Beach Tokens are on Sale!

From Evanston Patch:

Season beach tokens in Evanston will be available for purchase at a few locations beginning on April 1.

In addition to the Morton Civic Center at 2100 Ridge Ave., tokens will be available atRobert Crown, Chandler-Newberger, Fleetwood-Jourdain, Levy Senior Center andEvanston Ecology Center. Tokens may be purchased on weekdays, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., at the Morton Civic Center and during office hours at the community centers.

Evanston’s five public swimming beaches open for the season on May 23.

A beach token, also known as a season pass, is valid from the time of purchase through Labor Day 2015. Tokens will be sold at a discounted rate of $26 for Evanston and Skokie residents and $42 for nonresidents until Friday, June 5. On Saturday, June 6, the price for a beach token will increase to $34 for Evanston or Skokie residents and $58 for nonresidents.

Community members interested in a daily pass can purchase at a beach entrance. A daily pass is $6 for children age 1-11 years and $8 for those 12 years and older. Admission for children under age 1 is free.

Evanston residents that meet the income requirement are eligible to participate in beach token fee assistance and the free beach token program. To learn more about the fee assistance program, visit cityofevanston.org/recreationscholarship.

The City of Evanston and the Skokie Park District have a reciprocal arrangement that allows Skokie residents to buy season beach tokens at Evanston resident rates and allows Evanston residents to buy Skokie season pool passes at Skokie resident rates.

For more information about Evanston beaches, please visit cityofevasnton.org/beachesor call/text847-448-4311. For convenience, residents can simply dial 3-1-1 while in Evanston.

Polar Vortex at Dempster Street Beach

This is what the beach looks like after temperatures reached an all-time low of minus 42 degrees! According to the Chicago Tribune, the temperature reached zero early this afternoon for the first time in about 37 hours. My friend Erika has been walking around Evanston snapping pics of the snow and today's image from Dempster Street beach is very representative of what happens when a Polar Vortex comes to the beach! Yowza!

My Summer Happiness Project Cost $26

Before my 40th birthday (in 2012), I read Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project book because I wanted my 40th decade to be focused on Happiness! If I was healthy enough to live a full life, I should be grateful and happy doing it. I turned to Gretchen's New York Times #1 Bestseller to put some framework around my personal Happiness Project and got working.

One thing that has always made me very happy is the beach and all that comes with it - collecting seashells, walking in the waves, waves, water, seagulls, sand. I love all those things. So part of living in Evanston and getting Happy meant spending as much time as possible at the beach! I aimed to be at the beach daily, day or night, even if for just a short walk. And most days, I come close to visiting the beach everyday!

Summer time beach visits are somewhat tricky as during certain hours a pass is needed to access the beach, which has become MY beach. Had I not read the Happiness Project, I might have allowed the need to pay to access the beach to make me mad or annoyed, but instead I chose to be grateful for the pass. See my logic below.

Thank you Gretchen Rubin and your great work! I now fully realize that "Happiness is choice, not the result of how life treats you."

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I bought my beach token before June 14 and it cost me $26.

So far this summer, I have gone to the beach at least 20 times. Over the entire summer, I will visit the beach at least 40 times putting my approximate cost per visit at around .65 cents.

What does the beach look like? See below. (And I walk to the beach, so there is no transportation cost.)

This beach makes me very happy, so does living in Evanston and so does buying a beach token and so does writing this blog and so does dark chocolate and so does eating fresh fruit from my garden....

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Thank you for reading my blog Evanston Newbie, a blog dedicated to helping you too fall in love with Evanston, just like I did. If you have any questions or need to get in touch with me about this blog, Evanston, or anything else you can email me at thelisadshow@gmail.com. Also feel free to send me announcements about upcoming Evanston events and I will promote them here!

Ritual: Two friends go jump in a lake once a month

It's so fun to have a relationship with a beach, which I totally do seeing as Dempster Street Beach is my family's personal beach or at least we like to think so. It's only 2 long blocks from our house and we can walk to it easily anytime of year or day.

It's off season now which is why this shot is completely empty of people but just before I took this photo, 2 Northwestern Students showed up at the beach, stripped to their shorts and jumped in the lake. They were only in the water for a minute or two but it freaked out my son's and me to see people swim so early in the season. Of course I interviewed them when they got out of the water.

It turns out once a month these two friends go jump in the lake, the entire year, even in January. It's just something they do. Two friends who go jump in a lake once a month. That is a fantastic monthly tradition.

I can't wait until the season opens and this lake is full of screaming children and adults jumping in the lake. It's been quiet on the beach in the off season and although I love it, I love a busy beach too.