Weekends in Chicagoland
The past two weekends have seen us traveling north, first to downtown Chicago and Tinley Park last weekend, and more recently just past the Illinois border to Pleasant Prairie and Salem, Wisconsin, in Kenosha County.
Part I
As a reward for finally completing my Masters degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the gift I decided to give to myself was a weekend jaunt to Chicago to see the usual sights, plus the limited-time-only Tutankhamun exhibit at the Field Museum. If you are intrigued by ancient Egypt, which I happen to be, this is a very important opportunity to view about 130 relics which can normally only be seen in Cairo. Already having visited Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale, the Tut exhibit is in Chicago for a few more months, after which it will move on to Philadelphia and then London. According to a security guard, the exhibit is insured for one billion dollars. One of the artifacts that piqued my interest was a dog collar: an approximately 3,000 year old, decorated leather dog collar.
As Grant mentioned, we traveled with a friend from Grant’s department and his wife. We again purchased the Chicago City Pass, which entitles one to visit five attractions. I vaguely remember using the City Pass in March 2005 to get into Chicago’s Art Institute, but either I am mistaken, or that museum is no longer included in the City Pass. It’s still a good deal though: included are the Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium and Museum (we still haven’t made it there), Field Museum, Museum of Science and Industry, and a visit to the Observatory in the John Hancock Tower.
The Shedd Aquarium is certainly the best public aquarium we have seen so far. It’s huge-in fact, after two separate visits in 2005 and 2006, we still have not viewed all of the permanent exhibits. Freshwater and saltwater fish, sea dragons, sharks, whales, turtles, lizards and frogs… They’ve got just about everything. Plus their dolphin show is unique and I enjoyed seeing the penguins. The saltwater exhibit left me a little sad, reminiscing about the pink urchins and sailfin (pootie) tang which recently departed.
The Field Museum is essentially a natural history museum. There is a neat permanent exhibit on ancient Egypt, plus the temporary Tut exhibit. As you would expect, there are many, many taxidermied birds, mammals, and reptiles, some of which are set up in dioramas to depict their natural habitat. Of particular interest are the maneless, man-eating lions of Tsavo, which were immortalized in the film The Ghost and the Darkness. My personal favorite is Sue, the largest, most complete, and best preserved skeleton of a Tyrranosaurus rex. Sue’s story is a long and arduous one, but ultimately she was put up for auction at Sotheby’s and purchased for $8.4 million dollars by a consortium arranged by the Field Museum (made up of McDonald’s of fast food fame, Disney, and private individuals). Their revamped dinosaur fossil exhibit is now open, and while we were there a docent let us hold a piece of fossilized poo. And don’t forget the Grainger Hall of Gems.
The Museum of Science and Industry also has many interesting things to see. Some of the permanent exhibits are geared towards children, for example, an exhibit on petrochemicals where a little molecule cheerily anounces “I am the catalyst!” and you can walk through a mirror maze and lunge yourself against padded pillars. There is the coal mine, which we still haven’t seen, and a toymaking exhibit with some neat robots. The German u-boat U-505 can again be viewed, and is very impressive, although it costs extra to see the inside. We did not pay for that tour this time though I would like to at some point. For an extra five dollars you can view the Frogs! exhibit, which is definitely worth it. There were poison dart frogs, tiny mantella frogs, dumpy tree frogs, and another frog whose name I can’t remember, but is strangely reminiscent of the weirdo cat from Alice in wonderland. And many more. We were amazed to find the Milburn Light Electric car, which was a clone of the Detroit Electric we know. Unfortunately the OMNIMAX film about Ancient Greece was a little disappointing. A movie at the OMNIMAX is included in the City Pass.
The John Hancock Tower is one of the tallest buildings in downtown Chicago, and definitely has the best view. Walking from the Museum Campus (where the Field Museum, Planetarium, and Aquarium are located) to the Tower taught us a valuable lesson: skyscrapers are never as close as they appear. Let’s just say, what looked like a few blocks was actually about four miles. But it gave us the chance to see Grant Park and Millenium Park, and walk through the heart of downtown along Michigan Avenue. We arrived at the Tower just in time for a medical emergency on the 75th floor, and the paramedics and fire department commandeered all of the 
available elevators. We waited about an hour to go up to the tower, and when we got up there, there was a line of at least a hundred people wound around the entire observatory waiting for a trip down. I overheard an angry woman on a cell phone who said that she had been stuck there since 5:30PM (it was now 7:30PM and she had at least 50 people ahead of her in line). Yikes! We walked around the observatory and Grant snapped a lot of pictures. They had a photo-op which was set up to make one look like a window washer outside the tower, and our antics had even strangers snapping pictures. And luckily for us, when we decided to leave the line had dissipated.
We had also planned to visit a huge reptile show in Tinley Park, the North American Reptile Breeder’s Conference and Trade Show, but by the time we made it out of Chicago on Sunday it was too late. Maybe next year.
Part II
The second installment of our Chicagoland travels was visiting Brooke and Nathan in Wisconsin. We stayed at their new house in Salem. This turned out to be quite an adventure, since everytime we turned on the water to drink, wash our face, or shower an overwhelming fragrance of eu de raw eggs was released. Regardless, it’s a very nice place, and Bode enjoyed being the first dog to take a dump in their huge new yard.
Our mission was to paint an exam room at Brooke’s animal hospital in Pleasant Prairie with rainforest scenes. Painting the trees and vines was a pain, but it had to get done. What we really enjoyed was painting the animals-Grant painted a cute little baby orangutang, and I busied myself with sketching and painting mostly birds and frogs, plus a lemur that ended up looking more like a raccoon. It turned out well, especially considering the limited amount of time we had, but I think we should keep our day jobs, so to speak.
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