Wendy's parents came to visit over Thanksgiving, and while they were here we took a trip to the Field Museum in Chicago. The Sunday before Thanksgiving was free admission day at the museum, so we decided to go on Monday instead. This was a hard-won lesson that Wendy and I learned years ago, when we went to the Shedd Aquarium and encountered one of the longest lines we'd ever seen. It turned out we had unknowingly decided to go on free admission day.
Our decision to go on Monday paid off. When we got to the museum, there was a pack of wild school children running around, but they disappeared shortly afterwards, and there weren't a whole lot of people left, which was nice.
It had been years since I last visited the Field Museum, and I'd forgotten how great it is. By the end of our trip, I decided on my 3 favorite exhibits. In no particular order:
Meteorites
Rocks from space are just awesome. Really, anything from space is awesome. The Field Museum has a small exhibit of meteorites, but I always enjoy looking at them. They're from space!
Totem Poles
In the Northwest Coast and Arctic Peoples section, there's a collection of enormous totem poles. I had completely forgotten about these, but they might be my favorite spot in the whole museum. It's a darkly lit area with towering totem poles that have strange, sometimes creepy carvings. I love it.
That last picture is an entrance pole representing the spirit of the sea. It was placed at the front of the owner's house, and you would actually walk through the mouth of the pole to get inside. I tried to convince Wendy that the pole is the Native American equivalent of Castle Grayskull from the He-Man cartoon:
I don't think she believed me.
Dinosaur Hall
The Dinosaur Hall is a gigantic room, with, you guessed it, dinosaurs. There are several complete dinosaur skeletons which are really cool. But, oddly, my favorite part isn't the skeletons, it's the huge dinosaur artwork on the walls. There are these huge murals depicting prehistoric scenes of dinosaurs, and I'm not sure why, but I just love them. I went around the hall, taking pictures of each of the murals.
They were all painted by Charles R. Knight, a nature artist, who's best known for his dinosaur paintings.
Even though we were at the museum for a good portion of the morning and afternoon, we still weren't able to see everything. Wendy and I have talked about going back soon to see the rest of it. So there may be other exhibits I've forgotten about that would make my favorite-exhibit list.