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Towards the end of September, I meandered over to Chicago’s magical Painted Forest after catching glimpses of it from the drunken haze of a late night cab ride down Lake Shore Drive many times during my tenure in the Windy City. It’s not quite a whole forest, more like a handful of dead trees the Park District decided to give the Dr. Seuss treatment as something of an artistic statement, but mostly as a way to mark them for eventual removal. Nonetheless, they are pretty eye-catching and the whole project certainly gives new meaning to the phrase “the trees are turning colors”, to make the worst possible joke I could have there.

To be totally honest, however, the Lily Pond just a short walk away feels considerably more magical, even if it is less surreal. The Painted Forest looks a lot more interesting from the highway than when you’re actually there, standing next to a parking lot while people power-walk past you. Still, it was worth checking out just because, you know, most trees aren’t blue and novelty goes a hell of a long way.

The trees were scheduled for removal this fall — in fact, when I arrived some of them were already gone, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they had all made it to the great wood-chipper in the sky by now. Hopefully, anyway, since I heard the lead poisoning levels in Lincoln Park’s squirrel population was unusually high this year.