Chicago - Navy Pier

http://www.navypier.com/

There is a lot to see and do and Navy Pier, and we did not come close to doing all of this. The web site has a map, and if you are planning on going, consulting with the map first is a good idea.

We had two specific objectives, which were taking an architecture tour of the city and visiting the stained glass museum, so we mainly focused on those. We walked the entire pier in the process of doing that - which was something we wanted to do in itself - but did not go into everything.

There are many attractions there which seem like they would be popular with natives. They have a children's museum, IMAX theater, and carnival rides, and it seems to host a lot of events. However, it is also a central place for tourism. Tours by bus and boat book here, and there is a trolley stop, and while there are multiple spots for bike rental, this is a good place for it, with easy access to a park and paths.

We entered under the sign, and had tour booths on our right and the buildings on our left. The boats you see on the right are for tours on Lake Michigan. The boats for Chicago River tours depart from a different spot, but can be booked here. We booked our tour and had about an hour to wait, so made our first entrance into the Family Pavilion.

Specifically, we were checking out the McDonald's of the Future. We actually found that a little underwhelming. The futuristic part is that they do a laser light show every hour, but either they did not do one while we were there, or it is not that exciting. Also, there was a separate section of counter for a Dessert Bar, which was closed, but did not seem to offer anything different, or that you could not get at the regular counters. So, it would appear McDonald's is going to remain pretty consistent for the future.

There was a lot of seating, which was also available for customers of the food court restaurants. We did end up eating lunch there after the tour, and we all ate from different places, which was our first time in a food court setting in Chicago.

Many of the shops are tourism themed, so we bought some postcards and magnets here. I bought a carved baby elephant from a stand, which has nothing to do with Chicago - it is just cute. That and the Mold-A-Rama Lincoln were my only two souvenirs.

As the stores are not that distinctive, this may be why the Pier's web site does not really highlight them. However, we did really enjoy one specific store, so I want to call that out. We had a fun time in iCandy Sugar Shoppe.

There are two iCandy stores. One is in the Mall of America, and that one seems to have a stronger web presence. We enjoyed this one a lot. It was a little like Sweet Factory, in that you could fill from different bins, but there was also salt water taffy, and there was also a lot of harder to find candy. We had Valomilks on the correct side of the Rockies, and saw Sky Bars again. A lot of our appreciation for that comes from reading Steve Almond's Candyfreak. There were also cute related items, like plush Nerds. Well, they had two, and now Julie and Maria have them. So, there was a lot of nostalgia looking around, and the staff was very helpful; that's a definite place to check out.

http://icandysugarshoppe.lovefromcompanies.com/

I don't think the Amazing Chicago Funhouse Maze was open while we were there, but there were some mirrors in that area to give a feel for it. I will write about the Stained Glass Museum in its own post, but the main point I want to make is just how much there was. We walked a long time to get to the museum, to where we wondered if we had missed it, and then we were amazed by how long it went. And even then there was still the grand ballroom.

So it feels like the Pier is very long, though it is really only 3300 feet - less than a mile. There is a lot there.

Chicago - Mold-A-Rama

Our first encounter with Mold-A-Ramas, affectionately known as MARs, happened at the Lincoln Park Zoo, in the Primate House. We are used to seeing souvenir penny machines everywhere, and we saw some of those too, but this was different.

A child looking for two dollars alerted us to the machine, and we were puzzled by it. Wondering aloud, an adult there with his girlfriend said "It's the best thing ever!" and he did not seem to be sarcastic at all.

The machine has a mold, and for two dollars it will send liquid into the mold and it will harden into a blow-molded plastic figurine. Our helper told us that there was also one at the Museum of Science and Industry.

Well, we had to try it. Maria put in two dollars and got a green gorilla. We could smell the hot plastic, and feel that it was still warm when it came out. It was pretty cool.

Our next encounter was at the Skydeck. As we were leaving we found two more MARs. I opted for the blue Abraham Lincoln, though  I could have gotten a model of the Willis Tower as well. That is my main souvenir of the trip. I have not had the gorilla and Lincoln duel each other, because Maria took the gorilla to her classroom, but still, they could.

While this may not seem like much of a Chicago thing, it was a part of our trip. Also, it appears that there are only two companies making them, one of which is in Illinois (the other is is Florida) so that this was the first time we have seen the machines is not a coincidence.

They do have quite a following, with web sites listing where people find them and what they have. The mold and the colors can be changed out, and people will update that when Christmas figures come in, or zoo animals change to dinosaurs. It's pretty fun.

I will be keeping an eye out for more; we have a lot of places we want to go.

http://mold-a-rama.com/

https://www.facebook.com/MoldARamaLocations

http://www.moldamania.com/current-locations

Chicago - Chicago Dogs

Different foods are associated with different places, and so when you are there it makes sense to try them, and get the full experience. You can get gelato in Portland, but you need to get it in Italy. We knew we needed to try Chicago pizza, and asking around everyone had suggestions. We knew Chicago also had a specific style of hot dog, and no one had any suggestions for that.

We also asked about other foods. A lot of what people mention is the different kinds of ethnic food, especially Polish, but there were no concrete suggestions, and we did not have endless time and money, so we did not pursue that. Someone suggested steakhouses and barbecue, but that did not sound like it would be a specifically Chicago thing, so we held off on that too. The hot dog remained a goal, but without any suggestions on where to go, how would we know we were getting a real one?

Riding the elevator down from Skydeck, we found ourselves in the gift shop.

Clearly this was a place where they took it seriously. They also served food.

Speaking to the employee, my sisters had some trepidation about getting the full thing. They just got regular hot dogs, with ketchup, mustard, and neon relish. I suppose the fact that the store was willing to put ketchup on a hot dog is just a concession to tourists, but if there is any place in Chicago where you would need to make such a concession, it is probably here, even though it might also be the place with the most philosophical opposition. The service industry is full of such compromises.

But I was there for the real deal, and that is what I got. One all-beef frank on a poppyseed bun, with mustard and bright green relish, topped with chopped onions and celery salt, and served with tomato slices, peppers, and a dill spear. Tradition indicates it was created during the Great Depression, providing a full meal for a reasonable price:

How was it? Okay. My deal is that while I never do put ketchup on a hot dog, I also never put mustard or relish or anything else on a hot dog. I like them plain. I wanted to try the flavor combination, and I did, but when the second pepper fell off, I did not retrieve it, and I could easily go the rest of my life without ever putting condiments on a hot dog again. I like dill pickle spears, but I don't really associate them with hot dogs.

Some things you just do for the experience, and then once is enough.

I probably am more awesome than my sisters.

Chicago - Skydeck

http://www.theskydeck.com/

Chicago has been very important in the history of architecture, including the history of skyscrapers, so it makes sense to have a very tall building there.

Skydeck is an observation deck at the top of the Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower. Yes, that is all about corporate naming rights. I know when we were planning the trip, we were thinking that we needed to see the Sears Tower, and as I looked up the address it looked familiar, and I saw that it was the same as Skydeck, thus we already had tickets through our City Pass. That may indicate some branding issues.

It is nonetheless very popular. The place was packed, and I am pretty sure that will always be the case. I suppose it is something that you have to do. I totally recommend the City Pass, and not only does that include a ticket, but it is an Express Ticket, eliminating some wait time, so you totally should do it.

I guess that is sounding like faint praise. You do get a get view, and it was interesting seeing all of those places that either we had just visited or were going to visit. You can see four states, and Lake Michigan, which is at least interesting. It's just sort of that there is all there is.

Looking at the photos, the most disappointing one is on the clear floor, pointing straight down, and there is no real sense that it is that high. That may just be me, because I think I felt similarly about the CN Tower in Toronto. It's not that it's bad; it's just that I kind of look and it's down. Some people feel the same way about the Grand Canyon.

I don't really have any photos of the building from that day, because when you are outside you are too close to get a good shot. We thought about going to the John Hancock Observatory, and we might have been able to get a good shot of the Willis Tower from there, but we did not end up having enough time.

http://jhochicago.com/en/

The Willis Tower is a regular office building, with business being transacted. Skydeck is kind of its own thing. It has its own entrance at street level, then you go down one level where you can get tickets, go through security, and take the elevator to the top. You return to this level after coming down, and there is a gift shop, restaurant, and small displays of items from Chicago's history, like Lincoln Logs and items that survived the Chicago Fire.

The next few posts are going to take place in that basement level part of the attraction.

Chicago - The Field Museum

http://fieldmuseum.org/

There were two places in Chicago that I consider my favorites, and in both cases it was not just the quality of what they had, but the quantity. It did not matter how many amazing things you had seen, there was always more. One was the Art Institute, which we will get to in a few weeks, and the other was the Field Museum.

I remember thinking at one point that it was like the world; everywhere you look there is more. We would go wandering through a gallery, and it would seem like we had come a long way, and then when we came out, we had come sort of far, but not by comparison to the whole. I know the museum is finite, but technically the earth is finite too - they can both still keep you busy for a long time. And it was appropriate that I first felt this with the Field Museum, because so much of it is about the riches of Earth.

First there is Sue, right at the entrance. You can marvel at the completeness and preservation of her skeleton, but then when you go upstairs you see her real head, because it would be too heavy for the skeleton to hold up. So then you think about the role that the muscles and tendons and ligaments play, and that is pretty cool. Also, you see a case where some other parts are on display, and read that the reason they are separate is that they don't know where to put them. After all of the study, and all they have learned, there is still more to learn.

We did not get upstairs right away. We started out in the nature walk and wandered through several areas of taxidermy. Yes, we got to see the Lions of Tsavo, and no, they were not scary. Still, that was something that I had wanted to see since 1996, and there they were. Also, the presentation was interesting. I had read before that the male lions of that region, which is very hot, do not grow manes, but the video added that if you move lions from Tsavo to another region, they will. That started me imagining non-woolly mammoths, and woolly elephants, which I had not really thought of before, but was able to think of more as we watched a short film about mammoths and got to see more of their remains upstairs.

That was just a piece though. There were so many types of animals. I think where it really started to sink in was with the birds. It would be easy to focus on large mammals, which make impressive displays, but every type of bird I could think of was there, large and tiny. I know they did not have every single species there, for any Class, but everyone was well-represented, and the displays had a real feeling for the animals in them.

The only time I have seen anything comparable was the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in DC. It's been a few years (2005), but I think the Field Museum was better. It reminded us a little of the La Brea Tar Pits, too, because there were also skeletons, but there was just so much of everything.

We focused on zoology and paleontology. We did not get to spend a lot of time with botany and mineralogy and anthropology. I'm not sure how long it would take to really give everything a good look, but certainly more time than we had.

I mentioned both that there was feeling in the animal displays, and that the Lions of Tsavo were not that scary, at least not in the way William Goldman described. However, one that was a little more frightening was the Man-eater of Mfuwe, downstairs.

It may be that he was bigger - he looked bigger - and that it was more recent, 1991 instead of 1898. Recent estimates have knocked down the Tsavo lions kills from 140 to 35, which is still more than six for Mfuwe, but the six are undisputed. It may not hurt that the Mfuwe lion was never a rug. However, part of it is definitely the display. When the lion killed its sixth victim, it strutted through the middle of town carrying the victim's laundry bag. So the addition of a laundry by the lion's feet reinforces that you are looking at a cocky and cold-blooded killer.

And yet, right across from that is Bushman, a large lowland gorilla who was temperamental, and could be dangerous, but was a beloved fixture at the Lincoln Park Zoo, and the father of many gorillas.

(There is an interesting story about him at http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-18/news/ct-met-bushman-visit-20130318_1_bushman-gorilla-chicago-zoo.)

Perhaps one thing that tied it all together was a series of sculptures by Malvina Hoffman. Showing different races and ethnicities, there is a real sensitivity and warmth. The humanity of the subjects shines through:

http://fieldmuseum.org/explore/malvina-hoffman

I was also able to spend some time "Traveling the Pacific", finding reminders of New Zealand and Hawaii there. All of us went through a traveling exhibit, "Creatures of Light: Nature's Bioluminescence".  My sisters liked it better than I did. I felt like it was too much replication, without enough showing of the actual creatures, whether that was done through photos or videos. There is reasonable room for disagreement on how to convey that which cannot actually be contained in a museum. However, then we came out to a hogan, and Native American exhibits, including some work by a contemporary artist, Bunky Echo-Hawk, and it was a reminder that there is this present world too, all tied in with the past.

The one other thing I will mention is that I had more issues with my camera here than anyone else. I wouldn't say I actually have any orbs, there are a lot of lights and interference. It was enough to cause me to do an internet search, and some sites do call the museum one of the most haunted spots in Chicago. Well, there are a lot of dead things there, but there is a lot of life too.

I wish we could have had more time there, and I would love to go back. Recommended for anyone.

Chicago - Shedd Aquarium

http://www.sheddaquarium.org/

The Shedd Aquarium combines some of the better points of both small and large aquariums. They divide into different regional areas, so any one room is manageable, but there are many rooms and many animals.

I don't know that I can do a good job covering the whole thing, and the web site is pretty good for that, allowing you to explore by animal or by exhibit.

One of the key reasons we wanted to go was to see beluga whales, which we love, and we have seen them before but the had a lot here. My inability to get good pictures of them holds true, but we still saw them, and that was good.

We have seen Magellanic penguins before, but this was the first time we got to see Rockhoppers. In addition, they had a great chart showing the different penguin species sorted by the climates they live in, which was kind of cool.

There were different types of turtles all over, which we love. There were also many frogs and snakes and other species that live in and around water that are not specifically fish. Of the fish, we loved the seahorses, and it was touching to me to see a tank for the Mekong, because that holds a special place in my heart. Most of the exhibits had good visibility. The octopus was hiding, but they always do that.

I have always been creeped out by lampreys, and I got to see a whole bunch of them here. It did not help; I still find them creepy.

A lot of it is just the atmosphere. You go around and see something odd or cute or beautiful, whether it's a jellyfish or an otter, and you enjoy that and move on. Navigation is pretty good, and the decor is beautiful. There is a marine theme that is carried through with light fixtures and carvings, and a lot of it is really beautiful.

We had panini for lunch at one of the cafes. The prices seemed pretty reasonable, and we ate outside where we had a great view of Lake Michigan and the city.

If I would make one recommendation, it would be to split up the Shedd and the Field Museum. It makes sense to keep them together because they are so close, but they are also so big, and have so much to see, that it makes for kind of a big day.

Chicago - Giordano's Pizza

We heard many good things about the food in Chicago, and a lot of it was going to be for things that we could not try. The one food festival was at a different time of year, we did not have a lot of money, and it was going to be a fairly brief trip. However, we knew Chicago had it's own style of pizza and hot dogs, and those were priorities, so for those we asked around.

There were three places that came up over and over again. One sounded like Luminati's, which didn't sound right. It was only in researching this article that I realized it was Lou Malnati's. So, when we found a pizza cookbook, and looked in the section in the back and the other two were there, Lou Malnati's totally may have been there and I missed it.

Uno's was mentioned, and was in the book, as was Giordano's, but the biggest factor in us choosing Giordano's was that there was one near our hotel, and so we could have the taxi from Lincoln Park take us to pizza, then walk back, and that just worked.

I have no doubt that any of the other places had really good pizza, and given a chance would be happy to try them, but choosing based on proximity did not hurt us in anyway, because Giordano's was delicious.

It was pretty crowded. We got there and there was a 45-minute wait for a table. They had us put in our pizza order anyway, so that made things more efficient. We gave our order and then waited in the bard, where we could see into the area where they were working the dough.

We ended up choosing the medium pizza with two fillings: Canadian bacon for my sisters and black olives for me. (I feel like sausage would have been more Chicago, but what can you do?)

We got our table in the upper area. The walls were covered with old newspaper pages, giving a sense of history. The first Giordano's was opened in Chicago in 1974,  but the pizza recipe has been in development going back 200 years.

We ordered our beverages, and they arrived, followed soon after by our pizza. It was sliced into eight pieces. The server gave us each one, then left the plate on a stand in the middle of the table. The height was easy for serving, but not an issue for impeding conversation. Still, I think it's real purpose is to show off the pizza. Well, it was impressive.

I like thin crust pizza and thick crust pizza, and American and Italian pizza, but this is it's own thing. It really celebrates the cheese. It was savory and filling. We each had two pieces and were done. No appetizers or desserts were necessary, though their dessert menu was intriguing.

The staff was reasonably attentive, though again, they were pretty busy. The Bears had a home game that day, so that may have led to some increased business, but I suspect they are always pretty popular.

We thought that it would be nice to get back, or to try one of the other recommended places, but there just wasn't time. We are at least glad we got what we did - no regrets about that.

http://giordanos.com/

http://www.loumalnatis.com/

http://761.unotogo.com/zgrid/proc/site/sitep.jsp