Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Leaving for Chicago, Woodfield Mall

   We left this morning for Chicago, IL to attend the 2012 Family Economics Conference hosted by Generations with Vision (Kevin Swanson.)  I don’t have many photos of the drive up, because very frankly it was quite boring Smile.  Nothing but cornfields and about 3 towns-or so it seemed.

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Looked out the back dash and thought this semi looked pretty mean -  Windmills

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But this was the highlight of the drive:  BOGO .99c blizzards!

We approached the Chicago suburbs that seemed to go on and on and on.  We were reading a few facts about Chicago and I had no idea that it was the 3rd largest city in the US.  It didn’t seem too big at first, but once we hit the suburbs they went on and on and never seemed to end.

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We checked in at our hotel which actually ended up being a full-blown resort and conference center-more on that later.  We unloaded our luggage…well, in reality the bellhop unloaded our luggage…and we got unpacked.  Mom had an idea of a few things we could see nearby, so we drove to Woodfield Mall. 

These are just a few random photos taken on the drive there:

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Sam “Tornatore”  -  Woodfield Mall

 

If you noticed in the picture of the hotel above, the rooms are all hexagonal and this theme was also used in the mall:

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The design and layout of this mall was a lot different than the ones I’ve visited::

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Hexagonal elevator car

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These walkway ramps were everywhere in the mall

 

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Oh, the light from this store seemed to shine as a beacon to the masses to enter into plastic paradise…and leave with an empty billfold.

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The first thing you saw as you walked in was that the light was coming from a giant yellow brick.

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So many choices!

A few photos from their displays:

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A set based upon the Robie House designed by the Chicago architect, Frank Llyold Wright.

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Pictures I took as we walked through the mall:

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This is something you will not see in St. Louis!

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Clever advertising is so cool…  - GLOWING Golden Arches

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The Disney Store

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  I knew this idea would be addressed by Kevin Swanson at the conference!

  For those of you who listen to Generations Radio: “…up from 30% in 1970!”

 

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Day continues in next post…

3 comments:

Mazzou said...

That's a really neat hotel!
It must have been fun staying there.

Mazzou said...

A very interesting mall!
The Lego store looks fun....and I like the Land's End map of USA!

I am looking forward to hearing more about your trip...maybe you could share some notes/thoughts from the conference as well? Kevin Swanson is amazingly inspiring! :)
(He even made me realize a lot of things about mySELF and maturity when I sat in on a lecture for young men! His teachings are good for everyone. :) )

Lisa Wong said...

Yes, I hope to have time to do a few posts on the conference. There was a great deal of vision casting by Kevin Swanson and Doug Phillips and there were also a lot of practical how to sessions.
I'm trying to go through my photos chronologically, so there'll be one more post about Chinatown before the conference.
Andrew