Labor Day in Chicago

September 3, 2012

At the end of a really great summer, and a very relaxing Labor Day weekend, we realized that two museum exhibits we’ve been meaning to see both closed today. So we got up early and did a museum marathon.

First, we drove with our bikes to the 31st Street harbor area on the lakefront. This area has totally changed! We’ve been there before and during a bit of the construction, but today was our first time to see the finished result. It’s really great, I’d say about the best of the Chicago beaches. Sorry, no pics of that.

Then we rode bikes down to the Museum of Science and Industry at 57th street, along the lakefront trails.

Exhibit about blending colors
Miles generating electricity
Liam generating electricity in the Storms exhibit
Thank you, Dmitri Mendeleev, for the invention of the periodic table. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Mendeleev Possibly the best example of organization and display of information ever!

Miles and the mechanical shark from the Mythbusters exhibit. Thankfully, this was the closest we came to a shark this summer!
One of the mythbusters exhibits asked “how fast can a superhero really change clothes in a phone booth?” As Miles (and later I) found out, it’s much harder than one would think!

Done! Ready to save the world!

This swing uses phone books as supports up at the top. The phone books were really strong because of the way they’re clamped in (or something? I am including this less because I understand it and more because the boys looked cute on the swing.)
We all tried the old trick of pulling a tablecloth out from under dishes. It worked a shocking number of times!
Love the details on the MSI building, originally built for the 1893 World Columbian Exhibition

After the MSI, we bumped into the West family driving in their new slick convertible (top down of course on this beautiful day!) then got back on our own open air modes of transportation 🙂 and rode up to the Field Museum to catch the Genghis Khan exhibit. One of the many things we learned is that when people in the know talk about this great and terrible ruler, they call him “Jengis Khan” with a g like giraffe instead of a g like gate.

Genghis Khan poster outside the Field Museum
Ice cream break after witnessing Genghis Khan’s domination of pretty much all of Asia, the Middle East and some of Europe.
Beautiful skyline view seen during our ice cream break, before cycling back down to the car at 31st Street.

6 Comments on “Labor Day in Chicago”

  1. Are you sure you weren’t closer to a shark in Sydney Harbour or the Great Barrier Reef?! Exhibits look like fun particularly the changing into a superhero challenge!

  2. Beautiful day in Chicago! The exhibits at the Museum of Science and Industry and the Field Museum are quite impressive. What a great city to have all those places accessible! Also impressive is the distance you all traveled on bicycles.

    1. Agreed! So nice that we had a beautiful holiday Monday, and are getting the storms on a nondescript Wednesday (today!). We rode about 12 miles total on Monday, very manageable because it was broken into 3 segments.

  3. Wow, what a great day! I love all of those science experiments. And what a great day to get around on bicycle in Chicago!

  4. The exhibits at the Museums are amazing. Always a very pleasant place to spend some time.

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