Chicago Day 2 (Field Museum/Art Institute)

It was even colder than the day prior. I have spent a fair amount of time skiing, and have even been subject to a few Chicago winters in my time, but nothing compared to the cold that met me as I woke up on Thursday. There is a colloquialism about a certain element of the anatomy of a brass monkey as it relates to cold, and I hesitate to say that I was envious of the monkey at this point. Were we to have more time in Chicago and could spread our sightseeing out a little bit, this would have been a day to stay in, order in food and just watch movies, but alas, that was not in the cards and so we bundled ourselves in all of our winter finery and headed out the door to the Field Museum, which just so happened to be on the lake-front, with it's howling "Windy City" winds and the chill factor and, just...COLD.
Thankfully the EL was a short walk from our front door and thanks to the timetables available on my cell phone, we were able to time it so that we didn't need to wait at all to hop on board.
The EL is an amazing asset in Chicago and I wish there was some sort of decent public transport in Orange County. Not only was it efficient, but there were lots of options and it was truly PUBLIC transport, not only for the destitute as it often seems out here. There were students, families, business people in suits and anyone in between.
We arrived less than a mile from the Field Museum in the midst of a howling wind, which made the walk very unpleasant. In fact, at one point I needed Lauren to lead me like I was blind, due to the wind and cold completely freezing my eyes and drying them out.
Despite the external factors, we made it to the museum in relatively good shape, and breezed through the entrance, where it was another free day. That is one of the great things about visiting in a non-peak vacation time; lots of places are desperate to get bodies inside and offer either free or very low cost admissions. It worked for me!

This is Sue, who greets guests right inside of the museum. She is the most complete T-Rex in the world and a fairly daunting sight. We stopped to take some pictures and were accosted by one of the many docents on the floor. He asked where we were from and when I told him San Diego he began asking me about if I had ever been to a certain restaurant that I had not. The cold was keeping people away from the museum and I think that they were all just trying to find things to do and people to talk to. It is always awkward to walk away from conversations like that, but we did and went into the exhibit about Ancient America,

which clearly focused on the Indians. There was a recreation of an old smoke lodge, staffed with two docents, even more bored than the first gentleman. At least in the entryway, everyone who comes into the museum has to walk past, and he was next to the marquee attraction in the museum.
The smoke lodge is tucked away and I don't think that there were too many people venturing back there on this particular day because they leeched on to Lauren and I like they were starving piranha and we were a couple of thick-legged, short wearing overheated tourists, looking for a nice swim. They were nice, don't get me wrong, but a bit desperate. As we walked around the lodge, they kept telling us how lucky we were to have them there, because we would never guess what the items were on our own. We were able to escape without feeling like we were abandoning them when another family walked in and were naiive enough to ask a question about one of the items.
We finished the exhibit and then went into the animal exhibits. They were interesting and I was able to see some animals stuffed here that I would probably never be able to see live, but as a whole, it was a little disappointing.
I mean, a lot of the animals were things that were relatively easily available at local zoos and wild animal parks, where we could see them alive and engaging in their animal behaviors. Lauren and I discussed it, and came to the conclusion that years ago, when there was less travel and zoos were lesser, this would have been an amazing asset, but now, it was just a little bit sad.
Plus, there were lots of loud obnoxious schoolchildren running around and being annoying. So that sucked.
Around this point, we began to get a little peckish and decided to grab some lunch. Inside of the museum were both a McDonald's and a Corner Bakery. I gave Lauren the option, and we wound up dining quickly and easily at McDonald's. It was a nice break, plus it got us to the first floor, where the Egyptian exhibit was. Before we time traveled back to Ancient Egypt, I made a dinosaur in the "Make your own plastic dinosaur" machine. It was a blue triceratops.
We entered Egypt with the quest to find as much Anubis as possible. The jackal-headed god is Lauren's favorite and we were able to see him a few times in the display about how mummies were created. In addition to a bunch of dead old Egyptians, the exhibit contained a very stylized recreation of the marketplace at Memphis. I slept like an Egyptian, helped to build a pyramid and of course, walked like an Egyptian. There was also an actual stream inside with real reeds and papyrus plants. We left ancient Egypt, encountered some man-eating lions from Tsavo and headed upstairs to see the dinosaurs! Yay!
There were lots and lots of dinosaurs, mostly in full or close to full skeletons.

You will recall that I had earlier gotten a freshly made blue plastic triceratops. While taking the photo above, I placed the dino next to me, on the information plaque. Two children came up next to me and decided that the dinosaur was public domain and started to pick it up and play with it. I retrieved it and walked away quite briskly. Rotten kids, thinking everything is there for them.

We continued looking at the dinosaurs and taking pictures for quite awhile and then finished the exhibit with this depressing display.

We then went over to the Hall of Gems and admired all of the replicas of famous gemstones. They were all very impressive.
At that point, we realized that we had essentially seen everything that we needed or wanted to see, so after hitting the gift shop, where, despite 4 rooms worth of merchandise, we were unable to find anything to spend our money on, due to the lack of, as Lauren put it, "Anubis love."
Having dragged out our exit as long as we could, we faced the frozen landscape once again, and were able to find the EL station, and arrived home with no further incident.
We tossed in a load of laundry, since we would be leaving the following day. It took slightly longer than we wanted, since we were aiming to visit the Art Institute for their three free hours on Thursday nights. Everything was fine, though, since there were a few distinct pieces that we really wanted to see.
Somehow, it seemed that the cold was not nearly as bad as it had been in the afternoon and we were only a couple of minute walk away from the museum, which made things easier for us.
The Art Institute was the busiest of anywhere that we visited, at least until the Convention. I don't know if there were a lot of students or what, but it was packed. Add to that the fact that the museum was set up like a labyrinth, and all of a sudden, our quest for the three or so paintings that we wanted to see was becoming quite a challenge. Galleries would have multiple entrances and exits and every time that I turned a corner, I was half-expecting to see the Minotaur. No Minotaurs this trip, but we did manage to find our paintings, which included Lauren getting to stare at the famous "A Sunday on the Gran Jatte," a la Cameron in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

We also made an effort to see "American Gothic," Monet's "Water Lillies" and saw a bonus of one of Van Gough's self portraits.


Unable to find anything fun and exciting to eat for dinner nearby, we stopped to take some pictures of the infamous lions,

and continued on to the fun and exciting Subway restaurant for exotic subs and then grabbed dessert from Dunkin' Donuts, which is remotely exotic since they don't really exist in Southern California and went back to the condo for the night, and enjoyed "The Office" before starting to pack and go to bed for the last time in this gorgeous condo.

Happy Valentines Day from Walgreens!

Need I say more?

Chicago Day 1 (Museum of Science and Industry)

We awoke the following morning to a very cold morning, with snow falling and the sun nowhere in sight, not that the sun would provide any warmth during the rest of the week when we managed to see it, but I digress.
My basic outfit to brave the elements included an undershirt, a long sleeve over shirt, my jacket, scarf wrapped around my ears, nose and mouth, gloves, cap, jeans, shoes and socks. Should I have probably brought more than denim blue jeans? Hindsight says yes, since I'm fairly certain it was the frozen nature of the jeans that cause me to have the skin basically ripped off of my right leg. Live and learn.
The Museum of Science and Industry was on the agenda for the day and it was the most remote locale that we would attempt to visit on the trip, so initially the trek out was rather daunting to me. Once in Chicago, however, I discovered just how easy it was. All we had to do was take the electric train, or METRA as it it known, and walk 2 blocks to the museum.
The ride over was easy and uneventful, but the walk to the museum was a bit more intense. There was snow blowing in our faces pretty hard and the temperature was below zero. Despite some closed sidewalks and large snowdrifts, we found ourselves at the main entrance.
Today was a “free day” at the museum, presumably with the intent of drawing crowds to the museum during a traditionally slow time of the year. With the weather the way that it was, however, few brave souls attended. Not that I can really blame them though, if I lived in Chicago, I would do very very little from December to March, but we only had a few days and a little snow and cold wasn't going to stop us! Plus, because the place was so desolate, we were able to linger around exhibits that during a busier time, we would be rushed through.
The museum was a lot of fun. Very interactive and lots of fun exhibits. We made it our goal to at least see every one, whether or not we were able to completely explore it or not. The first thing we saw was an exhibit with a creepy circus theme, which I can only assume was themed to optical illusions. Following this was a big thing about WWII, with many reprints of old newspapers, videos and static mannequins,

all leading up to the only U-Boat captured by the US during the war.

It was impressive. I always figured the boats to be fairly small, but this one was massive.
We took the requisite pictures and went into the kids' interactive area, where the docent gave us a look as we entered. There were all sorts of displays, explaining simple machines and water pressure and gravity, among other things.
Around this time, we stopped by the bathrooms and these were all futuristic. Tons of stalls, and the sink that intuitively knew to give you soap and when to turn on the water. It was quite impressive,
Time was zipping past us, so we decided to stop into the cafeteria for lunch. For a museum, there were a lot of good looking food offerings. I decided on a ham and cheese sandwich, and Lauren had chili. We both had worms 'n' dirt for dessert. The sandwich was OK, but the dessert was the best worms 'n' dirt that I have ever had—and that is really saying something!
Refueled, we continued our tour. There was an interesting thing about agriculture, which seemed to have an awful lot about cows and cow poop.

I'm not sure, but I do know that I got to be a virtual farmer (plowing virtual fields), practice hooking a cow up to a milking machine, and feel how warm milk is when it comes out of a cow. For anyone interested; the answer is that it is very hot once it leaves the cow. Remember kids, knowledge is power.
Past the cows is a little unassuming detour that contains the “Fairy Castle.” I know, I know. It sounds really stupid, but it was pretty neat. It was originally owned by early movie star, Colleen Moore, and it was impressive.

It was a standard little castle (made me think of a book that I loved as a kid, called “The Castle in the Attic”) but it was the details and stories that made it so neat. It was themed after legendary stories. For example, in the dining hall was King Arthur's Round Table, and in the main bedroom was Sleeping Beauty's bed. The little books in the library were actual books, with tiny tiny content. Also, illustrating the benefit and lack of crowds, we were able to wander around and take pictures for between 15 and 20 minutes without a single soul coming in and bothering us. The room that contains the castle has a maximum occupancy of 10. I don't think that we could be so leisurely during a busier time of year.
Next up was something called “Fast Forward,” which is what Innoventions should actually be like, displaying technology that is being worked on today,

NOT just a giant commercial for HP or whoever the sponsor du jour is.
Following that was the generic lab exhibit, where I virtually cloned some goats, Lauren saw some cloned mice and I found my favorite part of the museum. There is essentially a baby chicken hatchery, where there are chickens being hatched every day, and in fact we were able to see one hatch,

and then next to that, was a little area where the chickens went once they had emerged. I was the 'chicken whisperer' and they would run from all over the area whenever I put my finger up, much to the annoyance of Lauren who was trying to take pictures of them. Oops.
The train exhibit was next on our agenda.

From full-sized real trains to the most impressive model train setup that I have ever seen, mimicking a train trip from Seattle to Chicago, this was a neat display. I got to climb in an 1899 speed train and spent some time watching the miniature EL and buses in the miniature Chicago.
After the trains, it was only natural that we visit turn of the century main street Chicago.

There is normally a vintage ice cream parlor open, but I guess during the slower times of the year, it is closed. That was an argument against the low crowds. Also, yes I understand how cold it was outside—and yes, I still wanted ice cream. Deal with it.
We also got to see how an automatic toy-making machine worked, try and identify sea animals and ships by the sonar waves they give off, as well as learn all about petroleum, taste authentic water from Lake Michigan, see the exterior coal mine exhibit, where we wanted to do the tour, but they had completed for the day and see a huge periodic table of the elements, where on each element was various products that the element was used in. That was a particular highlight for Lauren.
At this point, we had pretty much seen everything that we could (curse being a few months early for the Harry Potter exhibit!) so we headed to the gift shop, where I got a magnet with the baby chicks on it, and went back out into the cold.
The actual snowing had abated by this point, so the walk back was a bit easier. Upon arriving at our home METRA station, we learned that we could take the PEDway right into our building, avoiding the cold. We could not have been happier.

Initially our plans for the night included going to the Billy Goat Tavern (home of the cheezeborger, cheezeborger, Coke-no Pepsi, cheeps—no fries sketch from SNL), but with the cold and Lauren not feeling so well, we decided to order in. After finally finding a place that not only offered the food stuffs that we wanted, but was able to deliver to our building, we waited over an hour for the food. Finally I called the place and they were very apologetic and I guess, due to a clerical error, someone else had gotten our food. Once that was resolved, our food arrived in fifteen minutes. I had my favorite, Italian beef sandwich and Lauren had a chicken Caesar salad that was apparently pretty good. Another night in the jacuzzi tub, and then to bed, since we had another presumably busy day the following day, when it was supposed to be even colder than we had experienced yet.

Chicago-En Route/First Night

5:00, our planned wakeup time comes far too early when you aren't sleeping well. We managed to rouse ourselves without too much difficulty, showered and raided my parent's pantry for snacks for the airport and the plane. My Dad was able to take us to the airport and thus save us an exorbitant fee for parking the car. We made it down in no time at all and breezed through security, though the TSA agent at the baggage inspection was somewhat confused by my abundance of baseballs, but it was settled easily and we continued on to our gate to prepare to fly the friendly skies. I got online—free no less!--and played around for a little bit and in no time, we were lining up to board the plane. Lauren and I were able to score seats in the dual person exit row, so we had a little room to stretch out, providing that in the event of a crash, we help the other passengers. Even if we didn't, who was going to blame us? Nobody, that's who. Fortunately, our services were not required on this particular flight,; and a darn good thing, too. I was in a deep slumber for the majority of the flight, waking up for snack and drink services, and then really, not again until we were beginning our descent into Midway Airport.
Midway is the little brother to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and is so much easier (and cheaper) to fly into. We donned our cold weather gear and proceeded to the Elevated Train on the Orange Line which would drop us off less than a block from the condo that we would be staying for the first part of our vacation. While on the El, one of my gloves inexplicably disappeared so my hands were exposed, as well as the vast majority of my head and let's just say that when trying to figure directions, it is much easier when one is not frozen to the sidewalk. Eventually, we called our host, who gave us step by step directions to find the condo. We all finally found each other and happily made our way into the gloriously warm, heated building.
Our condo was located on the 46th floor and provided wonderful views of the lake, museum campus and downtown, which included a fleeting glimpse of Sears Tower and the construction of Donald Trump's new building. The condo itself was gorgeous. 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a dining room, kitchen and living room was the basic design. Of course this doesn't include the foyer, washing machines and closet that was at least as big as our bedroom back home, if not bigger. Living in the lap of luxury is something that I can definitely get used to.
The host gave us a quick tour, showed us how to use our various toys (TV, DVD player, stereo etc) and left us to our own devices, with the advice that I maybe should pick up some cold weather accessories sooner rather than later, since it had been forecast to be -20 at one point in our visit.
As much as I like the “cold” weather, I heeded this advice, since Midwestern cold is significantly different from a Southern California cold.
In fact, the building was connected via underground sidewalk to the lower entrance to Macy's Department Store (formerly retail giant, Marshall Field) and as out first real act in Chicago, we went and I bought new gloves and a scarf. Nothing fancy, but it was still obscenely expensive. Both garments would earn their cost in my eyes. Possibly even that night. After eating, we tried finding one of the great Chicago deep dish pizza joints, Giordano's. I thought we would have the navigation for this trip easy, since I have an iPhone and had been testing the map function at home, but trying to actually find a destination with Google maps, frozen fingers and a gnawing pain in your stomach is different than playing around sitting in your bedroom.
After several detours, wrong turns, backtracking and a bit of a bad attitude from yours truly, we stumbled bass-ackward into the restaurant, which, indicating a theme for the majority of the week, was fairly desolate. We ordered garlic bread and a deep dish cheese and Canadian bacon pizza. It took 30 minutes or so to actually bake and it was well worth it..There is nothing like true Chicago deep dish pizza, where the cheese of the pizza weighs five pounds. So delicious.
After eating and lingering for as long as we could justify, we grudgingly trudged back onto the snowy cold streets and our way back home. This time it was much easier and we even were able to stop by Walgreen's, to get Lauren shaving cream and some razors, and me, milk and a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. We were then able to ascend to the 46th floor and our warm homestead, where I relaxed in a gloriously warm bath in the jacuzzi tub before retiring to bed.

Pre-Chicago

I love Chicago. I don't know if I have maybe romanticized it due to the presence of a certain baseball team, possibly due to the holy trinity of Chicago food: hot dogs, Italian beef and deep dish pizza or perhaps it has to do with its prominence in the ABC TGIF television lineup when I was a kid, but the city has always held an allure to me, so when the opportunity arose for me to do a bit of sightseeing with Lauren before this year's Cub Convention, needless to say, I was ecstatic.
Truth be told, I wanted to go to this Cubs convention because I was convinced that this was the World Series year. Reservations were made in mid-August, when the Cubs were in the midst of their 97 win regular season. In fact, after witnessing the fateful Game 3 defeat at Dodger Stadium, I was somewhat prepared to forgo the Convention this year. I'm glad I didn't, despite the fact that two of my favorite Cubs had unceremoniously become Cleveland Indians mere weeks before the Convention in somewhat questionable moves by management. That was to be a recurrent theme at the Convention for the malcontents.
We were set to fly out of San Diego early on Tuesday morning, and I was able to sneak out of work a few hours early on Monday, after all, how can anyone work when vacation looms mere hours away and when Lauren has the day off? Conceivably a better man than I. We finished up our last minute packing and made it down to my parents house with no problems at all. The departure time was set at 545 the following morning for a 730 flight. Suffice it to say that I was unable to sleep, so after repacking my bags for efficiency's sake, I settled in and watched a few TV shows on Netflix before falling asleep.

In line for Ryne Sandberg

You know what's great?

When huge groups of people send one person to save entire rows of
choice seats so that the rest of the group can be slackers, slide in
at the last minute and get the choicest seats.

This morning

Looking out of our hotel room. This morning it is a positively balmy
14 degrees. Time to bust out those shorts and t-shirts!

Convention night one

Thus far I have met Bob Feller and gotten him to sign a Hall of Fame
baseball for me, opened the convention with several thousand of my
best friends and assorted drunks, bought a 1984 Ryne Sandberg jersey-
and oh yeah, won a spot in his autograph session so that he can sign
it just for me. Good day, gooood day.

- Andrew
Sent from my iPhone

Oh the humanity

It is a wee bit crowded here...

Frango mint pie

Nuff said

Chilly

It was below freezing. Sucky.

American Gothic

The farmer in this painting looks just like a guy from work.

Art Institute

Emulating "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"

At the Field Museum

This is "Sue." Sue did not survive the Ice Age. I am afraid that our
tale here will be remarkably similar to hers.

Oh no!

I made a new friend

Do it...

U- boat

The only u-boat captured by the US during WWII

Our view

This ain't southern California any more

En route

This is our first experience on the "El" riding from the airport to
the city

And so it begins...

Good morning from San Diego's lovely Lindbergh Field

Chicago Scheming

So, here we are, just a mere few days from Chicago and the freezing cold and I think that due to my work/our departure schedule I have to essentially be packed tomorrow night. The crummy part about that is that even after packing, I will have two days of work to go before my vacation begins. Lauren, on the other hand, is officially on vacation as of six forty five this evening. Life just ain't fair sometimes. I'm excited for the sightseeing, and deep-dish pizza, so these next few days are going to be very long days for me.
While on vacation I will have my phone, where I learned how to post photos and small blog entries and will able to post stuff right away, as well as posting more substantial entries later, either in the trip or upon our arrival home.
They have raised the temperature on our arrival day, from 2 degrees all the way up to 14 degrees. I suppose hoping for another jump, from 14 up to like, 65, would be too much to hope for? Since we are basically just walking or using public transportation I am just hoping that it won't be snowing.
Suffice it to say that I am excited for the trip, even though I essentially have everything planned out, I feel like I need to keep planning and finding more options, but I think that in reality it would just gum up the works at this point.
Hopefully the next time I post here I will be en route to the Windy City!

After a year...

Well it has been a year since I created this blog as one of last year's resolutions. I think that I have done fairly well with it. I am averaging better than 2 posts a month, and most of the posts have been more than just a quick blurb or a "Today I had a cheese sandwich and watched TV" boring daily post.

It's funny, I began the blog looking forward to, and later chronicalling, Lauren and my trip to Walt Disney World and here I am a year later looking forward to our trip to Chicago, where you can expect up-to-the-minute updates on here. Well, maybe not up-to-the-minute, but certainly a lot quicker than the Disney World posts.

Anyway. Happy New Year and keep reading!