After spending the morning on the Queen Mary, visiting the bridge and learning about her “Gray Ghost” years during WWII, we headed to the USS Iowa.
Our time aboard the battleship started with the Presidential Tour, where we learned the history of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s time on the ship, as well as getting to see some areas not accessible on the self tour. Then we explored all over the ship, learning about its weapons systems and how the sailors lived aboard.
After our flight and riding the “L” to our downtown hotel, we started off our trip right with some delicious deep dish pizza.
The Shedd Aquarium contains every type of underwater creature imaginable. Besides looking at tank after tank of fish, the boys got to touch starfish, sturgeons, and stingrays. We also saw an amazing dolphin show.
For dinner, we enjoyed the famous Chicago dog, which I think is the best hot dog on the planet.
Our morning started off with a cruise up the Chicago River, learning about the history of the architecture in Chicago. It was an amazing way to learn about the different styles of buildings. Then we took a walk through downtown and had lunch on Navy Pier.
In the afternoon, our architecture education continued with a walking tour of the history of downtown Chicago and its buildings. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon in the Chicago Architecture Center, learning yet more.
After a dinner of another famous Chicago food, Italian beef sandwiches, we finished our day in a Chicago architectural icon: The Willis Tower (aka Sears Tower). They had a neat museum about Chicago before heading up to the observation deck. The views of the city were just as breathtaking as we remembered. We even timed it right, so we could watch the sun set from 1,353 feet up in the sky.
A short morning walk brought us to Cloud Gate, more commonly known as “The Bean”, which is an iconic piece of Chicago that was fun to photograph. We also viewed Crown Fountain, with its giant video faces, and the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, designed by Frank Gehry.
Then we headed across a sky bridge to spend the rest of the day in the massive Art Institute of Chicago. This museum has it all, from ancient artifacts of Egypt and other civilizations, medieval armor and religious art, through Renaissance, Impressionism, Modern, and Contemporary art. It had to be one of the most valuable art collections in the world, and was so massive that even with an entire day, we still couldn’t see every room across multiple buildings and levels.
The number of famous art pieces is too numerable to list, but some of my favorites were: Water Lilies by Monet, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat, American Gothic by Grant Wood, and Nighthawks by Edward Hopper. They also had extensive collections on display from Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh, and my favorite impressionist: Camille Pissarro.
Just one day in the museum didn’t feel like enough, and I personally can’t wait to visit again.
For dinner, we ate at another famous Italian restaurant called Pizano’s, which according to Oprah had the best thin crust pizza in town. The pizza and pasta were both delicious.
This day of our trip we spent in another massive museum: The Field. We covered a massive breadth of topics as we worked our way through the building.
We started off learning about creatures that feed on the blood of others. Then we explored Unseen Oceans, all about the deep sea and how it is explored.
Next we explored ancient Egypt, walking through a reconstructed tomb complete with mummies, which kinda creep me out. There were many other Egyptian artifacts, including a wooden boat that sailed on the Nile river.
Our education shifted to animals, where we worked our way through an exhibit the shank you down to the size on an insect and then you walked through the ground, learning about all the creatures that live there. In the next exhibit, we learned all about the bio-mechanics of animals.
We finished our day in an massive exhibit called Evolving Planet, which walked you through all 4.5 million years of Earth’s history, era by era, in great detail. In the dinosaur era, we got to view Sue, the famous T-Rex skeleton.
For dinner, we had some good Greek food, and the continued our culinary tour with dessert from another Chicago icon: Garrett Popcorn.
For our last day in Chicago, we visited the animals at Lincoln Park Zoo, before driving up to Milwaukee. It was just the right size to spend a nice afternoon exploring.
We saw a good assortment of birds, reptiles, primates, and larger African animals such as rhinos, giraffes, and zebras. The seals liked to entertain the visitors, blowing bubbles under the water and then popping up and spitting out water. Connor met a turtle who liked to have his photo taken, which he named “Turtlelini”.
