when a new contender for a record appears, he gathers the top experts in any given subject. "If we're looking at temperature, I'm going to get some of the best scientists that...

It's been 153 days since the State of Illinois instituted an emergency shutdown of the economy. Friday March 20th was the last "normal" day in the state; since then, we've lived with lockdowns, social distancing, and all the other fun bits of our pandemic response. I mention this because January 20th is 153 days away. We'll get there.

This photo popped up in my Facebook "Memories" feed this morning, so I spent five minutes correcting it. (You can see the original crop and color correction in my post from 14 August 2009.) Man, that was a great hike. I miss the UK, I miss traveling, and I kind of miss these cows. I hope to see the first two next spring; the cows, I expect, mooed their last years ago.

Today is former president Bill Clinton's 74th birthday. Last night, he spoke at the Democratic National Convention, where the party formally nominated former vice president Joe Biden to be president. In other news: Chicago removed Wisconsin from the list of states too dangerous to visit without quarantine. With the exceptions of California and Nevada, the map now looks a lot like projections of the 2020 election. Five Thirty Eight updated its interactive guide to voting by mail this fall. In Illinois...

The US Constitution has guaranteed the right of women to vote since 18 August 1920: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Or, if you'd prefer:

It got a little warm in Death Valley, Calif., yesterday: In the midst of a historic heat wave in the West, the mercury in Death Valley, Calif., surged to a searing 54.4°C on Sunday afternoon, possibly setting a world record for the highest temperature ever observed during the month of August. If the temperature is valid, it would also rank among the top-three highest temperatures ever measured on the planet at any time and may, in fact, be the highest. Death Valley famously holds the record for the...