Sick Day Update 2 - Chicago's Field Museum
Last Monday, the 22nd, I went to the Field Museum. This was, strangely, the second time in the past six months that I've been - a record even considering all the school trips taken down to the Museum Campus. Valpo pal Lauren snagged a pair of free tickets to see the limited-time natural disaster exhibit, so I was lucky enough to tag along.
Of course, I woke up a bit late... and ended up leaving a half-hour later than I wanted. BUT, because I'm just that awesome, I was able to book it up to Buffalo Grove and arrive only five minutes later than planned.
Before leaving, I was a little concerned how I would feel about making the drive north, since that was just about the exact drive I would take to meet with Lindsey (even down to the same highway exit, though I had to turn right instead of left at Dundee). The crazed time-conserving nature of the drive and different turning direction at the stoplight off the Interstate likely distracted me enough. Also, it's only a little north of where Rich and Shannon's old place used to be (which I've driven several times before). It's a pretty familiar drive now - odd since I live on the far west / southwest side of the 'burbs. lol
This familiarity with the ins and outs of the drive helped me make great time in getting out there... except when it came time to find Lauren's side street. Being somewhere once before is usually enough for me to muddle my way through to it again later, even a year later. (VERY useful for convention travels!) However, with the new snowfalls, moderately-plowed roadways and tiny street signs, I missed the right road twice. And subdivisions out there, for whatever reason, don't connect! It was a left-turn, too, so I had to stay in the fast lane while reading the tiny signs with my fuzzed vision through a spotty windshield thanks to the snow and cold which doesn't allow for windshield wiper fluid to work too well. I made my turn a bit early, came up to not only one, but two "No Outlet" signs, and turned around. Turning left back onto the main road, I headed down a bit longer and realized I must've passed it. This meant turning left, then turning around, and turning right back onto the road. Ugh... And so, two miniature streets back down, I see the sign and realize, "THAT'S IT!" Then, foolish me, I realize I don't remember which house number is the right one...! My memory finally served me well as I pieced it together and thankfully got it right on the first house I stopped at.
The train station in Arlington Heights is surprisingly nice on the inside. It was warm, too. Very nice when it's a brisk -7F outside with a windchill in the negative double-digits!
There are a lot of churches along the tracks to Union Station. Really nice architecture on 'em, too.
That nicely brisk chill in the Chicago air certainly was not conducive to walking one block, let alone all the way from Union Station to the museum. Yes, that means only one thing - cab rides! Sadly, the cab ride wasn't terribly exciting, though the seats were really low... like a low-rider without any bling. lol Apparently, there's a nice flat rate to take a cab from O'Hare to Midway airports and vice versa. That seemed kinda odd - who has a layover where they have to completely change airports? I think the driver was talking on the phone with a buddy of his, too, all quiet and discreet-like en Espanol. Either that, or he murmurs to himself...
The museum had a canopy up, protecting people walking on the stairway from snow, which was kinda cool... except for the two guys trying to sell peanut M&Ms for some sort of "charity." (Fun side story - a buddy and I were heading to the parking lot after checking out the Chicago Auto Show and were approached by a guy trying to sell newspapers for "The Church." The papers, it turned out, were free school papers from the local technical college. lol) We walked right on past and entered the museum.
The ticket counters were severely understaffed at the time - the Will Call line was thankfully able to cut ahead of general admission (which had probably 20 families in it), and we were told to go to a different counter. While at the back of that counter, a staffer that I presume was heading to lunch, quickly retrieved our tickets. Yeah! V.I.P., bitches!
The natural disaster exhibit was really cool, and full of all sorts of cool educational content on earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes. There was even a video taken of a tornado... where the tornado passed over the camera! It was a pimp exhibit. Seriously. It's in town until the 4th or so - if you get a chance to see it while in town, definitely check it out.
Jarringly, right after seeing all that destructive power, the exhibit just outside was a community-oriented meeting house from a native tribe of New Zealand. From there, I saw exhibits on Chinese, Tibetan and Buddhist artifacts... Jade and precious gems... and a gift shop or two. I picked up a couple small African statues. I already have an Easter Island-esque head carved out of serpentine stone (Zimbabwe), but now I have a zebra/horse and a giraffe made from Kenyan kisi stone. I almost picked up a plushie dinosaur, too... but I figured I was just hungry.
I hadn't eaten since breakfast at 9 a.m... and now it was approaching 5. Time to head back to the train station for a ride back to Arlington Heights in order to pop by Mitsuwa, the Japanese mini-mall of Chicago! Once arriving at the train station, we lined up for the 5:20 express. 5:35 comes around and we're told the inbound train is three minutes away. Three minutes later, we're told it is two more minutes behind. Three minutes after that, we're told it's five minutes behind. The train ends up arriving twenty minutes later. It's 5:40, and we've been standing out in the cold for 45 minutes! Oh, and did I mention we were hungry? After finally boarding the train, we finally leave the station at 5:50... only to stop and allow other trains to pass or move ahead (since there was a huge backlog of trains - everything was running extremely late). Our express train finally arrived in Arlington Heights at about 7 p.m.
Off to Mitsuwa! However, the timing was getting close since I had to drive back to Aurora to drop off a Christmas order for a library friend. The library closes at 9, and it's a good 75 minutes away from Lauren's place, which is 20 minutes from Mitsuwa. I raid the liquor store in the place, since they're the closest place to me that has substantial amounts of sake at decent prices. Loaded up on sake and Sapporo, it was time to rush back to my car, load it up and head back to Aurora.
OHNO, it's 8:00!! I have to hella book it back to make it within the hour window before the place closes up! (There's no way I'd drive out specially for a $7 manga - this is conveniently on the way back.) Somehow, I am able to get there at 8:45, able to drop of the book, get some business done, and relax. But, wait! I'm HUNGRY! Crap, gotta head home A.S.A.P, before I get a headache or something.
The drive home is easy, though I certainly get impatient about eating. I go the back way home, which is commonly devoid of traffic and the speed limit is 55 almost the entire way... I pass through downtown Yorkville (which is really pretty at Christmas time, btw - the main town square is decked out with lights and looks very serene under the snow)... I turn down the back street through the forest preserve... I turn into the elite subdivision behind my place... The snow plows neglected these roads, and as I go to make a turn in front of a few undeveloped lots, my car skids 90-degrees and rides up onto a snowbank. OOPS!
The snowbank wasn't even a snowbank thanks to the freezing rain from two days earlier. It was an ICE bank. Thankfully, my car is short, so it only blocked one lane on the little street. As I brought out my broken ice scraper / brush to dig out what I could, I noticed that out of the 5 - 7 cars that passed by, not a single one stopped to help out. So much for small-town friendship. That's the Chicago attitude I'm used to! Friendly by day, apathetic at night, maybe?
After clawing away at the ice for an hour and unable to rock the car out, I figured out the car was actually elevated by the icebank. I would need to literally dig out all the ice that was under the front axle, tires, and bumper. Thankfully, I was only 200 yards or so from my place... I could turn off the car and hoof it home to retrieve a real gardening shovel. (Side story - With the freezing rain, the driveway had a load of iced snow the previous day, which would NOT move with a normal snow shovel. I had to pull out a gardening hoe and chip away at it like I was tilling dirt. That was actually kinda fun, though ridiculously silly.)
The piercing headache of hunger (and bone-chilling cold) didn't help matters, so I ate my dinner of leftovers before heading back out with the shovel. For those keeping track, my first meal after 9 a.m. was at 10:30 p.m. It was so cold that I had to jump in the car and warm back up before resuming my digging. The shovel helped a LOT, and I was out about a half-hour later... right as someone finally stopped to help out.
The day was a blast, and it's a nice story... but I was SO glad to be done with it.
Back later with... more ramblings!
- John
Of course, I woke up a bit late... and ended up leaving a half-hour later than I wanted. BUT, because I'm just that awesome, I was able to book it up to Buffalo Grove and arrive only five minutes later than planned.
Before leaving, I was a little concerned how I would feel about making the drive north, since that was just about the exact drive I would take to meet with Lindsey (even down to the same highway exit, though I had to turn right instead of left at Dundee). The crazed time-conserving nature of the drive and different turning direction at the stoplight off the Interstate likely distracted me enough. Also, it's only a little north of where Rich and Shannon's old place used to be (which I've driven several times before). It's a pretty familiar drive now - odd since I live on the far west / southwest side of the 'burbs. lol
This familiarity with the ins and outs of the drive helped me make great time in getting out there... except when it came time to find Lauren's side street. Being somewhere once before is usually enough for me to muddle my way through to it again later, even a year later. (VERY useful for convention travels!) However, with the new snowfalls, moderately-plowed roadways and tiny street signs, I missed the right road twice. And subdivisions out there, for whatever reason, don't connect! It was a left-turn, too, so I had to stay in the fast lane while reading the tiny signs with my fuzzed vision through a spotty windshield thanks to the snow and cold which doesn't allow for windshield wiper fluid to work too well. I made my turn a bit early, came up to not only one, but two "No Outlet" signs, and turned around. Turning left back onto the main road, I headed down a bit longer and realized I must've passed it. This meant turning left, then turning around, and turning right back onto the road. Ugh... And so, two miniature streets back down, I see the sign and realize, "THAT'S IT!" Then, foolish me, I realize I don't remember which house number is the right one...! My memory finally served me well as I pieced it together and thankfully got it right on the first house I stopped at.
The train station in Arlington Heights is surprisingly nice on the inside. It was warm, too. Very nice when it's a brisk -7F outside with a windchill in the negative double-digits!
There are a lot of churches along the tracks to Union Station. Really nice architecture on 'em, too.
That nicely brisk chill in the Chicago air certainly was not conducive to walking one block, let alone all the way from Union Station to the museum. Yes, that means only one thing - cab rides! Sadly, the cab ride wasn't terribly exciting, though the seats were really low... like a low-rider without any bling. lol Apparently, there's a nice flat rate to take a cab from O'Hare to Midway airports and vice versa. That seemed kinda odd - who has a layover where they have to completely change airports? I think the driver was talking on the phone with a buddy of his, too, all quiet and discreet-like en Espanol. Either that, or he murmurs to himself...
The museum had a canopy up, protecting people walking on the stairway from snow, which was kinda cool... except for the two guys trying to sell peanut M&Ms for some sort of "charity." (Fun side story - a buddy and I were heading to the parking lot after checking out the Chicago Auto Show and were approached by a guy trying to sell newspapers for "The Church." The papers, it turned out, were free school papers from the local technical college. lol) We walked right on past and entered the museum.
The ticket counters were severely understaffed at the time - the Will Call line was thankfully able to cut ahead of general admission (which had probably 20 families in it), and we were told to go to a different counter. While at the back of that counter, a staffer that I presume was heading to lunch, quickly retrieved our tickets. Yeah! V.I.P., bitches!
The natural disaster exhibit was really cool, and full of all sorts of cool educational content on earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes. There was even a video taken of a tornado... where the tornado passed over the camera! It was a pimp exhibit. Seriously. It's in town until the 4th or so - if you get a chance to see it while in town, definitely check it out.
Jarringly, right after seeing all that destructive power, the exhibit just outside was a community-oriented meeting house from a native tribe of New Zealand. From there, I saw exhibits on Chinese, Tibetan and Buddhist artifacts... Jade and precious gems... and a gift shop or two. I picked up a couple small African statues. I already have an Easter Island-esque head carved out of serpentine stone (Zimbabwe), but now I have a zebra/horse and a giraffe made from Kenyan kisi stone. I almost picked up a plushie dinosaur, too... but I figured I was just hungry.
I hadn't eaten since breakfast at 9 a.m... and now it was approaching 5. Time to head back to the train station for a ride back to Arlington Heights in order to pop by Mitsuwa, the Japanese mini-mall of Chicago! Once arriving at the train station, we lined up for the 5:20 express. 5:35 comes around and we're told the inbound train is three minutes away. Three minutes later, we're told it is two more minutes behind. Three minutes after that, we're told it's five minutes behind. The train ends up arriving twenty minutes later. It's 5:40, and we've been standing out in the cold for 45 minutes! Oh, and did I mention we were hungry? After finally boarding the train, we finally leave the station at 5:50... only to stop and allow other trains to pass or move ahead (since there was a huge backlog of trains - everything was running extremely late). Our express train finally arrived in Arlington Heights at about 7 p.m.
Off to Mitsuwa! However, the timing was getting close since I had to drive back to Aurora to drop off a Christmas order for a library friend. The library closes at 9, and it's a good 75 minutes away from Lauren's place, which is 20 minutes from Mitsuwa. I raid the liquor store in the place, since they're the closest place to me that has substantial amounts of sake at decent prices. Loaded up on sake and Sapporo, it was time to rush back to my car, load it up and head back to Aurora.
OHNO, it's 8:00!! I have to hella book it back to make it within the hour window before the place closes up! (There's no way I'd drive out specially for a $7 manga - this is conveniently on the way back.) Somehow, I am able to get there at 8:45, able to drop of the book, get some business done, and relax. But, wait! I'm HUNGRY! Crap, gotta head home A.S.A.P, before I get a headache or something.
The drive home is easy, though I certainly get impatient about eating. I go the back way home, which is commonly devoid of traffic and the speed limit is 55 almost the entire way... I pass through downtown Yorkville (which is really pretty at Christmas time, btw - the main town square is decked out with lights and looks very serene under the snow)... I turn down the back street through the forest preserve... I turn into the elite subdivision behind my place... The snow plows neglected these roads, and as I go to make a turn in front of a few undeveloped lots, my car skids 90-degrees and rides up onto a snowbank. OOPS!
The snowbank wasn't even a snowbank thanks to the freezing rain from two days earlier. It was an ICE bank. Thankfully, my car is short, so it only blocked one lane on the little street. As I brought out my broken ice scraper / brush to dig out what I could, I noticed that out of the 5 - 7 cars that passed by, not a single one stopped to help out. So much for small-town friendship. That's the Chicago attitude I'm used to! Friendly by day, apathetic at night, maybe?
After clawing away at the ice for an hour and unable to rock the car out, I figured out the car was actually elevated by the icebank. I would need to literally dig out all the ice that was under the front axle, tires, and bumper. Thankfully, I was only 200 yards or so from my place... I could turn off the car and hoof it home to retrieve a real gardening shovel. (Side story - With the freezing rain, the driveway had a load of iced snow the previous day, which would NOT move with a normal snow shovel. I had to pull out a gardening hoe and chip away at it like I was tilling dirt. That was actually kinda fun, though ridiculously silly.)
The piercing headache of hunger (and bone-chilling cold) didn't help matters, so I ate my dinner of leftovers before heading back out with the shovel. For those keeping track, my first meal after 9 a.m. was at 10:30 p.m. It was so cold that I had to jump in the car and warm back up before resuming my digging. The shovel helped a LOT, and I was out about a half-hour later... right as someone finally stopped to help out.
The day was a blast, and it's a nice story... but I was SO glad to be done with it.
Back later with... more ramblings!
- John