Garfield Park Conservatory (Chicago)
We could have gotten up and come straight home on Monday morning, but sometimes it's hard to get in the car and say goodbye. Instead we made an afternoon out of visiting the conservatory and riding the El, then had an early dinner of sushi before finally hitting the road.
The fern room gives a good look at what Chicago might have looked like during the Carboniferous Period.
In the tropical food plants room we found a number of citrus trees, papayas, bananas, and pineapples.
It's neither a bat, nor white, and I don't see any flowers…
Lazy Praying Mantis. These flowers stink of decaying meat, attracting flies by the dozen. Lazy or opportunistic, you be the judge.
And an axolotyl in the kiddie pond? My favorite part.
Back home today we're slow to get back on our feet. The loss of the hour, plus the dipping temperatures and waning sunlight always catch me by surprise after a fall trip to Chicago. We can't dally too much this week, though; we have a book sale on Saturday, and work on the next play (for Calvin's theater class) begins on Friday.
Brookfield Zoo
Like the Field Museum, the Brookfield Zoo has become one of our favorite Chicago stops. They have okapis, need I say more? With temperatures in the low to mid sixties we had the perfect weather, and so did the animals, which means we got to see more of them, and see more of them doing stuff, like the polar bear playing with his ball. We ate bison burgers, we pet stingrays, we gave a wide berth to a giant animatronic wasp. Desert animals, African animals, Australian animals, and us animals.
After the zoo we went out for a birthday dinner at favorite Italian spot, and tomorrow it will be time to head home and get back to life as usual. October means so many lovely fall things. Jon is already begging for pumpkin cheesecake, and we have to visit our own zoo again in these cooler, delightful days. Classes have started up at HAA, Hallowe'en Nights is up at Henry Ford, and Halloween is just around the corner. I guess the first thing on our list for this week should be decorating. Right after laundry, that is.
Windy City
We're in Chicago for what is becoming an annual birthday visit. We came into town last night and enjoyed true Chicago deep dish pizza for dinner. Then today we had a late breakfast at our favorite local place before spending the rest of the afternoon at the Field Museum, per Calvin's request. Egypt, Tibet, the Pacific Islands, biodiversity, evolution, and Extreme Mammals—we did it all. Afterwards? Pool, football on TV, relaxing, and great dinner.
Tomorrow? Zoo time.
family, museums, traditions, travel Field trip
Homeschool group fried trip! The space we rent as a group was not available this week, so one of our moms organized a field trip to Wiard's Orchard, a local apple orchard and pumpkin patch, family owned for the past 125 years. I remember visiting when I was in high school, and many times in college. Sadly, as with so many other locations in Michigan, their entire apple crop was destroyed by the early March heat and subsequent frost. Their solution was to bring apples in from their family orchards on the west side of the state, which mean that we still got to take home Michigan apples, we just didn't get to pick them.
While there we also went on the hay ride, played mini golf, tried out a variety of play structures, and consumed the obligatory cider and doughnuts. Fall splendor.
