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.