Vacation, Day 4

We woke up to find it had been raining a good part of the night. The forecast? More rain. Thankfully much of what we were planning to do was indoors, but we were definitely hoping for dry transitions, especially using the bus system. Much to our delight, by the time we got breakfast and made our way to the train station the weather had begun to change and the sun peeked itself out from behind the clouds.

The kids commented about how short the train ride seemed to be compared to previous days. I told them I thought it was a matter of perspective because according to the clock it was taking the same amount of time. We did notice the increased number of riders, however, given that we were traveling on an official commuters workday rather than a leisure day.

Upon arriving in Chicago, we found our bus stop only to note that uhhhh, the bus we rode yesterday doesn't run on weekdays. Well fudge! Now what? Thankfully the kids trusted their mother enough to realize that it's Chicago - there are all kinds of buses, we just have to figure out which one we want (that is running). And we indeed managed to find the appropriate bus - one that would deposit us at the door of our destination without having to transfer at all -- just took a bit of walking and a bunch of reading was all. And true to my expectation, the bus was crowded. Very crowded. A nice young man offered me his seat, but instead I had girlchild park her behind. Boy child was excited to be holding the strap and practicing his balance techniques, just like mom but with more enthusiasm. A few years ago, I would have been able to have both kids share the seat, but alas they have grown too much for that. The kids were glad for the warning and the pre-education we had the day before so they knew that it could be like this. And just when you thought the bus couldn't get any fuller, it made yet another stop to allow more passengers to board. Talk about being sardines! But we all survived. Our first destination of the day was a return to Shedd Aquarium but we changed our minds and decided to go first to Adler Planetarium. After all, we had the tickets. They were going to go to waste if we didn't use them. Why not check it out and see what is there. We agreed we could leave if we didn't find something of interest.

Our time at Adler was quite pleasant. There was some general information about the history of space exploration and some historical documents and exhibits from the Apollo era, and there was a really cool exhibit about the solar system.

We watched a very cool IMax presentation about space collisions and learned a little bit more about how stars and galaxies are formed. The really neat part was in how the science involved supports so much of what we believe about the existence of other worlds and worlds yet to come (as noted by the scriptures). I guess some things are as much a matter of science as they are a matter of faith. And isn't it cool when something you've taken on faith is then proven to be true?

Anyway, after a quick lunch over looking the lake we watched a second presentation that did not live up to our expectations but was exactly what it was billed to be (in retrospect). It included some lovely classical music and a 3D slide presentation of various photos and art works depicting all sorts of stellar images. Between full tummies, a dark room, and having already done a good deal of walking, we were tired puppies and it took a great deal of doing to keep ourselves awake for entire 30 minute presentation. These places don't really like you standing, moving or trying to leave during the shows for safety reasons. The glasses were fun to play with though, and we got to keep them.

After our experience at Adler, we walked along the lakefront to reach Shedd Aquarium.

And we walked... and walked... and walked... Apparently, we should have gone back up to sidewalk level before we got to the aquarium to avoid having to walk all the way past the aquarium and then cut back in on a walking path. Who knew?

Now we had been to the aquarium just a few weeks previously (Mother's Day weekend) but since that time a new exhibit had opened. More correctly an old exhibit reopened after having been closed for a long period of time. That exhibit? The Oceanarium. We were delighted and thrilled to see beluga whales

and dolphins,

sea lions and otters. We even got to see penguins. Girlchild touched a starfish. Boychild refused and mom had her hands full (good excuses, right?). According to girlchild, the starfish is sort of squishy and pokey all at once - a fact I'm sure you all were wondering about. We enjoyed our time there and managed to spend several hours exploring the Oceanarium. By that time, we'd had enough museums and it was time to do something that involved a little less walking. So back to the bus stop we went.

If we thought the bus was crowded earlier in the day, nothing could have prepared the children for the actual crowd on the bus that afternoon. Fortunately we were able to stay together, but again, only one could sit and I made the executive decision for that one person to be girlchild. Had I sat at that moment, I'm not sure I could have gotten back up. Boychild was still thinking that standing on a moving bus was something fun and girlchild was feeling every inch of her aching feet. But we weren't done for the day just yet. As we travelled north, the crowd on the bus thinned a bit and then started to change from families to more of the young urban professionals I was accustomed to seeing when I was doing the CTA daily commute. And fortunately, boychild was able to get a seat next to his sister. Shortly thereafter I was able to get a seat next to them. The best part was we knew we didn't have to change buses to get to our next destination: Michigan Avenue and the Mag Mile.

Stepping off the bus onto the Mag Mile was like stepping into a different country. No longer was it just crowded, narrow streets and jam packed sidewalks that were in near constant shadow because of the height of the surrounding buildings. Now it was crowds and bustle but on wide walks and with wide streets and (gasp) two way traffic. People seemed just a little friendlier and a little less rushed.

We stopped at the Water Tower and got to see a really cool piece of architecture not to mention find out some fun facts about Chicago history. The history was complements of our good friends at Google which mom had thought to print out and bring along.

Near the tower was a great old bubbler (water fountain for you non-Wisconsin folks). The bubbler had 3 fountains on it at varying heights and in various shapes to accommodate the user: human, horse, canine.

Across the street from the water tower was boychild's version of Heaven: The Hershey Store. We ogled display after display in this chocolate nirvana before finally settling on our purchases. Boychild got the largest Hershey bar that mom would allow (16 ounces), girlchild played Hershey employee and got to fill her own plastic bucket with assorted treats (caramel Kisses, Hershey miniatures, and Reeses peanut butter cups) which she decided she could share with mom who doesn't eat much chocolate at all, and mom got a wonderful reusable bag imprinted, "Love your world, Hug you world, Kiss your world". You have to love product advertising! Aside from holding our store purchases, the bag became a third item to be carried and some of the weight (ie umbrellas/jackets) got distributed from the backpacks.

We went back across Michigan Avenue and the kids, who are used to small single layered malls, got their taste of Water Tower Place: 7 stories of shopping. They were amazed. We took the elevator to the top floor and then took the escalators down, pausing just long enough to notice the types of stores on each level. After they got their fill of this "modern" mall, we walked another block North to the John Hancock building where we were able to travel 94 stories up for another 360 view of the city and surrounding landscapes.

Whether it was the fact that we were visiting Hancock on a Monday evening or if it just isn't that popular of a destination, we noticed immediately that it was very uncrowded - especially compared to our visit to Sears Tower a few weeks before. In fact, our City Pass option not only got us out of waiting in lines, it got us on an elevator quicker than you could say "94th floor, please" while those who had purchased tickets were held up to wait for the rest of those purchasing and being photographed. We did have to do the gratuitous photo shoot that all of the museums were doing. Really, if I wanted a group picture at the place I'd take one instead of paying an arm and a leg and my first born for a really crappy likeness of my family superimposed onto a picture of the skyline. I happened to be wearing a green tshirt that day and the camera doesn't like green clothes, especially not that color green, in front of the green screen used to take the photo that will be superimposed. The final product had me with green hair. The sales person said it was either green hair or no shirt (which I'm sure meant that I'd be a head, arms and legs with no torso in the photo) which the kids thought might be kind of funny to see.

Hancock also had a self-guided, multi-media tour available for each person. Information was directed toward adult or youth audiences. I thought that alone was going to make our experience at Hancock all the better than that of Sears, but I was wrong. In addition to being able to see and not fight the crowds, we got to enjoy a sit down in comfortable chairs with some fantastic beverages and watch the sun and the city and just enjoy being that high-up together. Oh, and they have an open air observation area. It's not truly open because it's enclosed with a heavy metal screen, but you can step out into this area and feel the breeze on your face and the temperature on your skin, and you can hear the noise around including that of traffic and nature. That was the best!

By that time, it was getting late and we'd all declared we'd had enough for the day. So back to the train station we went. This time we travelled by cab for time's sake and when I realized that it cost just $2 more than if we had messed with the bus I decided we wouldn't be doing the bus thing the next day as we had used nearly all of the credits on the bus pass anyway. The popcorn stand was calling our name when we got to the train station, so we elected to wait on dinner and take popcorn on the train instead. We got back to the hotel about 8:30pm (after a train ride and after the kids practiced their karate in the station parking lot) and decided to eat dinner in the hotel restaurant. We'd eaten there during our previous stay so we had a good idea of what we wanted already and the price wasn't bad as we had been learning throughout the rest of our vacation. Having no swimming pool was a bummer, but we toughed it out by grabbing quick showers and jammies and then piling on that wonderful memory foam mattress and watching television. The kids wanted to watch a movie (Robots) and even though it was late I gave in to the request. After all, we were on vacation and what were we going to be late for?? Of course, mom fell asleep while the movie was playing... but not my kids. No way. With permission to stay up they were bound and determined to do just that. I was so proud of them for taking the movie out of the player and turning off the television promptly when the movie ended (their activity had caused me to wake up) and then immediately get themselves settled for sleeping. It's so nice when they know what is expected and just do it without arguing. Of course, they know that by doing what is expected they are more likely to get those freedoms in the future, so that is a big motivator for them.

Then it was off to lala land for all of us. Our vacation was starting to feel tiring.