Chicago Things (Part 2)
I’ve heard that they dye this river green for St. Patrick’s Day (it looks pretty green to me already)
Rapid Transit
From the line that I saw, it was clean, convenient, and getting plenty of use.
Hot Beef Sandwiches
This one happened to be from Luke’s Sandwiches in downtown.
I guess these are to die for to some people but I would rate it as meh. I’m glad I tried it but I don’t have a hankering for it like I do some other local foods around the world. You really need the giardiniera (which is the hot pickled condiment) to make the flavor pop.
You basically get it “wet” which means they dumped it in the au jus that the beef was simmering in before they wrap it up. The flavor is ok and it is really messy. The giardiniera is also pretty spicy. I think I might enjoy this more if I could knife and fork it otherwise it’s a 50 napkin meal.
Field Museum
Chicago has a few excellent museums and we decided to visit this one on this trip. This is their natural history museum and the highlight of it is the dinosaurs.
Sue the T-Rex is the main draw to the museum - they keep the actual skull (shown here) separate from the main skeleton so it can be more easily studied - a replica skull is on the display skeleton
The entire evolutionary exhibit is very good but the dinosaurs are the stars. The exhibit walks you through the origins of life on earth up to the dinosaurs and finishes on a high note with the Sue exhibit.
They also have this life-sized model of the largest pterasaur and it is crazy to think that these things could fly.
Like the one in NYC, the Field one also has the many halls displaying animals from around the world as well as many other displays of civilizations and artifacts.
Lakefront
Much like Central Park in NYC, the lakefront in many ways is the center of the city. The lake on one side might as well be a freshwater ocean since the lake is huge. It’s great that the lakefront just goes on forever and links the north and south sides of the city with greenspace.