We Went to Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago

Finally finished with all of his boring workity-work, Matt was able to spend our last day in Chicago with us. We tooled through Daley and Millennium Parks plenty more, but our ultimate destination was the Art Institute of Chicago.

Let's see some fancy art!

This one politely accommodated my baffling request to pose with the work of art.

This one... not so much. I love how even Van Gogh, himself, is giving her a look of exasperation.

I sort of got them to do this one, but then, even I gave up. Really, all I wanted to do was reshoot it with the kid holding the pitchfork in the correct hand! You'd think I was proposing that she do something genuinely embarrassing!

 To be fair, I really AM an embarrassing person to be with.

I studied Medieval Christian art, in part, in grad school, and I have a special talent for identifying all the people and icons in Crucifixion scenes, so I insisted on doing a lot of that at the museum. Lots of "Look, there's Mary, obviously, because she's about to faint, but check out the ginger chick literally trying to scale the cross--that's Mary Magdalene! Oh, and see the guy with the spear? Ooh, and the other guy with the cup? We could totally start our own magical quest to go look for them in real life--it's the basis for, like, every good adventure movie!"

In between medieval art, Van Gogh, and American Gothic, we saw all the other things:

This one is interesting because that blue chick in the foreground was at one point CUT OUT of the painting on account of she's scandalous. She was reattached, but if you look closely, you can see the seams.

  

We did a lot of looking at all the things, and then took a lunch break.

We travel a lot, and when we do, I like to pack practically all of our food for the trip. Fast food is unhealthy, sit-down food is expensive (and still tends to be unhealthy), and both options are more time-consuming than simply sitting down and eating one's packed sandwich, chips, and clementine. I like to plan for a couple of special meals during a trip, but I've found that it's just much easier to budget for groceries than it is for restaurants, and I find the experience of sitting in a park eating sandwiches to be much more enjoyable than sitting in a restaurant eating a meal.

The kids and I are easy with food--in the hotel room in the morning, we make nut butter and jelly sandwiches and bag up some chips and decide who wants clementines and who wants baby carrots and we're done until dinner. As we walked out of the art museum and into the park for lunch, however, the kids and I discussing who had made what kind of sandwich (there was a rare jar of Nutella in our grocery bag on this trip, and it had been featured in all kinds of yummy combinations), Matt reminded us all that he is NOT easy with food.

In fact, just between you and me, Matt is a fussy eater.

I offered the man half of my almond butter and raspberry jam bagel. The younger kid said that he could have some of her Nutella and jelly sandwich. There were two perfectly good granola bars up for grabs by anyone. But Matt insisted, "No, I want REAL food!"

Real food, hmm? Real food. As opposed to the imaginary lunches that I have been feeding my children as I chaperone them around Chicago and show them all the sights all by myself for two days, eh?

Fine. Since we're walking to the park, anyway, and since hot dogs are on my list of Chicago meals that I wanted to experience during our visit (we'd eaten the other item, deep-dish pizza, for dinner the other night), I suggested that we eat hot dogs instead of our packed lunches.

The kids' hot dogs had onions and relish and mustard on them. My hot dog had onions, relish, mustard, vinegar, tomato slices, jalapeños, and a pickle.

Matt's hot dog? It consisted of a plain weiner on a plain bun. A toddler wouldn't even order a hot dog that way. It was also probably--what, 400 calories, max? How that man planned to sustain himself through an entire afternoon at an art museum and then a walk back to the hotel and then an hour's drive on to the Indiana Dunes I do not know.

But at least it was real food.

My hot dog, just in case you're keeping score, was quite delicious.

Matt and I had seen our must-sees in the morning, but the museum also has a Family Scavenger Hunt, and kids get a prize for completing it, so we devoted the afternoon to that, putting the kids in charge of all navigation and clue deciphering:

Let me tell you--this scavenger hunt MADE our trip to the art museum. The kids dutifully followed us around all morning and looked at all the stuff and were interested, but it was clear that it was OUR thing, you know? But the Family Scavenger Hunt was their thing, and so they had to figure out the navigation and the clues.

Can I just say that navigating the Art Institute of Chicago is impossible? It wouldn't be terribly laid out if the signage was better, but most of the time it's absent, and when it is there, it's confusing--I swear that at one staircase, the American Art sign pointed in two different directions, and neither way would really get you to American Art.

Add to that the fact that although each gallery has a number, that number is not always (or often) displayed in that gallery, so that you can see where you actually are in order to navigate from there. The older kid would study the map deeply, draw our path from where we were to where we wanted to go, and then we'd still get lost getting there, because we couldn't follow the numbers:

Nevertheless, the Family Scavenger Hunt was huge fun, AND it got us all over the museum, looking at exhibits like the fascinating miniatures, and the paperweights, that I otherwise wouldn't have gone to see.

The kids have been asked to figure out what animal inspired the dragon's tail (it's an alligator!).

After we completed the scavenger hunt, the kids got prizes (mini sketchbooks--very awesome) and I bought postcards. I'm a big postcard buyer, but art museums are really the only places that you can still get a good selection of postcards. At a buck or so each, I feel like art print postcards are a decent price for a mini-print of a piece of art--I always pick out a few for our gallery wall or our homeschooling, and I always let the kids each choose one to put on the wall by their beds.

Our visit to Chicago connected us to lots of subjects that I'd like to slowly continue to explore in the next few weeks, not the least of which is a deeper study of some of the artists and artworks that we encountered here.

Here are some more of the Chicago-themed resources that we've been enjoying:

• A History Lover's Guide to Chicago
• DK Eyewitness Chicago
• Iconic Chicago Dishes, Drinks, and Desserts
• I Survived the Great Chicago Fire, 1871
• Hannah G. Solomon Dared to Make a Difference
• Falcons in the City: The Story of a Peregrine Family
• Chicago History for Kids: Triumphs and Tragedies in the Windy City

We Went to Chicago: Field Museum

The Field Museum is on the same museum campus as Shedd Aquarium, which means that the next day, we caught the bus there like total pros.

Meet my favorite fossil, Sue:

You might remember that I'm a big Sue fangirl--I'm fascinated by her history, and the story of her discovery and the controversy of her ownership. We visited the Museum @ Black Hills Institute over the summer, and I was excited to revisit her with that context in mind.

If you stand in exactly the correct spot, Sue can look you right in the eye:

Of course, that isn't her real skull there on the skeleton. Her real skull is upstairs, and it looks like this:

See the mirror underneath it so that you can see it from all angles? I LOVE that touch.

As the kids and I were admiring Sue and taking photos and heavily discussing all aspects of her form, a nice docent dude walked over and asked if we had any questions. You may remember this about me, but I LOVE docents, and I ALWAYS have questions.

So when the docent walked over, I was all excited to ask him the question that the kids and I had been debating amongst ourselves. You see Sue's tail?

Sue's tail has some interesting similarities to the edmontosaurus tail. Just last month, we were in the Children's Museum of Indianapolis Fossil Prep Lab, prepping specimens of neural spine (that bone above the tail) and chevron (that bone underneath the tail). So both edmontosaurus annectens and tyrannosaurus rex have those bones. But what about the actual vertebrae? One of the paleontologists at the Children's Museum took us back into the warehouse to see a cast of a complete edmontosaurus skeleton, so we could view the neural spines and chevrons where they belong, but neither the kids nor I could remember if the edmontosaurus also had vertebrae in its tail with that horizontal bone sticking out. Could the docent tell us what the name was of that bone in Sue's tail, and possibly explain if the tail structure of all dinosaurs was similar, or if there were interesting differences between dinosaur species?

The docent listened politely as I explained my question, then waited politely to make sure I'd finished and wasn't merely pausing for breath before setting off again, then paused while deliberating his answer, then finally said, "Ma'am, I cannot answer that question."

It's always awkward when you think you're acting normal and then discover that you've actually been nuerodivergently info dumping onto a complete stranger. 

Fortunately, he then asked ME some questions (about the mummified dinosaur that's on display at the Children's Museum--I love that dinosaur mummy!), and we eventually parted as friends, although I saw him still standing near Sue a couple of hours later when we again passed through the lobby, and I am 100% positive that he saw us and immediately turned his back and pretended that we weren't there.

Our admission to the Field Museum was free, on account of our local science museum, the Wonderlab, has reciprocal benefits there (I LOVE the ASTC Passport Program!), but I also bought us admission to the Field Museum's temporary exhibit on Vikings. One of my (too many) emphases in grad school was Old Norse, so I have a tediously detailed knowledge of and acutely nerdy interest in the Vikings.

Random story: As I was purchasing our admission tickets, the cashier asked how many tickets to the Viking exhibit I wanted. I looked over at the kids to make sure that there was no random adult standing with us and pretending to be my co-parent, and then said, "Um, three?"

The cashier, sensing my confusion, explained, "Well, some people only buy tickets for themselves, not their kids."

"What do they do with their kids while they're in the exhibit?"

She shrugged. "Leave them outside, I guess."

If I'd left my kids outside, I would have NO ONE to nerdily point out runes to!

And at one point, as Syd and I were looking at little figurines, I saw an image of Freyja, and happily pointed at her and exclaimed to Syd, "Look, it's Freyja! Remember when I told you about Freyja? She's the one with the cat-skin gloves!" Syd obediently looked at it and nodded in a vaguely interested way, but the couple standing just on our other side edged away from me uncomfortably. 

Neurodivergent. Info. Dump.

And Friends, this exhibit had TEXTILE specimens!!!!

Insert contented sigh.

Oh, and this is super cool:

It's excavated from a boat burial. I don't remember if the boat was burned or only buried, but either way, the wood, of course, had long decomposed by the time it was discovered, and only the rivets were left. So for this display, the curator hung the rivets from fishing line, exactly as they would be placed in the real boat!

See, it's both 3D and boat-shaped!

Coolest. Exhibit. Ever.

I also really like the Field Museum because, even though many of its exhibits are updated and quite modern, many are exactly the same as they were when the museum was first founded:

Old-school to the extreme. Will, especially, LOVES it:

This kid could walk around this museum all day, looking at every single thing in every single case and reading every single accompanying caption:

This one, on the other hand...

The Field Museum has a cool app that we played with--you scan a QR code at the exhibit, and you can see even MORE detailed information about it on your phone!

I knew we wouldn't be able to cover the entire museum in one day, so I had the kids take turns choosing galleries--we'd explore that gallery, and when we found ourselves back in the lobby, it was another kid's turn. 

Syd's first choice (after my turn--Vikings--and Will's turn--Mammals of Asia) was an updated exhibit on evolution. It began with the Big Bang, and you followed the history of the universe, then the earth, through the exhibit, passing various Extinction Level Events and seeing cool things and, partway through, finding your way into the dinosaur gallery! 

Oh, Happy Land.

Immediately after this photo was taken, I sat back down on the bench just behind me to better admire the Daspletosaurus there (this specimen used to be misidentified as an Albertasaurus!!!). A dude walked up, point and shoot camera in hand, snapped a photo of the dinosaur, then turned to me and said, "It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is!" I heartily exclaimed.

"I wonder if you'd like this book?" Random Dude then asked. "It offers another point of view."

And then, my friends, you are not going to freaking believe it, but RANDOM DUDE PULLED A RELIGIOUS TRACT OUT OF HIS SHIRT POCKET AND TRIED TO HAND IT TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'd instinctively reached my hand out when he offered, but as soon as I got a glimpse of what he was offering I snatched my hand back to my chest, then realized that I was being rude, so I smiled a SUPER crazy I Am Not Freaking Out AND Yet Am Totally Freaking Out smile, said, "Oh, no thank you," as nicely as I could, and began to giggle out of horror and embarrassment.

Dude left the dinosaur gallery immediately after this, because avoiding the crazy lady is more important than spreading the gospel.

Seriously, though--could he have made a poorer choice than to approach ME?!? I cannot have looked in any way like his target demographic, mooning over the dinosaur bones like the biggest nerdy nerd who had ever nerded. Like, has this guy even heard the gospel of the NEURAL SPINES and CHEVRONS?!? My religious conversion in the dinosaur gallery of the evolution exhibit at the science museum... that's just a non-starter. 

Okay, though, but Friends, this moment, when I was handed and ALMOST TOUCHED an anti-evolution religious tract, this moment has seared into my brain so clearly that I can clearly picture that tract.

And if I can picture it, I can research it.

And, Friends, I freaking FOUND it. For your reading pleasure/horror, I offer to you the link to the complete anti-evolution, incomprehensible religious tract entitled Big Daddy?

Suffer through it, and then rest yourself back in the arms of this welcoming, wonderful dinosaur:

Seriously, have you hugged a parasaurolophus today?

Check it out--Base Ten blocks!

Oh, and this--a ritual burial dating from the Pleistocene Epoch:

And our good friend, the mammoth:

By closing time, we were all super punchy and basically just crazed with informative overstimulation. Witness: 

Will was SO excited to see a life-sized model of a shaduf that she ran to find me, tugged me over, and then basically just beamed and pointed until I recognized it, as well. 

By the time we were ready to go, we were so dead-tired that when Will discovered that the large gift shop downstairs didn't stock the gummy dinosaurs that she'd wanted to buy from the "Sue Store" upstairs but I'd put her off because I didn't want to carry them around all day, she decided that she didn't want to walk back upstairs and go buy them.

Imagine. Too tired for gummy dinosaurs!

I conceded that in the future, we could purchase the crap that the children want to purchase in the gift shop of their origin as they encounter them, although I'm not going to be the one carrying that crap around all day. And I guess I know what to buy her for her birthday now!

We Went to Chicago: Shedd Aquarium

Here's the view from outside our hotel room:

And here's the (in my opinion) equally awesome view from INSIDE our hotel room!

Our hotel was close enough to walk to some sites, such as Millennium Park and the Art Institute of Chicago, but my plan was to take the bus to Shedd Aquarium, and--because this day was Sydney's ninth birthday--American Girl Place!

To that end, I downloaded both the Citymapper Chicago app and the CTA bus maps onto my phone to help me navigate. Citymapper is super cool in some ways, because all you have to do is plug in your starting and ending points, and it'll tell you which bus to take, where to walk to in order to catch it, when that bus will arrive, how many and which stops it'll stop at, and how long it'll take to get there.

Awesome right?

Except it doesn't really have walking directions, just a map that doesn't always have the street names conveniently listed, so I found myself orienteering, rather than simply navigating my way to this bus stop, and the particular bus stop that the app was trying to send us to... where the bloody hell IS that damn thing?!?

Sometimes the downtown Chicago streets go underground, which is where it looked like the bus stop was supposed to be, so the kids and I walked through the pedestrian area instead (it was lovely), and then down the steps, and then... across the street, maybe? We walked across the street, found a bus stop, waited by it--and then, going the other way, saw the #4 bus. Dang it!

So we walk across the street--where's the bus stop? Down half a block, under the bridge. Wait there--why won't you stop for us, #4 bus?!? We're definitely at the bus stop that says #4, so this time we wait, pointedly, directly next to the #4 sign--why won't you stop for us, frakking frack frack #4 BUS?!?!?!?

I am seriously condensing time here, just so you know. It's been probably an hour, by this time, with much walking back and forth and getting lost and sitting down on a bench to "let Momma just take some deep breaths and think, okay?"

"I'll just take the kids back to the hotel and they can swim all day," I thought.

"We'll take a cab. How much can it cost?" I thought.

"The damn aquarium is less than two miles away. We could have walked there by now!" I thought.

"I have two Master's degrees. I will NOT let the Chicago Transit Authority beat me!" I thought.

Finally, I said to the kids, "Let's just start walking, and see what happens. Maybe we'll think of something, or maybe the walk will be really great."

We trudged back through the pedestrian area and then took a right on Columbus. We'd walk through Millennium Park, maybe hit the Daley Park playground again. A couple of blocks down, though, what do we see across the street?

THE #4 BUS!!!!1!!!!!

The Citymapper app shows you the entire bus schedule of the bus that you want, but I couldn't quite figure out from that or the CTA site the exact map location of #4's adjacent stops, which was the final straw in me deciding that we'd just walk to the damn aquarium.

Fortunately, we were happening to walk right past #4's previous stop, a stop that it was actually stopping at, a stop that it was actually switching bus drivers at so that we actually had time to cross the street and run over to it and step on board it!

Thank you, Universe!

The night before, I'd had Matt walk across the street to the CTA vending machine at Navy Pier to buy me a bus pass and put some money on it, just so I wouldn't have to deal with quarters and dimes, and once I also figured out how to scan that, we were made in the shade. The Citymapper app does show you the list of bus stops, marking yours, so it's easy to see where to request your stop.

And that one bus stop that we worked so hard to find and waited at? The bus just blew by it as if it wasn't even there. That stop is on the CTA map, too! What the hell?

The bus driver had given us directions to walk to the Museum Campus after we got off at our stop (nothing like not knowing how to scan your bus pass to mark you as a total noob), and we wandered more or less in the correct direction to find it and take the pedestrian underpass into it.

But then... did I mention how foggy it was on this morning?

It was SO FOGGY!!!

That also did NOT help us in our navigations to the bus stop, and it did us no favors now, either. Museum Campus is just what you'd expect--grassy expanse with walking paths, and at each intersection, signs that point you in the proper direction. Since we could see nothing but fog, we followed each path to its intersection, took the path for Shedd Aquarium, followed it to the next intersection, repeat.

Except, after diligently doing this a couple of times, we then came to an intersection with no sign for Shedd Aquarium.

"Kids," I said. "This means that from where we're standing, we should be able to easily see Shedd Aquarium. It should be right in front of us. Sooooo....."

Nothing. Fog as far as the eye could see (which was about ten feet).

We wandered a bit, roved around, until eventually a roving kid stumbled onto a set of stairs. We followed the stairs up into the fog...

...and finally got to see some freaking fish, approximately two hours after leaving our hotel that was less than two miles away.

It was worth it:

Honestly, I didn't love Shedd Aquarium, because it's crazy pricey, and because we've been to Monterey Bay Aquarium several times, and Monterey Bay Aquarium is probably the best aquarium in the world. But it's been several years since we've been there, and Shedd Aquarium was impressive enough to the kids.

  

SHARK!!!

I really liked this coral garden.

Check this out, because you've been so good:

Shark eggs!!! How cool is that?!?

When Will finds a book that she wants in a shop, I photograph it and interlibrary loan it for her. This book was really interesting!

We finally emerged into the sunlight, in a world that was completely transformed from its morning fog.

  

 And yes, you can easily see Shedd Aquarium. Basically as soon as you exit the pedestrian underpass, you can see it looming in the distance, "SHEDD AQUARIUM" written large upon it, giant banners featuring aquatic life all over it.

Silly tourists.