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

Chicago - Lincoln Park Zoo

http://www.lpzoo.org/

Lincoln Park in itself is kind of amazing, with all that there is available, and having a free zoo available 365 days a year is a part of that.

I like to consider the navigability of zoos in terms of whether you can see everything without a lot of backtracking, and I am not sure whether I can be a fair judge of that in this case, because the zoo was under construction. I know that there were parts that we missed by virtue of going one way instead of the other, but I am not sure if that is a normal issue, or just for the construction.

By the same token, many animals seemed to be missing. I am a big believer in giving the animals some ability for privacy, but that should be balanced with being able to go and see animals. Again, I am not sure how much of that was the construction, because maybe some animals had been moved to prevent stress from noise.

My point is that there was a fair amount of frustration with trying to see everything, and yet I know that this is not necessarily a fair evaluation. The real test will be what the zoo is like when the renovation is done, and even for our time there, there was a lot of good.

Because the zoo is free, it can be integrated with the park more. The farm area is actually a little separate, and at one point we found ourselves on a bridge with bicyclists. I ended up going into the Conservatory first, but it would have been easy to spend time at the zoo, stop and visit the conservatory, and then go back into the zoo. Those connections give a feeling that is relaxed but also vibrant.

There were also some good animals that we don't usually get to see. The sand cat was one of my favorite animals at the Washington Park Zoo's night country, and after they renovated it I never saw one again. Lincoln Park had a sand cat, and a fennec fox. They had red pandas.

I also thought they had the best camel habitats. Usually when we see camels, they give rides, and maybe it is just that they are in the staging areas, but here they were in nice grassy paddocks, and I saw one roll over on his side and kick his heels like a dog. The adorableness nearly slew me.

I also felt that they did a good job of drawing connections between the native habitats and Chicago, with maps, comparisons of temperature and other weather phenomena, and conservation issues. A modern zoo may be taking the animals out of nature, but should not be losing the connection to the nature; it should be heightening it. I think they did that well.

I don't know that I will be making it back any time soon to see how the renovations went, but I would like to give it another shot.

Chicago - Lincoln Park Conservatory

The conservatory was a bonus for us. We knew we wanted to go to the zoo, because we are into zoos, and it was free. On the way I saw what was clearly a conservatory - the building reminded me of the Conservatory on the National Mall in DC. I thought perhaps we would check it out after the zoo, but due to construction in the zoo we were directed to another entrance, and the conservatory was right there and also free. Well why not?

I was immediately rewarded with a beautiful fragrance coming from an orange jasmine tree. Right behind it was Kigelia africana, or a sausage tree. That's what those large pods in the top picture are. That was a pretty cool start.

The building seemed bigger on the inside than it had originally looked on the outside, as I kept finding more plants. The opening area would have been enough, but then there was an opening into the fern room, and on the other side of that there was yet another area, leading to orchids.

I suppose overall the plant life was more tropical. I saw antherium, birds of paradise, and ginger. I would have recognized some of those on my own, the labeling was really good, so I had some help. There were also pools with koi and goldfish, and water features and statuary in general added to the overall aesthetic.

I don't know that the conservatory would be enough of a destination on its own, but there is a lot in Lincoln Park in general that is worth seeing, and if you are going to be there anyway, why not?

http://www.lincolnparkconservancy.org/conservatory.html