Trip to the Field

We went to the Field Museum of Natural History yesterday and had a blast!
It's SO much fun to take Mary now that she actually thinks certain things are cool.
Unlike the Shedd, it's not overrun with loud, pushy schoolkids, and there's lots of stuff to see that she's actually interested in. The Field is definitely one of the top two museums in Chicago. (The other being the Art Institute.)
I meant to get her a shirt I saw on their website that has an Egyptian picture on it and reads:

MY MUMMY LOVES ME
Field Museum
Chicago, Illinois

but by the time we'd enjoyed all the things to see, the museum was closing and we had to leave. Oh well. Must go back soon.

Here is every lawyer's favorite dinosaur:
She is much smaller than you'd think, but remember, T-Rex wasn't that huge. Her tail is easily longer than the rest of her body, but it's hard to tell from this pic.


Here are two GIGANTIC African elephants. They are amazing and majestic. And a little bit frightening.

Here is Bushman the Gorilla, former resident of Lincoln Park Zoo.

He was orphaned as a baby and brought to Chicago, where he became quite famous and beloved. He would hurl dung and food at passersby and it was said he had a more accurate throw than any Cubs or Sox pitcher.
He once escaped from his cage but a garter snake frightened him and he came running back to "safety."
Bushman died in 1951.

They have a bird exhibit at the Field that contains 95% (!) of all bird species of North America. It's pretty amazing. Name a bird, it's there. They even have most extinct species. (Except the dodo - that's a model.)
It's like walking through an Audubon Field Guide.



They have "How-To" guides, too, just like the Field Guide. For example, in the "Gulls Section", they have a big display on how to tell gull species apart.

This is a painted bunting. My dad loved these birds, which are prolific in his yard.


Here is a cedar waxwing, another personal favorite:


When we first walked into the mummy part of the museum, Mary said (loudly), "King Tut!"
A woman standing there started laughing and said, "Wow, she's really smart!"
(The light is really low in some parts of the Egyptian exhibit, probably for preservation purposes.)





There is a huge area of the Field devoted to meteorites. A large exhibit showcases the Benld, Illinois meteorite, which fell through a guy's car in 1938. (He wasn't in it.)


This is the seat of the 1938 Pontiac Coupe that took the impact from the meteorite, the wood from the garage roof it fell through, and the fabric from the car's top. Aweeeesome!



Mary saw this gigantic meteorite (the pic doesn't do it justice - it was as large as a truck tire) and said, "That's a big poop!"

(I love any museum that has signs on their meteorites saying "TOUCH ALL YOU LIKE!" Even though it should probably read, "Touch all YOU'D like.")


I can't recall what kind of animal this is, but it looks a lot like Grandma's dog Missy, so we took a picture.