After our standard wakening and eating of the free breakfast, we loaded up early and drove to South Chicago and the Museum of Science and Industry.
This is the largest science museum in the Western Hemisphere.
The museum features a vast array of awesome exhibits, and these are all indoors so you get an idea of how big the place is:
- a German submarine (U-505) captured during World War II
- a 3,500 square foot model railroad that has a scale model Chicago skyline, mountain range and then a scale model Seattle on the other side
- the first diesel-powered streamlined stainless-steel passenger train (Pioneer Zephyr)
- a NASA space capsule used on the Apollo 8 mission.
- a Boeing 727 hanging from the ceiling
- an Omnimax theater
- a steam locomotive
- a working toy assembly line
- a genetics lab
- a chicken hatchery (yes, we saw chicks hatched)
- a mock-up of a Chicago street from the early 1900s
- and so on . . .
The building was initially built as The Palace of Fine Arts for 1893 World's Columbian Exposition (better known as the Chicago World's Fair), then it housed the Field Museum and has been the science museum for 75 years. The building itself is a museum piece with its massive halls and beautiful rotunda entrance.
We stayed there for five hours and did not see everything. That is pretty good though with two kids! We played in the great lawn out front and enjoyed the clear blue sky before departing the grounds.
We spent the rest of the day exploring the city by car, using our GPS to visit certain areas we wanted to see. We stopped at Wrigley Field and took Rigby's picture underneath the famous Cubs sign as well as with the Ernie Banks "Mr Cub" statue.
Our meal of the evening consisted of some great Thai food at Siam Pasta in North Chicago. We ordered lots of items. Rigby ate a plate of fried Tofu and soy sauce - he said it tastes like chicken. Lucy sort of picked through stuff, but she ate at the hotel later.
We got back to the hotel early to prepare for our last day in the Windy City.
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