Chicago by L: Wilmette

Welcome to our little neighborhood of Wilmette.  Well, to be accurate, it is technically a VILLAGE, with its own schools, government, beaches, park district, and police force.  It has brick streets, sailboats,  and an eye catching Bahai temple that brings pilgrims from as far away as India.  When we first moved here people would always ask us, "Oh, did you move UP from the city?."  To which I would reply, "No, from OUT in Oregon."  But that is what this place is.  It is UP from the city.  It is where people who work in the city, train to the city, and play in the city come home.  It is technically the 'suburbs,' but not in the way that I grew up thinking of suburbs.  There are buses, trains, and people walking places.  Big box stores are miles away while city trains rattle across neighborhood streets.   Below are a few pictures from my walk around our neighborhood this afternoon.

This is the Bahai Temple.  It rises over our neighborhood of tree lined streets and front porches like a giant wedding cake.  It is not uncommon to see buses of sari clad women and their families smiling for photos on the manicured gardens of this impressive building.  There are only eight Bahai temples in the world, and only one in the United States.  I walk by this several times a week on my normal route, but it strikes me today how odd this building is plopped down in this neighborhood.

 Freshly tilled earth of the impeccable Bahai gardens

 awaits flats of summer pansies.

  One of our neighborhood beaches. 

I love this place.

Not summer yet...

except for one brave soul, 

most of the sailboats 

are still tightly wrapped up.

The last L stop of the purple line.