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Tourist In My Own Hometown
Jun. 1st, 2008 07:48 pmI'm originally from Chicago, but I live in the suburbs now. My dad and his wife are in town visiting and wanted to do downtowny things, so we spent much of the day on the museum campus.
The Field Museum of Natural History has two new temporary exhibits going right now, one on mythical creatures and one on natural disasters. The mythical creatures exhibit was okay. There was some good stuff in there (I especially liked the sea monster section), but there was a lot of reading material attached to each display and the text was a little on the dry side.
The natural disasters exhibit was much cooler. There was a spot where you could stomp on the floor and see the results on a seismograph, and there was also a panel where you could flip levers to choose gas and rock content, then push a button to see an animation of the type of volcano you just created. The tornado section included footage from the first video probe ever to be hit dead on by a tornado displayed on 360° screens so you could watch the twister come right at you and recede away behind you, and a bunch of debris from the Greensburg, Kansas, EF5 tornado that I mentioned in my post about the Severe Storms Seminar at Fermilab this year. The debris was accompanied by pictures of it where it was found.
After lunch, we went to the Shedd Aquarium. There were no special exhibits going on, but there was a new baby beluga whale in the Oceanarium. I also like watching the rays, and there was a baby stingray in the central reef exhibit. It was very cute. We also spent some time just sitting on the benches outside the Shedd and watching the boats on the lake because it was such a nice day.
We finished off the day with dinner at The Italian Village. The food there is amazing. The décor is a little dark (I needed a flashlight to read the menu), but the walls are painted with Italian townscapes and there are little twinkling lights set into the walls and ceiling to mimic stars in the night sky.
We got home late and we're all pooped, but I had a good time.
The Field Museum of Natural History has two new temporary exhibits going right now, one on mythical creatures and one on natural disasters. The mythical creatures exhibit was okay. There was some good stuff in there (I especially liked the sea monster section), but there was a lot of reading material attached to each display and the text was a little on the dry side.
The natural disasters exhibit was much cooler. There was a spot where you could stomp on the floor and see the results on a seismograph, and there was also a panel where you could flip levers to choose gas and rock content, then push a button to see an animation of the type of volcano you just created. The tornado section included footage from the first video probe ever to be hit dead on by a tornado displayed on 360° screens so you could watch the twister come right at you and recede away behind you, and a bunch of debris from the Greensburg, Kansas, EF5 tornado that I mentioned in my post about the Severe Storms Seminar at Fermilab this year. The debris was accompanied by pictures of it where it was found.
After lunch, we went to the Shedd Aquarium. There were no special exhibits going on, but there was a new baby beluga whale in the Oceanarium. I also like watching the rays, and there was a baby stingray in the central reef exhibit. It was very cute. We also spent some time just sitting on the benches outside the Shedd and watching the boats on the lake because it was such a nice day.
We finished off the day with dinner at The Italian Village. The food there is amazing. The décor is a little dark (I needed a flashlight to read the menu), but the walls are painted with Italian townscapes and there are little twinkling lights set into the walls and ceiling to mimic stars in the night sky.
We got home late and we're all pooped, but I had a good time.
