What an incredibly long day! We woke up this morning at about 8am local time and after getting dressed we went down to the lobby and had breakfast at Starbucks, Kylie was happy they had a very nice sized chocolate doughnut that she choose to have. After we finished eating I went and asked the valet to pull the Envoy around, knowing it would take them about 10 minutes to do so, and we all went back up to the room to verify everything was packed. We then proceeded to check out and head over to the Field Museum. We made it over to the Museum Campus fairly easily and when we came out of the parking structure we realized that we were right next to Soldier Field which was pretty cool, but unfortunately our schedule didn’t allow us time to look around there, maybe next time; then it was on to the museum. Oddly enough it turned out to be cheaper to become members of the museum (which will also get us passes to a few places back in MI as well) than it was to simply get day passes, so that’s what we did. Then it was exploring time! Currently the museum is running special exhibits on whales and horses in addition to all of their normal exhibits. Their traveling exhibit of SUE, “the largest, most complete and best preserved Tyrannosaurus Rex ever discovered,” was found in the dusty bad lands of South Dakota! A fact sheet on SUE can be found here (pdf). All the exhibits were awesome as far as I am concerned, but then again natural history has always been interesting to me. The whales were incredible and seeing the skeleton of one of these large creatures was almost overwhelming. We left the Field Museum, and Chicago as a whole, right about 4pm local time and headed back home, by the time we made it here it was about 11pm. Over the course of this trip we took somewhere around 900 pictures, so in the coming days I will need to find time to prepare them and get them in to the gallery. But now, it’s time to sleep.

Today we got up early and had breakfast in the lobby of the hotel at the State Street Bread Company, which I personally feel was very over priced and for that price the food was just ok. After eating we grabbed another taxi (which, again, Kylie loved. I am starting to think the taxi rides are going to be her favorite part of this trip) and headed over to Shedd Aquarium. We got there shortly after they opened and got our Total Experience passes which let us explore the entire aquarium, attend one of the 4-D shows, and attend the live aquatic show. The live show was pretty cool and consisted of a four Pacific White-Sided dolphins. Additionally the also showed two different Red Tailed Hawks that also live at the aquarium. We all like a lot of different parts of the aquarium but some of the highlights were the dolphins, the beluga whales (both of which we could see swimming in there tanks below the water through some very large windows). The wild reef exhibit was also really cool and Kylie was really happy to be able to see her saw nosed shark swimming around. The last thing we saw was the Caribbean Reef exhibit, and we got there just in time to see the daily dive show where one of the staff actually was swimming in the tank and feeding the fish while answering questions from the audience and telling us about the fish. The large sea turtle named Nickle that was rescued after getting hit by a boat and the 7 foot moray eel that actually came out of his hole during the presentation and swam around the diver. After we decided we were done at the aquarium (which we feel we completely explored in the almost 7 hours we were there) we went picked up another taxi (and again Kylie was thrilled) and headed back over to the Magnificent Mile, specifically to the American Girl store. We were there specifically for Kylie because she wanted to get Alissa (her doll) her very own school backpack set which we found after asking two different associates (the first told us to look upstairs, after looking for a while the second showed us where it was). Additionally Kylie also got a little surprise from Daddy and Melissa when we decided to also get Alissa a new pet, Sugar, that Kylie had showed interest in. After leaving the store we walked back down Michigan Ave, both because that was the direction of our hotel and because we wanted to see more of what the Magnificent Mile had to offer. Finding dinner tonight proved difficult for multiple reasons; the restaurants along the mile were either on the expensive side or their menus didn’t seem to offer something that all of us could eat. In the end we walked all the way back to the hotel and decided to put everything from the day away and then just eat in the lobby again, this time at their River North lounge. The food there was ok as well, but nothing spectacular, however the prices I felt were more on par with the food and its quality. The one thing I did not like was that the waiter simply stood by our table and kept engaging us in conversation as if he had nothing else to do and we weren’t trying to eat. I guess this may be because for a good portion of the time we were the only ones there, but still at least let us eat. After dinner we went back up to the room to start packing things up so we will be ready to leave in the morning. We will be going from the hotel to the Field Museum and then home from there, so we have to have everything packed and ready to check out in the morning.

Today Kylie, Melissa, and I all piled in the Envoy and headed for Chicago. Out of the three of us I am the only one to never have been to Chicago. Kylie has already been there at least twice with Mommy and has even been to at least one of the places we plan to visit, Shedd Aquarium. As for Melissa, she has also been there a few times for various different reasons. None the less we are all looking forward to the rest of this trip. I say rest because we are already out here. 🙂 The drive went relatively well, we played a few games in the car to help pass the time and it wasn’t until we were already in Chicago that we ran in to a snag. We missed a turn and got off the expressway at the wrong exit and had to find our way to the hotel via my phone and Google Maps with GPS. Needless to say we found our way just fine and checked in to the hotel about 3pm local time. After getting everything in to the room and taking a minute to get settled we then decided to hop in a taxi (which Kylie loved) and headed over to Navy Pier. It was really neat to see the Pier and all the little shops that lined it. Walking through the mall of shops on the inside was nice, and the Smith Museum of Stained Glass had some amazing works in it. After walking around the Pier we decided we were all hungry, so we had dinner at Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, which was a fun place with lots of music playing and the food was pretty good too. After we were done we decided to walk back to the hotel and we took a route that would take us to Michigan Ave so we could walk along part of the Magnificent Mile and see some of the sights along it. Tomorrow is going to be another long busy day.