Скачать или смотреть Chicago Skyline from North Avenue Beach - Chicago, Illinois (4K) (HD)

Here in Chicago, a busy and boisterous city of unrelenting life and sound, the waves crashing onto the shore of North Avenue Beach drown out the traffic and the turbulence of the metropolis beyond. It is winter, and the absence of summertime beachgoers rests like a melancholy fog over the rippling waters of Lake Michigan. No squeals of delight from curious toddlers, no booming music and raucous laughter from an audacious crew of college kids. Just the lingering echoes of warmer moments pressed into the sand, Here at the edge of this forest of towering steel that seems to melt into the cool, gray infinity below. It is a peaceful solitude, a diversion so often missed in the gridlock.

Travel, for many, is an act of escape, a pursuit of some deviation from reality. It is an expression of longing to get away from the stifling familiarity of one’s surroundings and experience something entirely new and different. Some of us seek the comfort and familiarity of places we know and love, escapes into alternative realities that are tried and true in our memories. We can count of them to deliver joy and welcome us back in solidarity, as if no time at all has passed. We rely on them to fill us with the same feelings that we can hold onto time and again, to be a steadfast friend in the face of the inescapable change that is an inevitable fact of life. Whether near or far, they are the happy places that persist, that remain, that move to the forefront of our minds when the world gets too noisy and the lanes we travel in start to feel narrow.

For us, we find that the best of these are often the most proximate and, sometimes, the most overlooked. They are the ones in our own backyards. To feel far away, but still connected; to find escape, but still feel right at home. We find the Magic in the paradox. The joy of being with a friend who has been there for us all along, waiting for us to return to spend a moment Here With the Magic.

Music: Patchwork by Ever So Blue