Tag Archives: Chicago

Road Trip to LA

Hello Friends and Family!

It’s been a while…

Right now Trevor and I are planning our move to Los Angeles in August.  We purposefully planned it so that we hit some cool destinations, but that we’re sleeping in a city with friends every night so that we don’t have to pay for hotels or sleep in our car.  This is our route:

Boston > Elverson, Pennsylvania (Trevor’s hometown) > Columbus, Ohio > Chicago, Illinois > Encampment, Wyoming > Fort Collins, Colorado > Colorado Springs, CO > Grand Canyon > Casa Grande, Arizona (Trevor’s sister) > Los Angeles!

Approximate map:

If any of you have suggestions to cool things to see or do along this path, let me know :)   We greatly appreciate the suggestions.

Art Institute of Chicago: Life on a Small Scale

I’m sure if you’ve followed this blog for any amount of time, you know that I’m obsessed with chandeliers… but would you believe that this one is merely 3 inches long?  Welcome to the Art Institute of Chicago’s world of miniatures.  Aside from many of the famous works listed in a previous blog, my favorite exhibit was definitely an expansive permanent of miniatures houses– many based off the homes of royalty.  Check out some of my favorite houses below:

Each miniature world was recessed into the walls like so.  The coolest part was that you could move around and peek into the rooms beyond the first one.  Many of the rooms went far into the wall, with scenery far beyond the house.

For instance, if you moved to the right of the above room, you could see out the doors and windows.  Look at the amazing detail!  It looks like a real room, right?

The lighting in each of the rooms was very beautiful.  I wish I could use them for a set of a claymation film or something…

If you peered through one of the tiny doors, you could see this beautiful trellis and a garden beyond.  6 inches tall– amazing!

And through another window, a patio and mountain range beyond.

Another less regal, but equally intriguing miniature room…

And finally, a set that is supposed to be a German home.  Notice the lake and hills in the background.  There were also church interiors, Japanese homes and Chinese homes.  I’m guessing there were at least 20-30 miniature homes in total.

So– if you ever go to the Art Institute of Chicago, make sure and check out the miniatures collection in the basement next to Photography :)

More later, H

365 Day Photo Project: Day 32

Day 32:  More photos from my hotel room at the Chicago Westin on Magnificent Mile

The John Hancock Building

The hotel room… Complete with James Franco.  Score!

Fluffy, fluffy

If you look realllllllllly closely at the windows you can see my reflection taking the picture… but barely.

CHI-TOWN! The Museum of Science and Industry and Millennium Park

THE MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY: I seriously debated whether or not I should go to this museum, since I’d already scienced-myself-out on Friday, and the Museum of Science and Industry is much further from my hotel than the rest of the museums.  However, I was extremely glad I did end up going and I spent the whole day there.  No wonder they call it one of the “7 Wonders of Chicago!”  It was probably the most impressive sciencey museum I’ve ever been to!

To call it “The Museum of Science and Industry” is a huge understatement and pretty misleading—instead, if they had more space on their building, they should’ve called it “The Museum of Science, Industry, Transportation, History, Models, and Everything Else on Earth except for Fine Arts.”  This museum literally had it all.  So here are some of my favorite exhibits:

1) The German U-Boat:  Deep under the ground, the museum had a huge exhibit on the Navy in World War II (see—more history-ey than sciencey), which included a real German U-Boat captured by the Allies in World War Two.  Tickets to tour the U-Boat were an extra $8 but it was totally worth it.  Our tour guide was very informative, and it was great to learn more about the history of the Hunter-Killer Groups that fought in World War II.  I toured a WWII submarine when I went to Pearl Harbor in 2006, but this exhibit was much, much more interesting and well designed.

2) The Farm Exhibit:  Having lived in a rural area most of my life, you would think I wouldn’t appreciate a farm industry exhibit designed for city-slickers, but this was actually quite cool.  They had freshly hatched chicks and exhibits on cows, pigs, soy, corn and much more.  They replaced the metal panels on a combine with clear glass in the corn exhibit so you could see how it worked inside, which was very cool as well.

The Chicago part of the train model, as seen from above

3) The Train Exhibit: The Museum of Science and Industry has the coolest model train set I have ever—and probably will ever—see.  It shows the train trip from Seattle to Chicago and is larger than a commercial 727 jet plane—not joking.  I know this because the model train set is underneath the plane exhibit.  Each city has all of its proper skyscrapers and city highlights with farm towns between the two.  Even cooler—every five minutes or so, the lights dim in the area and the little tiny street lights light up on the model as if it were night-time.  So cool!  I sat there like a kid for 30 minutes watching it and looking at all the amazing detail.

The Seattle part of the train model

4) The Coal Mine Exhibit: By the time I’d seen several exhibits at the museum, I was convinced that the museum went a mile underground.  The U-Boat exhibit is at least 3, maybe 4 stories underground.  The Coal Mine starts on the ground floor and then they take you into a fake mine-elevator and go underground even further into a fake coalmine.  From there, you take a little train around to different “parts of the mine” to see various different methods of mining.  I learned so much!  For example, did you know that the most common method of mining requires a $16 million dollar machine that can only be used once?  That’s a lot of money for a disposable item—but I’m sure they are making so much more off the coal that $16 million is a drop in the bucket.

5)  The Christmas Tree Exhibit:  This exhibit was only up for a day after I left, but if you go to Chicago at Christmas time, this is an excellent one.  The main hall of the museum had about 50-100 Christmas Trees each decorated for a different country.  So beautiful.

These were just a few of the exhibits that I enjoyed—they also have a real toy factor where kids can make their own toys, a 60-foot long model to scale of the White House, a plane exhibit, a chemistry exhibit, part of the BodyWorlds exhibit, an exhibit of cars from the Model T to present-day, models of all the major skyscrapers in the U.S.—made out of Legos, an Omnimax Theater (I saw the Human Body show—very cool except for the part where they popped a zit… in close up… on an Imax-sized screen.  Terrifying.  Absolutely Terrifying), a life-sized model of a street 100 years ago with stores that you can go into, and so much more.  I was there all day, and yet I was only able to see a fraction of the museum!

Bottom Line: One of the coolest museums I’ve ever been to.  Appropriate and fun for all ages and not just for science people!  5/5 stars.

MILLENNIUM PARK: Millennium Park was my last stop in Chicago and well worth the time.  If you like public art, jelly beans or shiny things, this is the park for you!  Millennium has a great collection of public works—the most famous of which is “Cloud Gate” – a giant shiny bean that offers a unique perspective of the city.  Another plus—free ice skating!

Bottom Line: Fun, free and located conveniently downtown.  Don’t miss it!  4/5 stars.

On the whole, I really enjoyed my trip to Chicago and hope to go there again soon.  Next time, I’ll make a point of visiting the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Frank Lloyd Wright house, the John Hancock building, a Chicago Architectural Society tour and the Museum of Mexican Art.  There is so much to do in Chicago and I just didn’t have enough time.  Can’t wait!

CHI-TOWN! Sears Tower and the Navy Pier

More sight-seeing in Chicago!

SEARS TOWER: At 103 stories, the view from the Sears (Willis) Tower was great!  It offers no more than your typical skyscraper view, but one thing that makes it better than the Empire State Building is that you are looking out windows instead of over guardrails, so you aren’t freezing to death and your view is not obstructed by thick rails.  One downfall—with the nasty Chicago weather, you could only see for about 1.5-2 miles.  Still—pretty cool.  For all of you out there who are afraid of heights, be warned—they have recently attached these little glass boxes (about the size of an elevator) to the sides of the tower so you can walk out on the glass and see nothing but the 103 story drop below you.  So cool!  Unless you are afraid of heights, I imagine.

Bottom Line: Nothing that unique on the skyscraper front, but a cool view of Chicago.  4/5 stars.

NAVY PIER: Chicago’s Navy Pier is the equivalent of Faneuil Hall in Boston or South Street Seaport in New York City—a cool building by the water with tons of touristy shops and good restaurants.  What is unique about the Navy Pier is a) the huge Ferris Wheel, b) the Imax theater c) the display of Tiffany stained glass and d) the magnificent early-1900s ballroom.  To get to the ballroom, you just have to be persistent in finding unlocked doors until you reach the end of the pier.  Boy, was it worth it.  The ballroom was breath-taking and the view from the end of the pier was almost as cool as the view from the Planetarium.

Bottom Line: A fun place to hang out and get dinner.  3.5/5 stars.

CHI-TOWN! Museum Campus: Aquarium, Field Museum and Planetarium

On Friday, I spent most of my day on Chicago’s museum campus.  All three admissions were included in my Chicago City Pass.  On to the reviews!

SHEDD AQUARIUM: As far as non-Seaworld aquariums go, Shedd is tops.  Shedd has very extensive collections of fish and aquatic mammals, including several cute otters and sea lions.  The best part of the aquarium—and what makes it more like Seaworld (which I love!)  is the “Fantasea” show—showcasing dolphins, beluga whales, sea lions, penguins and hawks.  An excellent show!  They let the penguins roam around the audience, which was definitely a kid-favorite.

Bottom Line: A fantastic aquarium experience; well worth the price of admission!  4/5 stars.

THE FIELD MUSEUM: Yawn, it’s just another natural history museum.  The field museum had some cool stuff, but nothing I haven’t seen before (other than Sue- the most complete T-rex skeleton ever found).  The museum has a very extensive collection of dead-animal dioramas, like all other natural history museums, but having just seen live animals at the aquarium, it was kind of depressing.  Of course, the museum has the typical collection of mummies, dinosaurs and artifacts from Native American cultures.

One unique thing—a temporary exhibit about diamonds and diamond mining.  However, what made this exhibit cool for me was not the science behind it, but my girlish desire to stare at shiny things encased in silver and gold.  Realistically, I could have saved myself the extra admission to see the exhibit and just walked down the street to Tiffany’s for free.

Bottom Line: Nothing I haven’t seen before.  Instead, spend your time and money on Chicago’s Museum of Nature and Science.  2/5 stars.

ADLER PLANETARIUM: On the whole, I couldn’t care less about the science behind anything non-terrestrial.  I am terrible with math, terrible with physics, and terrible with chemistry, which basically rules out astronomy as an interest for me.  However, I really enjoyed the Adler Planetarium.  It is the first planetarium built in the Western Hemisphere and has an excellent collection of exhibits.  I learned so many interesting things about our universe!  They had a great exhibit on the Apollo program, including all sorts of real space-gear donated by the Apollo astronauts.  I also went to the Planetarium’s Night Sky Live show and really enjoyed learning about the constellations of the night sky and the galaxy we live in.

Bottom Line: Worth a look, especially if you normally wouldn’t be thrilled with the idea of going to a Planetarium (yes, that was me).  I’ve been converted!  Bring on some more Planetariums!  4/5 stars.

CHI-TOWN! Hotel InterContinental Review

Thanks to my mother’s fantastic veterinary conferences, I’ve been able to travel to many different places across the U.S.  This time: Chicago!  For all of you considering a trip to Chicago, I highly recommend it… I would probably put it at 3rd place favorite large city in the U.S.  (#1: New York, #2: Boston, #4: Denver, #5: Washington D.C., if you were wondering).  Anyways, in the 3 short days we were there, I was quite busy.  I bought the Chicago City Pass for $69 ($132 value) that included admission to Shedd Aquarium, The Field Museum, Addler Planetarium, Sears Tower and The Museum of Science and Industry, plus discounts at other locations.  On to the reviews!

HOTEL INTER-CONTINENTAL: Let’s start out with a hotel review.  Because the conference pays for my mom and I to stay there, we stayed in a very fancy hotel ($500+ / night) for free!  If you have this luxury, the Hotel InterContinental is great.  First of all, it is blocks from downtown Chicago located on the Magnificent Mile, which has great shopping.  The hotel is conveniently located near several different bus lines and the “L” (subway).  The rooms were very nice and the convention areas were even nicer.  Each floor of the convention areas had a different international theme and they were decorated accordingly—the Spanish floor, King Arthur’s Court, etc.  The grand ballroom was beautiful and the main entrance had wonderful Christmas decorations.  The hotel staff was very accommodating and helpful.

The downside:  A major downfall of the Hotel InterContinental for me was the $15 per day charge for Internet access.  That’s ridiculous!  I was more understanding because I wasn’t paying $500 a night, but if I were, I would really appreciate free or at least cheap WiFi.  Instead, I ended up going to the Starbucks across the street for WiFi.  Another problem—a few hours after we moved in (and of course after my mother had left the room for meetings), a pipe burst in our bathroom and flooded the whole room!  Luckily I got our luggage out of the way and the maintenance people were quick to come to my aide.  They moved us to a new room and all was well.  This may seem like a huge downside, but I really won’t count this against the hotel.  It was a freak accident and could happen at the nicest of places.  I would have appreciated some free WiFi for my troubles though!

Bottom Line: 4/5 stars—it would’ve gotten 5/5 stars if it weren’t for the expensive WiFi, so if that isn’t an issue for you and you can afford the rooms, it is a great hotel in the perfect location!