For some time Karen has wanted to take Rachel to the Field Museum. We decided to do it this summer. Coincidentally Karen’s sister Sue offered to let us use her house in Racine, WI, as a base of operations. We gratefully accepted.
We picked up Rachel about 7:30 in the morning so that Lance in Cherise could get to work on time. We came back to Cedar Rapids, did some last-minute packing and then headed for Sue’s. We didn’t have anything planned for that day, just travel.
July 10, 2008
This was our big day for the Field Museum. Despite careful travel planning, we got thrown off course with road detours and closings. We ended up coming into town traveling south on Lakeshore Drive instead of taking the interstate straight to the parking lot. You would think that they would have an interstate that goes directly from downtown Milwaukee to downtown Chicago. They don’t.
We parked by Soldier Field and went into the museum. As an educator Karen got in for free with her general admission, but had to pay for a special exhibit we saw, Mythic Creatures.
The first order of business was to see Sue, the T-Rex. She is right there as you walk in. We had our pictures taken together and I walked around her once or twice taking cha-cha photos so I could make stereo views.
Later, after we had seen a little more of the museum we had lunch with Sue in the background.
Rachel wanted to see everything in the museum, even if it meant looking at things with at a frantic pace. We went to see the Mythic Beasts exhibit and Rachel got a book on unicorns that included several action figures. The section with the other dinosaur skeletons was also a “must see”. By this time my feet had started to hurt quite a bit and while Rachel and Karen saw the rest of the things they wanted to, I had a little sit down on a bench in the lobby.
Finding our way home turned out to be much easier than coming down even if the traffic was three times as bad. It was bumper to bumper almost all the way from Chicago to Racine. As we approached Racine we ran into some nasty weather. It was a very strange cloud formation, not like a tornado, but more like coming upon the edge of a hurricane with the eye beyond. A fun day.