Dinosaurs Alive! Chicago Field Museum

Pierre and decided to drive into Chicago and not take the train, that way we would not be on a time restraint. The drive into Chicago was very pleasant and we found a parking garage to park Vinn in and off we went! First stop was Bloomingdales, I wanted to buy something from there, that way if anyone ever asked me "where did you get that" I could say Bloomingdales, but the prices drove me out of there..quick.. one shirt that I fell in love with....was $400.00...hmmm.. not today! We then had lunch on the the Riverwalk and watched the Chicago Fireboat do some maneuvers! 

After lunch we started walking and passed by the Navy Pier and saw the Farris Wheel.. It was super tall! After about 5 more miles we arrived at The Field Museum of National History (named after, its first major benefactor, Marshall Field)  this museum a natural history museum and is one of the largest, of its kind, in the world. It is a premier Museum, because of its size and the extensive scientific specimen and artifact collections.
It's permanent exhibitions include artifacts from around the world, but one of its most 

famous is Sue...On August 12 1990 working on a dig in South Dakota, Susan Hendrickson uncovered the remains of one of the largest, most complete, and best preserved T. rex ever found, it was named "Sue" in her honor. I was taken back at massive size of these animals, they are huge! This T-Rex is 40 feet long, stands 12 feet high at the hips, she is is 67 million years old and examination of the bones revealed that Sue died at age 28. I guess this is young for a T-Rex?  I thought of the movie Jurassic Park, and could not imagine such a creature running at me...gave me chills.

They also house a collection of gems would make most swoon!  Such a collection.....diamonds, ruby's, emeralds, sapphires, so many, my eyes started to sparkle! The collection of amber made me weep! We saw a Louis Comfort Tiffany stain glass window! They had so many meteorites, (some of them were quite big) fossils, as well as a anthropological collection and cultural artifacts from around the globe.

They have many animal exhibitions and dioramas, lots of Asia and Africa animals, we had an up-close look at the diverse habitats that these animals inhabit. Most notably featured are the infamous Lions of Tasvo. These lions were a pair of man-eating Tsavo lions responsible for the deaths of a number of construction workers on the Kenya-Uganda Railway in 1898. They made a movie depicting their reign of terror "The Ghost and the Darkness".

The Hall of Jade, spans 8,000 years of Chinese jade artifacts. That's a lot folks! 

We saw 23 human mummies along with mummified birds and cats in the Ancient Egyptian hall, this exhibit also has a tomb with hieroglyphics that are 5,000 years old. I loved the shrine of the cat goddess Sekhmet, (she looked a lot like Navi!) along with the kinder less hostile form Bastet. A popular feature of the exhibit is the replica (with original materials) of the chapel in the tomb of Unis-Anka the son of Una s,(the last pharaoh of the Fifth Dynasty).

Of course the Evolving Planet was my favorite, you walk each hall and it tells you the history and the evolution of life on Earth, from the first organism to present-day life! I loved the dinosaur hall, they had dinosaurs from every era! I was in awe at the amount of dinosaurs they had displayed in this hall. They had tons and tons (Literally) of dinosaurs! 

Other exhibitions include sections on Tibet and China where you can view traditional clothing and jewelry. There is also an exhibit of how life is was in Africa and you can visit several Pacific Islands. They have a authentic 19th century Maori Meeting House, Ruatepuke II, from Tokomaru Bay, New Zealand,in order to go into the house you have to take your shoes off!

Chicago Field Museum is one of the world's great museums of science, environment, and culture, a focus of public learning and scholarly research. It is a treasury of more than 20 million objects from ancient mummies to endangered plants and animals and their collections of fossils and meteorites are world renowned, drawing researchers from around the globe to study them!

The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry

 On June 30, 1908, the first passenger car of the Chicago, Lake Shore & South Bend Railroad (later renamed the South Shore Line) left Michigan City and arrived in South Bend. This was the beginning of the South Shore Line, now located at the South Bend Airport. You can park your car in any of the airports parking lots and ride the train all the way to Chicago. That's what we did and after about a 2 hour ride we got off on the 55th street stop and landed right at the door of The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry where we had a full day of fun and learning!  

The Museum is the proud keeper of a German type IXC submarine the U-505 which was built for Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine. Durning WW II she was captured by the USNavy Task Group 22.3 on June 4 1944. She was the first warship captured by U.S. forces since the War of 1812. All but one of U-505's crew were rescued by the Navy and then the submarine was towed to Bermuda in secret and her crew was restrained at a US prisoner-of-war camp. The Navy classified the capture as top secret to prevent its discovery by the Germans. Her codebooks, Enigma machine and other secret material help the Allied cryptologists to succeed in breaking the German code and "turned the tide" in the Allies' favor. She was kept outside for many years, but in 2004 she had 35 thousand pounds of rust scraped off and with the use of heavy equipment she was lifted up and transferred in her new home, inside the museum!

We watched one of the Museum's most beloved experiences: a baby chick pip out of its shell and take its first step into the world, the Museum's first baby chick was hatched in 1954 and thru the years the Hatchery has helped preserve rare chicken breeds! We saw frogs with glowing eyes, some mutated fruit flies and cloned mice. I was fascinated with the mice and really wanted to get some pictures of them, but they were asleep in their little houses. 

On May 26, 1960, the original Pioneer Zephyr train was donated to Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, this was the first diesel-powered streamlined stainless-steel passenger train.....In the early 1930s, the US was in the depths of the Great Depression and with no money, freight trains were not hauling as much as used too, people could no longer travel as much as used to nor could they buy as much goods. Automobile travel had increasingly cut into rail ridership, making faster, more efficient service imperative for railroads to compete. Railroads needed a way to re-energize the traveling public and offer a bit of hope for the days to come. The first Zephyr was completed by the Budd Company on April 9, 1934, powered by an eight-cylinder, 600hp, model Winton engine. 

To catch the public's attention, on May 26 1943, this train was not simply rolled out of the factory; it made a dash from one end of the train tracks in Denver, to the other end, in Chicago. The railroad spared no expense in planning this operations, all the other trains along the Zephyr's route were diverted on the day of the dash and every road crossing was manned by a flagman to stop automobile traffic ahead of the train to make sure that all the crossing were kept clear. Zephyr made the trip in 13 hours 5 minutes with an average speed of 77 mph! On the second anniversary of the train's famous dash, the original Zephyr was rechristened the Pioneer Zephyr to distinguish it as the first of the Zephyr fleet. 

The Museum also has the Apollo 8 space capsule. In 1968, this spacecraft was the first Apollo mission to take humans to the Moon and back. An important prelude to actually landing on the Moon was testing the flight trajectory and operations for getting us there and back. Apollo 8 did this and acheived many other firsts including the first manned mission launched on the Saturn V, first manned launch from NASA's new Moonport, first pictures taken by humans of the Earth from deep space, she set a new world speed record: 24,200 mph and  achieved the first live TV coverage of the lunar surface. Totally awesome! 

You can also descend into a coal mine, touring Old Ben No. 17, this is a real mine relocated from southern Illinois. You ride in a cage elevator down into the mine. You can board a work train to experience a coal miner's "daily commute" and see working examples of how extraction machinery has evolved from the pickaxe to longwall machines that can carve out football field-sized sections of shale....

From sailing ships to space travel this Museum has it and you can experience it all! Then we rode the South Shore Line back to South Bend airport, walking up to the car I noticed that someone had stolen the tire cover off the jeep.. I guess they liked my design on it! What a fantastic day we had! 

House after house

When our friends Dick and Jane talked about South Bend (that's where they are from), I pictured something quite different! We were surprised with it size and the scope of things to do. South Bend Indiana is the fourth-largest city in Indiana and it is the economic and cultural hub of Northern Indiana because of The University of Notre Dame, which is is located in South Bend, this university is a large, four-year, highly residential research university.  In French, Notre Dame du Lac means "Our Lady of the Lake" and refers to the university's patron saint the Virgin Mary. The main campus covers 1,250 acres in a suburban like setting and it contains a number of recognizable landmarks, the the Golden Dome and the "Word of Life" mural (commonly known as (touch down Jesus)!

We visited the elegant 38-room Oliver Mansion, Copshaholm, the family home of Joseph D. Oliver, he owned the Oliver Chilled Plow Works, but he is still best known as the founder of the green Oliver Tractors. Copshaholm, has 2.5 acres of landscaped gardens, including a garden tea house, formal Italianate garden, rose garden, pergola, tennis lawn, and fountain. 

After that we went to Tippecanoe Place (today, the house is the location of the Tippecanoe Place Restaurant) this is the name of the home of Clement Studebaker, he was a wagon and carriage builder. He and his brother Henry, founded the H&C Studerbaker Company. It wasn't till after Clements death that they started to build the Studerbaker automobiles. 

I think it is funny that these people had names for their homes, I think I am going to do that with our house on Center, after all, our sailboat has a name, our car has a name and our RV has a name! 

RVing through the ages

We took a day trip to the RV Heritage Foundation Museum in Elkhart In, where they display trailers, photos, and memorabilia reaching back to the 1920's and 1930's. The museum presents chronological and technological advancements in the RV  industry from before WW I to the present. New RVs selected by the museum are also on display so visitors can contrast today’s products with the vintage vehicles on display. The Go RVing exhibition at the Museum features a contemporary, state-of-the-art display, celebrating the vital role RVing is having on society today.

Attractions include a theater, cinema-sized murals, interactive versions of the print ads and computer kiosks where visitors can search the Go RVing website for RV dealers, campgrounds and manufacturers. 

Camp Wildwood Resort

Lake Juno is a weekend get away for alot of people from the surrounding area and a full time lifestyle for others, from  Park Made Home Models to fixed up travel trailers they have made this closed community their own playground. Most people have golf carts to get around so the roads are well traveled. The lake is beautiful and full of wild swans so it's very picturesque. 

Pierre, Dick and myself went to Warren State Park in Sawyer Michigan. It is a 1,950 acre recreational park along the shores of Lake Michigan. It is know for it large sand dunes 
with names like, Mt. Fuller, Pikes Peak, and Mt. Edwards, with the most significant being Tower Hill, the highest point in the park, which stands 240 feet, Pierre and I climbed up this one..Whew...We did get some wonderful photos! 

Sunday we went out in a friends pontoon boat to seeLake Juno from the water perspective. Other than it being a bit windy we had a lot of fun.

This is a picture of Bob Keeshan summer home on Lake 
Juno, he was Captain Kangaroo. Capt Kangaroo was a TV show that aired weekday mornings on the CBS for nearly 30 years, making it the longest-running nationally broadcast children's television program ever. It has fallen in to disrepair in the last few years, word around the Lake is that when he was alive the grounds were manicure and it was well cared for!

St. Charles

While we were in Missouri we stayed in a RV Park named Sundermeier RV Park it is located in Historic St. Charles and it is convenient to St. Louis and St. Peters! The park has the best Wifi I have ever encountered, it is clean, and well maintained. There are 107 site and each and everyone has its own concrete pad with 30 or 50 amp, and of course water! This is a wonderful RV park. 

 This RV park has a long history with St Charles dating back to 1925.  It was originally a mobile home park but in 1983 the 7.5 acre park was purchase by Bill and Carolyn Strong, they saw the change in people's lifestyles and decided to transform the mobile home park to a RV park. It reopened in 2000 as the Sundermeier RV Park. 

 From the RV Park you can bike or walk to downtown St Charles via the Katy Trail State Park, which runs along the banks of the Missouri River. 

In Downtown St Charles you can walk the brick paved streets and visit unique one of a kind shops, antique shops, sit in one of the various tree shaded parks and eat ice cream or have lunch in one of the several restaurants. Most of all the shops and businesses are in old restored buildings that date back to the 1800's. 

Downtown St. Charles

  At different times of the year they have arts and crafts fairs, farmers markets, festivals, a three day party on the Fourth of July and many other things to do and see. Nearby there is a couple of city parks with playgrounds, dog parks, swimming pools, tennis court, basketball ball courts, and picnic areas. 

There is always something of interest to do in St Charles but 

if you want more adventure Sundermeier RV Park is only 20 

miles from St. Louis, which features the Gateway Arch, Forrest Park, which has the Muny Opera and the Zoo, countless Museums , Cherokee Landing, Delmar Loop, Grant's Farm, St Louis Science Center, the Fabulous Fox Theater and of course the St Louis Cardinals.