so we went on a week-and-a-half long tour of the midwest as a summer vacation/visiting family trip. we stopped in and left the cat with my family, then headed up to springfield, il where we visited the abraham lincoln presidential library and museum. the highlight of this first leg of the trip was definitely the tour of the frank lloyd wright-designed dana-thomas house.

from there, we headed up to chicago where we first stopped in at the brookfield zoo. definitely a good zoo. large--and the first time i've ever seen whales or dolphins! went out to cub foods to pick up the snacky foods we'd need for the rest of the trip and got our first taste of true chicago driving. from observing other drivers, i've formulated theories about driving in chicago--i'll share them sometime. they include staying as close as possible to the person in front of you, blocking intersections, and liberal use of the horn and middle finger.

the next day we took the el downtown to the field museum for the king tut exhibit, which would have been much better if they hadn't tried to cram so many people into the exhibit at once. it was very difficult to read anything or see the items. afterwards, we waited in line (in the pouring rain) for about two hours to get into the shedd aquarium, which we thought was definitely not one of the best aquariums. it might have been good if you're not a big aquarium fan like we are (we've seen tons) or if you really like fish. i like the more unusual things, though--sea turtles, sea horses, jellyfish, etc--and these were in short supply.

we started the next day by waiting an hour at the bus stop for the #10 science and industry to make its first run of the day. the train we were on the previous day had some issues so i guess we overestimated the time it would take to get downtown. once the bus arrived, we headed off to the museum of science and industry. there was a leonardo davinci exhibit that was awesome--they made models of some of his inventions and you got to play with some of them! then we took the el to lou malnati's pizza in old town via merchandise mart, then to the art institute of chicago. i didn't realize they had so many famous paitings there! we only managed to see about half of the museum (contemporary, american, and asian) before we were too tired to make it any further. later that night, we made a trip to superdawg (only 7 miles from where we were staying, but 1.5 hours after we made a wrong turn).

overall a fun trip--no one got shot or robbed, so we'll call it a victory. chicago was a bit stressful with the traffic and trying to navigate the el and buses. definitely nice to be able to get around without driving, though. we might head back eventually...there are a few things we didn't have time to do...seeing the rest of the art institute, doing some shopping, etc.