Free Day at the Museums

Yesterday was free day at both the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum. Of course, that did not include the special attractions (like the dolphin show) or include the cost of parking. "Free" day cost me a small fortune, but it was worth it because the kids had a great time.

We went to the Field Museum first and even though it was free day we still had to stand in line for 15 minutes to get our hands stamped. I was annoyed at this mostly because it took us forever to get to the museum because the "expressway" was jammed with cars.

Once we were stamped we headed to the wildlife area where we looked at a lot of stuffed birds. I was really pleased that the kids recognized many of them. Perhaps our trips to the various forest preserves have paid off by increasing their knowledge of nature.

After the wildlife area we went to the McDonalds restaurant that is in the basement of the museum. Thankfully there were no school field trips in the museum yesterday so there was plenty of seating available. The food renewed the kids' spirits and they were eager to go look at the dinosaurs. But, before we did that the kids got a couple of those wax / plastic figurine things out of the molding machine. I loved these things when I was a kid and I was happy to see the kids excited about theirs.

The dinosaur area of the museum is scaled down from when I was a kid. It has been changed to "The Evolving Planet". It starts with meteorites with amino acids on them and moves on to single cell creatures, and then moves through the dinosaurs and ends with mammals and the obligatory "diversity" talk and how humans are awful and have gummed up the whole works. I was amused to see an electronic sign, sort of like the deli signs that displays the number being served, that had a "28" on it and above it said "The number of species that have gone extinct since 8:00am this morning". How do they know? Is there someone standing there counting and then phoning in? It's all hooey.

After that we went to the museum's "Sue Store", which is a gift shop that focuses mostly on dinosaur-type gifts. The kids were excited when they each bought a saber-toothed tiger plush animal.

On to the Shedd aquarium. The cashier at the Sue Store told us the best way to get out of the museum so we could walk over to the Shedd. Here's the fun part. Cami had to go to the bathroom and on our way there we found the coelacanth display in the bathroom hallway! Woohoo! I've been looking for this fish display for 10 years. About a decade ago I read a book called "A Fish Caught in Time" that discusses the rediscovery of this living fossil. This fish was supposedly extinct millions of years ago until some turned up. Anyway, the back of this book lists the Field Museum as having one. I've never found it...until yesterday. I was very excited.

The Shedd Aquarium was fun but it was more crowded than the Field Museum. We were lucky that we were at the huge "reef" aquarium at feeding time. This involves a diver that swims around inside the aquarium while someone else talks to the crowd and to the diver. She explained the various fish as the diver fed them and she would ask the diver questions while he was in there. Ian asked a question that she relayed to the diver. He asked why the big fish don't eat the little fish. The answer was that they keep the big fish well-fed. Way to go Ian for not being shy to ask a question.

I was hoping to take a lot of pictures of the fish but the aquariums were so dark it was almost impossible. Someone needs to turn the lights on in there. At one point the kids were talking to a worker there who was giving a demonstration about snakes. I was taking pictures of her and the kids and at one point she asked me not to take flash photography. Oh well.

The kids had a great time. I had a great time, but I'm pooped out today. And my legs hurt from standing all day. In a couple of weeks Ian is going to the Museum of Science and Industry and hopefully I will be able to go as a chaperone.