We arrived at the airport at 4:30 am. We got through security very easily. We now have a two hour wait until we board. We are full of anticipation. We do not know what to expect. Do the peoples of the land out west speak the same language? Do they have the same customs? Will we be able to relate to them? This trip is full of unknowns! Kim wants to know if they have the same toilets.

We had an uneventful hour and a half flight to Chicago . It was a long hour subway ride into the city. Kim insisted that she was not going to use a backpack this year. She kept telling me that I need more practical luggage. Well, she learned the hard way. We had to go up and down several stairs. My backpack and I had no problems. I think I already had the practical luggage.

Our room at the hotel was not really the best we ever had. In fact, there were several on last year's trip that were better.

The first place we went was to the "Taste of Chicago". Kim bought $21 worth of tickets. She thought this would be enough.   We had to go back again after thirty minutes and get more. I think we used up half of our food money on just this meal. The food was great. We had some Jerk Chicken, Breaded Steak sandwich, Chili, Fried Ravioli …it was all good. We walked through right before it opened and picked a few places before it opened. It was a good thing we did. We may have spent most of our time in one spot . The most exotic thing we did was to eat Goat with Coconut Fried Rice. It was good, but the piece of goat was very small.

After we filled our bellies, we went to the Field Museum. We saw the new dinosaur exhibit. Sue, the most complete fossilized T-Rex ever to be found was the highlight of the exhibit. It was cool to see after reading about her with my students over the years. We went into the Darwin exhibit. I think this guy is a crackpot for coming up with the idea of evolution. Who in their right mind would believe that crap!

The coolest thing was that we were shrunk to 1/100 of our original size. It was accomplished in two psychedelic rooms that looked like they came out of the 60’s. There a lot of light changes and weird noises. At first I thought the museum was trying to pull a fast one on us, but after we went into the exhibit, we were really the same size as these micro features. I was surprised how fast and without warning they transformed us from small to original size . I was really fearful that we would stay that small size! (Men are always so worried about their size. If I’ve told him once I’ve told him a thousand times size doesn’t really matter!)

We were very tired and had some serious jet lag. We went back and took a short one hour nap. Kim dragged me to a brew pub for supper. I really didn’t want to go, but she was very insistent. She made me get a sampler! How dare she do that!

We barely made it to Navy Pier to see the fireworks. They were awesome, some of the fireworks looked like giant smiley faces. On the down side, they didn’t last as long as other displays. Erie, PA has a longer show. We were entertained by a group of young teenage girls. Their language was as colorful as the fireworks; they were positive role models for today’s delinquent youth.