Highlights of Route 66

with Archers Holidays, June 2015

We woke up early as we were still on UK time and 7am was 1pm in the UK so it was really pretty late - sort of! We had agreed with Dave that we'd head for breakast at about 8am but, since we'd changed hotels, the restaurant was right next door to our hotel rather than down the street!

We headed inside and were seated immediately. Boy the place was loud! They had quite a lot of choice for breakfast, though not much for Di as, although there were a lot of veggie options, they pretty much all included eggs. To be fair, the place was called Yolk.

She did find some oatmeal however. Meanwhile, I tucked into an El Torero Scrambler.

Once we left the restaurant we crossed the road and headed towards The Field Museum. On the corner opposite the restaurant, we spotted (with the help of a text message, as we'd never met) our Twitter friends the Koosas (@Koosa_party) and their human assistant, Wendi. This was our first of several tweetups (Twitter meet-ups) of this trip. We all got introduced - Señor Rodrigo and Captain Americakoosa - and continued on towards the museum. As we walked, we took some photographs. We spotted the Chicago Bears NFL stadium, Soldier Field. There was a statue of Christopher Columbus in the park and looking back we could see our hotel (both of them in fact!)

They had an Illinois Resident's free day, which at least meant Wendi got in for free. We had planned the 11am Hightlights tour of the Museum as we figured we'd see more that way. We had about twenty minutes to wait so we took a quick look around.

Another Twitterer we knew from the Field Museum was Sue the T-Rex (@SUEtheTrex) - technically, she is more of an exhibit than a Twitter pal, which probably explains whey she is not wearing a TGT Tour shirt! Not sure we have them in size T-Rex anyway! I've got to say, it was really busy in this museum, with a lot of school groups present.

We got some great photos of "Sue", the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex ever found. She is 42 feet long from snout to tail. The skull on the skeleton is a replica as the original - which weighs 600 pounds - is too heavy for the skeleton to support. The original skull is upstairs, on the balcony. We couldn't help but have a little fun with Theo.

Frank decided to check out Carl Akeley's Fighting African Elephants. Akeley is considered the father of modern taxidermy. With his wife, Delia, they each killed one of the elephants on display in the museum, during a hunting expedition in the early 1900s and shipped them back to Chicago for exhibition.

We had a few minutes to spare before our tour so we popped into the gift shop. Frank decided to see what it felt like being an elephant - at least no one shot at him! We started our tour in the Africa exhibit.

We entered an ancient Egyptian tomb, a three-storey mastaba. It contains two authentic rooms from the five-thousand year old tomb of Unis-Ankh, a pharoah's son.

There are artifacts and the artwork on the walls demonstrates the preparations that were made for the afterlife.

We then walked through a large area of stuffed animal chaps. I'm not keen on these kinds of exhibits but they would have been taken last century when people didn't frown on this kind of thing. Without such exhibits, would we have learnt about animals over the years? I have to say the snake skeleton was pretty impressive! The animal, below right, is an American Crocodile.

The large animal below left is a Komodo Dragon, one of the largest lizard species. Below centre are Burchell's Zebra, one of three species of Africa that are identifiable by their stripes. These live in small groups of a single stallion and a small group of mares. Below right are African Buffalo, which travel in herds south of the Sahara Desert.

Below left are the Tsavo Lions. In 1898, the British were building a railway bridge over the Tsavo River in East Africa and, over nine months, two large male lions reportedly killed and ate 135 railway workers and native Africans causing workers to flee and work halted on bridge construction. Chief Engineer Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson had to hunt down and eventually kill the two lions and construction recommenced. After a lecture tour in 1924, Patterson sold the skins and skulls to the Field Museum, where the taxidermist brought them back to life as an exhibit.

Below center are Greater Kudu, woodland antelope from Africa. There are also a number of Gelada Baboons on display.

We passed a couple more skeletons - an elephant (below left) and a whale (below right). In between, you'll find some Bison.

We had to show you the bears we found, including Alaskan Brown Bears. There were some wintery deer too.

There are a few dioramas in the Museum. The Native American Village, below left, has been in the Field Museum since they opened in 1920. Another shows village life with them drying out pumpkins, below centre and below right, there is also a Plains Indian Village.

We got to sit down on a buffalo-robed bed in the Pawnee Earth Lodge. It is a full-size replica and is thirty-eight feet across. The lodge has a domed shape. Theo even got to play in the Pawnee child's toy - a teepee.

There is an example of an Inuit semi-subterranean home, built into the earth to insulate the shelter from the freezing temperatures and cold winds.

Our tour finished just before noon and we wanted to catch the Sue talk, but when we got there, there was a lady speaking but we couldn't hear a word. I mean, the museum was full of kids tour groups and she had no microphone so in the end we gave up and went to look at the exhibits upstairs instead. Give the lady a microphone, Field Museum!

Upstairs we found the real skull of Sue The T rex. At six hundred pounds, the structure downstairs couldn't hold it so the exhibit downstairs has a replica. Sorry about the pictures but it is in a glass case and hard to stop the light reflecting! They also have a model of the tip of Sue's tail. They recovered thirty-five of more than forty vertebrae, making it the most complete T rex tail ever found, however, they still had to make a best guess in constructing the missing pieces. This one is a bronze replica of the finished tail.

There was a good view of the main hall from up here. They have a fabulous wall painting up here. They also have a Pteranadon up here!

We headed into the Evolving Planet exhibit, to find a whole lot more dinosaur skeletons. It describes the four million year journey from single-celled organisms to the dinosaurs and beyond. They had this Triceratops skull with its three horns and protective bony neck armour. They had some primitive tetrapods (below right) - four-limbed vertebrates (like Eryops, here) These were amphibians which had evolved from fully aquatic tetrapods.

We moved on to Edaphosaurids, with their protective long spines along the backbone. There was a great example of a Stegasaurus too, which is one of my favourites. Then Theo had to go annoy the Velociraptors - at least, my knowledge of them (all from the movie Jurassic Park) says that's what these guys are (below right) as someone - looks pointedly at the staff - didn't take a picture of the sign!

They have a fossilised Apatosaurus footprint, which was pretty huge! We put Frank in it on his own as his nickname is Bigfoot (as one of his feet is bigger than the other) but we soon found we could all fit in it with room to spare!

I tried, but I couldn't get all of the Apatosaurus skeleton into a single picture! Some dinosaurs are closely linked to birds, with over one hundred common features.

This example of a Ceratopsian dinosaur (below left) shows off the unique beak that was covered in horn. The Parasaurolophus also had a beak. Slow-moving turtles relied on a protective shell (below right) to ward off predators, but it is not clear if they moved slowly because of the shell, or the shell evolved to protect them as they moved slowly.

Frank enjoyed investigating the evolution of the horse (below left) while I took a picture of Neanderthal and Modern humans. They've grown a bit.

The skeleton below left is one of my ancestors. Arctodus had a short face - like a cat - and longer legs to let it run faster. I'm glad I evolved out of them (lazy bear!) Below centre are Glyptodonts which also had a protective shell across the back and looked something like an armadillo. Below right is a giant ground sloth - sheesh, he's huge! These did well in North America.

We finished up the dinosaurs with some pretty impressive mastadons still with really amazing tusks.

There is so much to see and do in the Field Museum you really could take a couple of days to see everything. We only had a few hours to look around and it was useful to have the Highlights Tour as I'm sure we saw more than we would have on our own. I'm not sure I needed to see quite as many stuffed animals, but hey, they're like my ancestors, right?

Having spent a few hours in the Field Museum - and really just scratching the surface, we figured it was time to move on. We were getting hungry but we wanted to go see the NFL American Football Stadium Soldier Field before going in search of food. With a great marble staircase to the back of the Field Museum, we just had to get another photo.

Soldier Field is the oldest NFL stadium, having opened in 1924. It has been the home of the Chicago Bears since 1970.

There are a number of memorials around the ground, dedicated to American soldiers who have died in war. I was impressed with this sign to the Bears Den.

We didn't have time for a stadium tour, so we headed back towards the Shedd Aquarium in front of which we would catch a Water Taxi to Navy Pier. Frank and I were both named First Mate as we climbed aboard, but Theo's head was too small! He wasn't great at taking orders! We had to wait a while for the boat to leave and the lake was rising and falling a bit, but we needn't have worried - Di was fine! Fortunately!

As we left the shore, I spotted the Adler Planetarium, though we didn't have time to visit it. We crossed Lake Michigan but didn't get a great view of the Skyline, which had been our plan. It was pretty murky out so we couldn't even see the tops of the buildings. Very ethereal. Really, there's a bunch of tall buildings behind me, below right. The journey only took about fifteen minutes but it saved me having to walk.

We spotted a lighthouse, and a faster-moving boat than ours, before the building on Navy Pier came into view. Built in 1916, it had fallen into disrepair over the years. Since 2011, it has been run by a not-for-profit corporation, with the goal of becoming an extremely popular public space, with a variety of recreational activities.

There's a big ferris wheel on the pier which rises 150 feet into the air. We didn't have time to ride it, but wouldn't have seen much in the murky weather anyway. Our Water Taxi docked and we disembarked onto the pier. We spotted the Captain On The Helm bronze statue, which is dedicated "To those courageous mariners who guided their ships through perilous waters, carrying cargo and people. Their contributions have been so much a part of our history. May they never be forgotten."

Right on the dock was Harry Caray's Restaurant. It looked good and was really close by so we went inside and got a table, ordering a few drinks. I got a Goose Bay Green Line Pale Ale, Frank got a Goose 312 Urban Pale Ale and Theo ordered a humungous Bell's Oberon.

We were planning a meal later with Duffy and Marjorie so we only had a light lunch of cheesey fries.

Theo wasn't happy with that though so he got himself a veggie burger. It was all very good. I may have snuck a bit of Dave's chicken tortilla soup too. sshhhh. Wendi mentioned that the ice creams here were served in a baseball helmet so we had to try them.

Our helmets were for the Chicago Cubs. It was great food, served hot and quickly. The restauarant was huge and also had a large retail store.

Wendi was trying to figure out the best way for us to get down to the Willis Tower where we were planning to meet Marjorie and Duffy this afternoon. We'd hoped to go up the Tower too, but it wasn't looking promising with the low cloud.

We headed first to one bus stop, then checked again and headed to a second one. We only had about eight minutes until the bus was due and it was all pretty straightforward. Just paid cash into the machine by the driver and got on board. He told us where we should get off and when we got there he called down the bus to confirm it.

Off we got and walked the couple of blocks to Willis Tower. We found it relatively easily - it does have its name on the front. The Skydeck could be reached through an entrance around the side and we went to take a look. The guy inside was showing folks the view from the top - pretty sure it was a white piece of paper, what do you think? It convinced us not to bother though. Besides, it was time to meet Margie and Duffy (@@peeweelee66) who we knew from Twitter.

She agreed to meet us at the Skydeck entrance and soon picked us out - there wasn't much of a crowd and I do look like me after all. As we'd only just had lunch and were a bit stuffed, we agreed to go get a coffee so we could sit somewhere warm and chat. There was a coffee shop just a couple of blocks away and we headed inside. It was about 4.20pm and they shut at 5pm but for now we could sit. It was great to meet yet another Duffy the Disney Bear, he was a very nice chap!

Margie said she was excited to meet the famous TourGuideTed, which made me laugh and we all introduced ourselves and drank our coffees. As the coffee shop put more and more chairs on tables we figured it was time to leave so we did. We'd planned to have dinner at a little place called Poag Mahones, which was close by, so we headed over there.

It was a little noisy as we got inside but it was Friday night, just after work (about 5.15pm) so there were workers clearly letting off steam after a busy work week. We were able to get a booth right by the door so we sat and took a look at the beer menu - it was still too early to think about eating. We ordered some local beers. We ordered their special, 21st Amendment Hell Or High Watermelon Wheat Ale, a Three Floyds Brewing Co. Jinx Proof Lager and a Revolution Brewing Company Eugene Porter. Then later we ordered another Hell or High Watermelon while Theo ordered a 22oz Lagunitas Brewing Company Maximus Imperial IPA. Soon Margie and Duffy decided it was time to catch the train home so they left and we sat and discussed the previous night's disaster.

When Di had spoken with Beth, she had said she would be in the lobby until 8pm this evening as people arrived from the airport. She also said she would see us there and she would update us on getting our money back, etc. As it was gone six, we decided we should order dinner and head back to be back before 8pm. Di found a veggie burger so ordered that and shared with Frank. Paul Theo and I had a cheeseburger with Monterey Jack cheese and fries and Dave and Colin ordered the Buffalo Chicken sandwich and fries. The price wasn't bad - $35 on beer and $30 on food so not bad, if you ask me.

When we got outside we noticed the sky had cleared and now the sun was out so it was probably a good time to go up the Willis Tower, but we'd said we'd be back to see Beth in the hotel before 8pm so we thought we'd better do that. I spotted Roosevelt University on South Michigan Avenue.

We walked by Grant Park as the sun was beginning to set. We arrived back at the hotel at about 7.40pm to be told by hotel reception that Beth had "just left." Oh. We weren't the only ones who came in, apparently waiting to see her. We asked the Front Desk staff to give her a call. She said she'd misread the time the previous night and that, having been in the lobby all day without food or bathroom breaks she'd called it a night. When we mentioned the number of people waiting for her, she did offer to come down but we all agreed nothing was that urgent, though we were a bit annoyed as we would have gone to the Willis Tower instead.

Beth did tell Di that she had spoken with the Essex Inn and they had confirmed that they had refunded the $300 Di had paid for the room, which was good news, and that Beth would see us in the morning for our city tour. She also said we could have just called and gone to the Tower, which is true, but we'd said we would meet her in the lobby so expected to do that. It wasn't a big deal though. Our soon-to-be fellow passengers all declined to speak with her on the phone as there was nothing too pressing. Instead, we returned to our rooms for an early night! After all, we had an 8.30am tour in the morning and we'd had a busy day.

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