#147 Dinos and riots

**Disclaimer : This is a VERY long post, and I didn’t feel the need to edit it down, so buckle up for a long ride.

Second day of Dawn Brunch and we were off to the Aquarium! Of course by the time we got there the line was OUT. OF. CONTROL. Illinois residents got in free on the 24 and 25th – so it seems half the city turned up and were waiting in line in the 90 degree heat. So we decided to skip it and head to the Field Museum instead – and push the Aquarium off for the next day. This was one of the smartest alternate plans we made. I guess at this point I can call it Plan D.

Anyhow, as we arrived at the Field Museum there wasn’t a single person in line – which was amazing considering it’s summer and the Field Museum is one of my favorite Museums EVER.

I did a little research before the kids arrived and found out that Chicago Public Libraries offer these things called Kids Museum Passports. They are little orange cards about the size of a credit card that you can check out from any library here in the city, and it allows you to enter the museum of choice with a maximum of two adults and two children. It’s an amazing program. Each of the 79 libraries – now 80 with the newest library in Edgewater has two passports for almost every museum in Chicago. The only catch is you can only check one out every 7 days (the loan period) from the front desk – which is also where you must return it. For each day it is late, the penalty is $2, and a lost passport will run you $60. They are first come first serve, so you can’t put them on hold or ask for a library transfer on them.

I secured the Field Passport at the Legler Branch the Thursday afternoon just before the family arrived. Let’s just say – it’s not exactly the best area of town. It’s near 290E and S. Pulaski and I stuck out like the black sheep in a flock. I was nervous parking with so many clusters of sketchy people on every corner of every driveway and block. There were multiple drug deals going down as I locked my door and calmly walked around the corner into the library. I checked out my pass with a lovely librarian and headed back to my car. As I approached my car I was stopped by a woman who asked me for change because she was hungry and wanted a bag of chips. In order to avoid a confrontation from her larger, menacing, male companions, I gave her all the change in the bottom of my purse and she smiled and waved as I got in my car. They were all nice to me as I put on the facade of not being intimidated by everyone in the neighborhood. At least I was visiting the library which seemed to be pretty respected by the locals even though it was definitely an under privileged area of town. They knew I was using their cherished resource so they left me alone. I did worry about how it would be when I returned the pass – but that would be a worry for another day.

We got the discount on basic entry and bought tickets for the special exhibits and the movie. We opted to see the Sharks documentary mostly because Diva had a minor fail the night before. Again – we were playing Heads Up Ellen, and Diva held up Great White Shark to her forehead. Trouble yelled out “Second largest shark in the world!” I yelled out “JAWS!” And Diva couldn’t guess it. When time ran out she said – “How am I supposed to know what the second largest shark is?” To which we all said – Great White would be most people’s first guess regardless. And of course Diva said – “Well I don’t know anything about sharks.” About an hour later Noble said something about a shark and Trouble said “Well Diva isn’t up on her sharks.” While I simultaneously said, “Diva just said she knows nothing about sharks…” and the room erupted in laughter. So when we were given a choice of 3 different 3-D movies – Trouble and I shouted SHARKS! The documentary was amazing! And of course Trouble and I want to go cage diving in South Africa with Great Whites. It’s apparently big business down there, and it looks crazy amazing. If Trouble remembers in 7 years, I think we’ll be headed down there to do it. I promised the two of them I’d take them anywhere in the world when they graduated high school provided they got into and decided to go to a 4 year college of my liking. The “of my liking” part pretty much means it has to be top-tier in the US News college rankings list. We’ll see what happens.

The Field Museum is what I like to call a “stuff” museum. It’s more like a science museum and it’s fascinating. It is home to Sue – the most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton in the world.

It also has one of the most amazing collections of stuffed animals I’ve ever seen (stuffed as in taxidermy)…which we actually found out a day later. It took us more than a day to see 80% of the museum…even after the extra hour we spent at the Field Museum on Tuesday we still didn’t see everything.

We spent hours roaming the second floor of the museum – the earth’s timeline which took us through the first single cell organism to dinosaurs to the evolution of man. Then we headed into the Tibet display, the Pacific Islands rooms which included a new section on burial rights and masks. It made me want to travel. I could feel the itch the more we roamed the halls. It also made me think of Disneyland. Why you ask? Well because I was comparing the parts of the park which borrowed from the Pacific Islands – including Hawaii. Disney Imagineers and animators really got it right!

Before we knew it we were hungry. So we grabbed a quick bite at the McDonald’s on site and realized we had 2 hours to do all the special exhibits and the lower floor. Uh oh. I think of the three special exhibits the one about bioluminescence was my favorite with the least favorite being the one about dirt and bugs. If you plan on going to the Field Museum this summer – you can skip that special exhibit. Save your money. Trust me. The exhibit about the cave drawings at Lascaux was interesting – but really it just made me want to visit the caves…which is now an impossibility for the general public. As amazing as the cave drawings are, what is even more fascinating is the science behind trying to preserve it. In 1948 the caves were discovered and in 1963 the caves were closed to the general public due to various habitat changes that were destroying the walls. In those 15 years, large doors had been installed, a stairwell at the entrance – the floors had been lowered, an air conditioning unit and two air locks had been installed. Some for viewing purposes, and some installments to combat various molds and fungi growing in the cave. Today, scientists are still working on a viable solution to preserve the caves, and a global conservation project has been underway for years set forth by the cave’s Scientific Committee. In all honesty, this was an interesting exhibit which taught me a lot while I was there – but if you’re really interested, you can just research it on the internet and take a virtual tour. Who knows – maybe one day I’ll visit the replica in France that was built a few decades ago. And lastly the bioluminescence exhibit was the most tangible. Chances are you’ve seen a firefly, or at the very least have seen something “glow in the dark”. And again – the exhibit made me want to travel. I’ve officially put Vieques, Puerto Rico on my list because I want to take pictures of and swim in the glowing lake.

Everything was making my inner travel bug twitch which is a clear sign that I’ve been in the US for far too long a stretch, with no plans in the near future. Unless I drive to Canada, I think the closest thing I’ll have come to a foreign destination this year will have been Miami…which is really more like another planet.

The extensive taxidermy collection of stuffed animals we didn’t see until Tuesday (day 6), but since it was housed in the Field I figured I’d talk about it now.

Have you ever heard of Tsavo Lions? Ok, so this is fascinating. Tsavo Lions are found in Kenya near the Tsavo River and the males are unique in that they are maneless. Now, you may think lions are pretty large cats, and then you see a Tsavo lion and you wonder if it was fed steroids its whole life. They’re bloody HUGE. Anyhow, in 1898 two Tsavo lions attacked railroad workers in Kenya who were building the Uganda Railway and ate 140 people. Maybe they killed them – but they ate a good deal of them, which gave them a reputation for being man-eating lions, and gave Hollywood a future plot line for a blockbuster movie. The lions were eventually hunted down and shot by Lt. Colonel John Henry Patterson who turned them into rugs. Many years later his estate sold them to the Field Museum in Chicago, where a taxidermist went about reconstructing the rugs into 3 dimensional lions. The lions that are on display are actually smaller than what they were when they were alive, and yet they are the biggest lions I have EVER seen. If I didn’t know any better I would say their parents must have been saber toothed tigers, and obviously a steady diet of people makes a lion strong…and a monster.

The collection of birds and animals is pretty extensive. And there is a sad wall of recently extinct animals that you can see. I learned a lot though…like Albatrosses are bigger than I thought, most monkeys have really mean faces, wild cats have really loving faces, and dodos were HUGE. In fact there were a lot of animals that surprised me with their size. And of course I realized that I don’t want to meet most of these animals in real life. I’m not exactly a nature girl…I mean even turkeys scare me. And playing possum just freaks me out.

We closed down the museum and walked to the redline when Diva asked where we were eating dinner. I gave her a blank stare. I thought they would be full having eaten a bucket of sugar and grease at McDonald’s – but I was wrong. She said she didn’t want to eat American or South American fare. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, because I’m pretty sure she hasn’t been exposed to Brazilian, Peruvian, Bolivian or even Puerto Rican food…and yes, I realize Puerto Rico is not in South America. She probably meant Mexican food – but I just went ahead and crossed off all Spanish and Portuguese inspired food…which nixed Tapas…which was a bummer. Crossing off American food in Chicago can also make things difficult when you have a little brother who pretty much only eats American food. I knew I couldn’t get all crazy and suggest Ethiopian food…so we made Diva clarify her choices. She picked Japanese or “European” food…again…what? We interpreted “European” to mean Italian. I guess maybe she was looking for Spaghetti? Which I have to say…is something that I equate to American fare. We got off the train at Belmont and walked down to Halstead to Addison and wound up at the corner of Southport and Addison. I turned around and said…”Really? A mile and a half and you didn’t see anything that piqued your interest?” She got a little flustered, so once we realized that D’Agostino’s is a pizzeria and not Italian, I made an executive decision and we went to Julius Meinl for dinner. It fit the “European” parameter…it’s German. German-ish.

So we made our way in and sat down for our second Julius meal and it was fantastic. Noble, Diva and Trouble all ordered the Spatzel and Cheese. For anyone who doesn’t know what Spatzel is – it’s kind of like a cross between a macaroni and a dumpling…so basically they all ate Mac and Cheese…which if I can recall is pretty American Fare-ish sounding to me. But they were happy, and they enjoyed their food – and in the end, that’s the only thing that matters.

Stuffed once again, we headed home and had just begun to relax and watch Top Gun when the ruckus outside seemed to be gaining strength.

The Blackhawks had just won the Stanley Cup. I don’t own a TV, so we didn’t see any of the game – but we heard the aftermath…yep, we heard it for the next 6 hours. People were yelling, honking their horns, riding on top of their cars, popping out of sun roofs and windows, mobs of people were dancing in the middle of the street and we watched it all from my living room windows. Before we knew it, it became obvious that cars were cruising the strip of Addison between Clark and Southport, and soon helicopters joined the barrage of noises we heard. Squad cars and ambulances raced east towards Wrigley and from what I could gather from the internet – a couple of people had been hit by cars. A riot had broken out on the strip of Clark from Addison to Belmont with multiple businesses reporting broken windows in the morning. The city had tried to barricade that whole section of Clark – but the crowds pushed through the police stanchions. It was crazy.

The later the night got – the more dangerously drunk everyone got. Somewhere around 1pm the spirit in the air changed so I backed out of the window and Noble and I told Diva and Trouble they could watch – but they had to shut the windows. The look of the people on the street had changed, and the intent of celebration was teetering over to public destruction of property and fighting. The frequency of blue lights and sirens was increasing – and of course since I had no TV, we didn’t have a live feed to see what was happening just a few blocks from where we were. This was the first time I wanted a TV or realized the necessity of having one.

The party in front of Wrigley was broken up, and people began to congregate on Southport and Addison. When that got shut down, they moved to Racine and Addison…then Lakewood and Addison…then Magnolia and Addison. Sheesh. By 230a squad cars were parked along the length of Addison from Southport to Lakewood and finally by 4a the street was quiet. I think Trouble woke up a few times in the night as sirens went off – but I slept through most of it.

People shock me.

Diva ended up thanking Noble for bringing them this weekend so she could see a riot. That was the highlight of the day right there. I really do live in a crazy neighborhood – and I love it.

This city has let me experience things I never thought I would, and I just got here. It has been very good to me – and in turn I plan to be very good to it.

Dinos and riots on day 5? Awesomesauce.