The Windy City

We had yet another fun trip this last weekend : to Chicago!

That's where my dad and both of his parents grew up, and my grandmother still lives out that way, so we wanted to go out and see her. She actually lives in Peoria, which is about 3 hours outside of Chicago, but since I hadn't been to the city since I was 10 years old, I wanted to spend a day there and be a nerdy tourist!

The day was crazy. We visited the Adler Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum, and Sears Tower all in one hectic day, then drove out to Peoria that night.

But man, it was fun!

#1: Adler Planetarium

Probably the coolest part of the planetarium was going into this big domed theater and seeing a rendition of the actual night sky. We learned where to find all of the different constellations, the milky way, planets, etc. I've always loved astronomy, so this was a real treat for me! I learned a ton!

The whole place was actually a museum of anything sky-related and there were these huge models of the different planets hanging from the ceiling:

Anthony and I took a picture of ourselves standing in front of the sun - because we're just that hot! LOL!

Out on the balcony (if you can stand the frigid air coming off the lake) there is also a great view of the Chicago skyline. You don't see much of that in AZ!

#2: Shedd Aquarium

Our second stop of the day was the Shedd Aquarium. This had a lot of really good displays, but for whatever reason, it was so crowded there. I think every elementary school in Chicago had a field trip there that day. It was insane. So I tried to take a bunch of cool pictures of everything I could, and then we got out. LOL.

Most of the fish pictures didn't turn out very well because they just refused to sit still and I couldn't use a flash in the displays. Some other pictures came out great though!

This crab was awesome. It was right at the top of the water so it looked like a big giant double-crab!

Then there was the crocodile:

And a giant snake! Here's just the skin...


The snake (an anaconda) was a little camera shy, but I caught a couple shots of it. Its body is about the thickness of my thigh!


This fishy kept looking like it was trying to kiss Anthony through the glass! It would follow his face whenever he moved. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a good shot of it. It was absolutley hilarious though!

There was a cool display with some tiny frogs too. This one's body was about the size of my thumb nail!

And finally, can you spot the chameleon?

There it is!

#3: Field Museum

Although it wasn't as cool...or alive... as "Night at the Museum," I really enjoyed going to the Field Museum.

There was a ton to see here! Unfortunately, we didn't have time to see everything.

I kept picturing what it might be like if the dinosaur came to life...

And then took on these elephants, because they didn't look to happy to begin with.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the head on the t-rex isn't real. It's completely fake. The real head is upstairs because it weighs over 600 lbs and was too heavy to mount! Gosh, and I thought I worried about my weight!

I guess I am glad that the dinosaur didn't come to life, because I wouldn't want to see these teeth coming after me!

When we got there, we were kinda bummed out, because the pirates display was completely sold out. But our tickets gave us admission to one of the special non-permanent exhibits, so by default we got the "underground exhibit."

Now, this musuem must be getting some fantastic funding, because after we went down to the basement to the exhibit, they had this special machine set up that shrunk us down to about 3/4 of an inch tall so that we could explore in the dirt and see what it was really like to be a bug (and I don't like bugs...). It wasn't quite as spectacular a procedure as what Wayne Szalinski put together all those years ago, but it was completely painless, and I was glad that my taxpayer money is going toward something cool, rather than just new streets and fighting wars and all that.

Anyway, we enter into this underground exhibit, and the first thing I see is...

Yeah, a wolf spider, the size of my freaking couch. I don't like them when I'm human-sized, so it kinda freaked me out being only 3/4 of an inch tall. I'm actually surprised I remained calm enough to take this picture. Especially since it moved. Toward me.

Then Anthony and I had a chance to see what we would look like as little bugs. It was kind of a thing for kids, but I still fit. Anthony...well...he tried...

After some more playing in the dirt, we decided it was time to be our normal size again (although I swear the machine made me just a little taller...not that I have any complaints!)

The next stop was the Ancient Egypt exhibit - my favorite bit of history! On the way though, there was a stuffed gorilla, with a plaster mold of its palm print. Here's Anthony's hand in comparison:

I always knew he had gorilla hands.

Here's my hand:

Yeah, I have little baby hands.

Anyway, so we were off to Ancient Egypt!

What I wasn't quite prepared for was the real mummies in the glass cases. Once I got over the fact that they were actually 2000 year old dead bodies, they were somewhat fascinating.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this statue, just to let Prinx know that if he had lived 2000 years ago, he'd be worshiped as a god. He already thinks he is anyway.

Here's a random picture of Anth and I walking down the hallway:

There were a lot of other interesting little exhibits in the musuem, and I took far too many pictures to upload, but here are some other highlights:

A lion:

Some butterflies:

Some mayan guy:

And a couple totem poles (reminded me of Alaska):

#4: The Sears Tower

Our final adventure was going up to the top of the Sears Tower! The top floor was actually closed, so there wasn't a whole lot to do, but we still had an amazing view from the almost-top floor!

The Sears Tower is the tallest skyscraper in the US and the 4th tallest in the world! And we found out when we were there that it was bought out and will be renamed this summer as the Willis Tower (so we made sure to get some "sears tower" branded stuff).