Year 3, July 26th, 2018: Thursday, V12, Museum of Science and Industry

One more day to do one more museum....and it's a big one!  the Museum of Science and Industry! Gary said he visited there once as a kid!  I love that these museums are so old and I wish I had time to look through old photos of all of them and see what exhibits they had when they first opened.  Not only that, wouldn't it be neat to walk through a museum with an older person who remembers visiting there somewhat regularly since it opened?  We kind of have that kind of history with our Children's Museum in Indianapolis.  The kids don't really remember the old PlayScape or ScienceWorks, but I do, and I have many pictures of it.  Jared has memories of when the DinoSphere showed movies.  Anyway, just think about how much has changed in science and industry in the last 40-50 years! I bet a LOT of these exhibits are newer.  And one last thing, remember how much effort it takes for the curators to design, build, and maintain these museums, those with lots of interactive features like this one or the Children's Museum in Indy OR ones more like an art museum or history museum where you just read and look at something.  How would we understand our world without at least briefly remembering where we've been?  The least you can do is take the time to READ signs and internalize some of the information so meticulously shared by people passionate about their jobs of recording history.  Ok, getting off of my soapbox now.

There's not much to say in general about the museum except that this is one of the BEST ones I've been to besides our own Children's Museums.  It does hold the kids' attention span well with all their hands on exhibits.  Tons of variety, plenty of space for everyone, even with school groups around, but like some museums, it is NOISY.  The layout is ok, and the map was fine.  I wish there had been a little bit more description of certain areas on the map, like if it cost money, because a couple of times we went up to do something and had no idea it would cost money and/or we needed to get a free ticket for certain time slot.  One of those was to go through the submarine, which Grandpa said we can do in Muskegon like we have before in a smaller, but same class one.  There were a couple of virtual reality things that cost $10 a piece, ouch!  And the huge incredible history of Pixar was also an additional amount.  I was pretty disappointed in that because they advertised it everywhere, on every door, and Abishai kept asking about it.  I guess the carousel costs $1 at our museum and the haunted house in the fall is extra.  But nearly every other thing I can think of is free.  Oh well, we had more than enough to do and didn't even see it all.  We knew that it was bigger than some of the other things we've been to, so we into it picking out our favorites.  Or going through some exhibits quicker than others.  Keturah almost got sick to her stomach halfway through, and I'm not sure if it's something she ate at lunch or because we were in a certain area like on the real commercial airplane that was mostly suspended in the air.  Jared said he felt unsettled as well.  She also developed a headache in the science area.  Gary, Leah, and Benaiah left after we ate lunch because he had to get to worship team rehearsal at church.  The rest of us stayed until after 5 because we also walked down to the beach on the lake near the museum.  We got home just as Benaiah had gotten out of rehearsal, so 10:30pm.  Traffic was a chore, but the sunset was gorgeous as you'll see below.

Now, brace yourself because it's another round of 150 pictures.  Remember, I took a total of 1,100+ photos and videos, and I think each post has about 150, so I did NOT upload them all, you're welcome.  There's just too much I want to remember!  But this will be the last big blog for a long time.  I'll take less pictures, and blog less frequently until Christmas.  That's my goal anyway.  We are going to the Children's Museum next week and then up to Jared's uncle's cabin in Michigan over Labor Day, so I'm sure I'll be all "shutter" happy about that, lol.  Here we go...

After feeling dehydrated again yesterday, Jared filled up before we left.  He literally can drink two of three of these things and not feel pressure to find a bathroom.  I drink 8 oz of tea in the morning and I have to find one within an hr.  Therefore, I purposefully don't drink much when I'm out.  I also don't think I need as much water as some people say I do.  But his stash of travel mugs and his elaborate set ups to make butter coffee and tea crack me up!

Justin had to to double duty bringing stuff to the van.  And each kid has their souvenirs in their hands.  Yeah!

I wonder how Abishai would do driving in Chicago traffic?

Huge real submarine capture in WWII.  Jared knew all about it.  And we watched a video about how they wanted to capture it and not destroy it.

Sub selfie.

The kids got to practice keeping the sub balanced as it sank and rose in the water.

The Zephyr train was the very first thing we saw before we bought our tickets.

Of course we went into the space exhibit first.  As we walked up the ramp, they had spaced out the planets and shown how big they are in relation to one another.  I didn't see if it was perfectly to scale, but I think people get the point.  They did also have a nice timelines of the space era so far with a model and some real equipment from each era.  And of course, Mr. Trivia could point on all kinds of things to the others.  I wish I had a photographic memory like Jared's.  He soaks up information and retains it like a sponge.  I know where to find information but never keep it in my head.  I keep saying he should be their history and science teacher.  He could add so much to their lessons.  Hm,....now there's a thought....I'm always looking for different ways to do science......I have history covered and I'm happy with it for the most part.  And I LOVE science, but we do it differently every year.  Hm,....

Introducing Keturah the astronaut!

Introducing Abishai the astronaut!  He kept cracking up about doing it!  Cutie!

Introducing Justin the astronaut!

Introducing Melinda the astronaut!  And yes, I did want to become an astronaut at one point in my childhood.  Bear doctor, librarian, astronaut, dolphin doctor, and large animal vet.  Yup, knowledge and the sciences were always on my mind.  Still are.

I LOVE it when there's REAL used examples of the equipment!  This one is on loan of course and reminds me of the capsule we have in our planetarium in the Children's Museum, which is also on loan.  This thing really was in space!

So super cramped!

They had a slide presentation of this spacecraft, but no employee was around, there was no interactive show, or live skit of any kind.  No moving parts either.  You could go down some steps and get closer to it though.

This was the only really interactive thing in the space exhibit.  Air pressure and lift off.

Nice example of how big the space shuttle was.  But you couldn't go in it or do anything with it.  They also had some documentaries you could watch in a domed theater but we didn't stop for that.

Interesting take to see if pop would work in space.  They had this small area of an example of what life in the space station is like.  Not at all interactive.  Our very kid friendly huge walkthrough expanded version at the Children's Museum has many more interactive elements, like the kids can try to zip themselves in to try and sleep.  The space area here was a tad disappointing to be honest.

Back to the submarine.  I like that they had full size things in the museum and I could only imagine trying to build around each item as they put them in.  I had trouble with lighting and both the DSLR and the iPhone at times in several exhibits, and I don't use flash 99% of the time, so this is the best that I could get to show how massive this thing is.  And then Jared told us that a good chunk of the front is just hollow.  That's nuts!

An example of the peep hole up top.

And it's counterpart on the sub.

Jared was explaining to use the double hull system and how the water comes in and goes out.  The inside the inner hull is pressurized for the men but the space where the water is between the inner and outer hulls is not pressurized.

Keturah with the massive propellers.

Once again, Mr. Knowledge sharing information about the bunks.  I thought there might even need to be a third bunk here but maybe I'm thinking of all the older wooden ships we've seen or studied from the 1600-1800's.   He was talking about the "hot bunk" system where there isn't a bunk for every man, but for every three men, meaning, when one got up, another took that bunk and slept in it.  And there's no showers.  And they are on there for 6 months.  Ewwwww.  He also explained how to wash with a baby wipe or wet cloth.  I'm telling ya, this man knows everything!  And he knows how much whining I've done about making sure the kids actually internalize what we see.

Periscopes!  Jared says that even the digital ones will still turn but someday, it'll just be camera up there and you don't have to turn the whole thing.

Submerging the sub.

I thought this was interesting as I was waiting for kids to submerge the sub.  Air bubbles would fill the head instead of explosives so it would rise to the surface and float so it could be reused as a training warhead.

Propeller of the training warhead.

Justin submerging the sub.  It was HARD to do, but I'm glad they tried it.

The next exhibit we visited was all about transportation.  Now this was an incredible exhibit!  No models here!  Just real airplanes hanging from the celing and this humongous steam locomotive!  I should have stayed longer to notice the details on this thing, but it reminds me of Thomas or Gordan from the Thomas the Tank Engine TV series.  It's gorgeous!  And bigger, well, at least longer, than the one at the Children's Museum.  I will say that the scale of the exhibits here are massive.  The number of items are about the same as other museums, but not the scale of the real deal.  So neat!  And I bet a lot of the kids that come on school trips haven't had the opportunity to go on many field trips like we have and seen these things in person before.  What a treat!

Fastest solar powered car from 1993.

Ok, I lied, there was a HUGE model display of downtown Chicago complete with an "L" train.  I don't know how accurate it is, but it seemed fairly so.  But the idea was to show how goods get from Seattle, WA to Chicago, and/or from farms and mountains etc. to Chicago, as well as transporting people.

Oh, I thought I had gotten this in focus.  Bummers!  That's the "L" train there.  And it will stop there right before the car bridge, which I think represents the bridges over the Chicago River.

There, that's in better focus, although you don't see it curve to do the loop.  I think the long line of tracks right near the bridge is probably what we were accidentally started going north on yesterday on the Brown Line.  Cool!

Yes, you had the Chicago cityscape above and THEN you have the suburbs, and then beyond that, you have the mountains and after that, Seattle!  I think this is one of the biggest permanent train displays I've ever seen!

Now, ladies and gentlemen, this was pretty spectacular!  Ok, it just looks like landing gear for the plane hanging from the ceiling.  Well it is, BUT, get this! They had the landing gear periodically come down!  Both the front and the back AND  the wings moved like you were really landing or taking off!  Watch the video below, it's pretty cool to see it from this perspective!  By the way, this is a Boeing 727.

Seattle, Washington on the other side of the mountain.  And yes, the trains really did go around to the whole thing!  Commuter trains, goods trains, raw materials trains.  Justin did say that he doesn't like they had the Seattle cityscape correct.  Apparently he's been studying it after seeing it in one of his video games.  And I'm talking about actually looking it up and studying maps and articles, not just taking the video game and saying he knows the layout of the city from that.  Ok, maybe, I have no clue.

Ta-stinkin'-da! One full size Boeing 727 just chilling in a museum after it's retirement.  Say what?!  And not just that, but three war plans and a two locomotives in the same room!  WOW!

Abishai's favorite train ws the one with tractors on it.  I loved how the display was laid out where there were several peninsulas and "inlets" where you could get really up close.

A waited until the display turned from night to day but I like the nighttime picture better.  Yes, they did dim the lights and brighten them to indicate day and night.

One of the first steam locomotives, and yes, there's one just like on Thomas the Tank Engine.  This one is called the "Rocket" developed in 1829.

Checking out the inside of the train.

Just imagine trying to keep that thing going.  And yes, they did have a race and I forget how fast they got to but I think it was upwards of 120 or 150 mph.

Another perspective showing the three warplanes with the 727.  Real, retired, airplanes, just hanging there.  Incredible!

This cute part of the model trains showed how they would pour liquid iron I believe into the carrying car.  I liked how it would light up.

Across the hall from transportation was the most incredible science exhibit I've seen.  I've seen lots of exhibits featuring more physical elements like pulleys, levels, force, etc., or health and biology/botany, or ecosystems, but none have featured this kind of thing, a real live vortex!

For all of you who even remotely think the earth is flat, check this out.  It's one of those pendulum things that appears to be swinging in a straight line but because of the gravitational pull and turning of the earth on it's axis, the trajectory is actually slightly curved.  So the ball will shift slightly and hit the bar next to the one already fallen down.  Sweet! It's called Foucault's pendulum.

Even Abishai got to participate in this area.  This was a very hands on exhibit.  Here he is seeing how the grains of whatever is falling down because of gravity.  There was another thing similar to this where you add to shake it the thing at a certain frequency so that the objects would fall through a funnel in the middle without getting stuck.

This air hockey experiment had to do with friction and which type of surface went further, smooth or rough.

Oh wow, this was cool!  This shows how a landslide works! It turned counter clockwise and the pattern in the grains of sand would continually change.  And it was HUGE!

This explains how the vortex works with the four major wind blowers and walls to kind of protect it so it goes straight up.

Prisms!  Yes, that is the real sun shining down.

Showing how the prisms work in this contraption.

Tsunamis! There was a machine that showed how the huge waves will cover the land and the video I took shows that.

Jared and I remember the big tsunamis in 2004 and 2006.  This bouy was near Alaska and a huge 8 something underwater earthquake in the Pacific (is it eastern if it's near Asia? or western? it was not terribly close to land, but definitely on the other side of the international date line from us).  But it broke free and traveled all the way to Asia.

Both the science exhibit and the transportation exhibit had huge balconies.  This gives you some perspective as to how big this pieces of equipment are! Right next to me on this level was a machine that showed how physics works with the arc when you throw a tennis ball.  And there was a matching one across the exhibit and people could set it to throw balls across the exhibit!  There were plenty of nets though to catch them.

Learning about kinetic and potential energy with the pendulum!  You could choose how many balls were lifted and see how it affected the whole thing.

Lots of awesome display cases of all kinds of science equipment from years' past.  Telescopes, microscopes, seismographs, barometers, etc.  Of course the kids didn't care about them though.

What a classic!  The kids had already passed me when I got to this, but I of course had to do it.  Awesome!

We let the middles play with this area a bit.  It was a periodic table and you could use the magnets to pull over different elements to put together to make substances.  We haven't gone over the details of the periodic table yet, so this was perfect to see how elements interact with one another. Of course they've learned a little bit of "elements" from Minecraft, but they haven't learned how atoms and molecules work together.

Weird picture, but take a close look at how they have the sinks set up in the bathroom.  There are sensors under the faucet and soap dispenser, and several air dryers too, all lined up.  Then below is a huge basin to collect it all in one sink.  Think of some of those portable handwashing stations.  Pretty unique.

In the way back on the first level, you could twist some prisms to make pretty colors.  Oh, and since I don't seem to have a picture of it, I finally got to go in one of those wind tunnel things to feel like how it would be if I was in a tornado with 60 mph winds.  I've always wanted to do that!

Learning how to mix colors, so you could turn different colors on and off.  Or rather, the three primary ones in varying intensities.

One last picnic lunch, in the parking garage of all places, lol.  And that's how Johnson's save a gob of money and eat healthier than if we just bought our food inside.

Awww, walking hand in hand.

Then Benaiah, Grandma and Grandpa were on their way home and to rehearsal, and we went back inside.  We started with the Zephyr at the entrance.  What another unique mode of transportation!  I read about the center of gravity and how they lowered this train's so low so that it could go faster.

They had a great video about it's history and how it came to rest here at this museum.  They had to lift it into the museum after they trucked it up here and before they built the roof on this area.  It sits right next to the parking garage.  And the first level of the museum is actually underground.  It's a complicated complex!

Mail train!

Yup, I kind of knew this so I shared with the kids how they could do this and not fully stop which saved on fuel.

Their some kind of behind the scenes, slightly private tour, so I'm guessing that you could explore this train more.  But we were able to peak in the windows and see that the seats actually look to be in good shape and somewhat modern.

Woah!  That's some kind of bumper at the end!  Awesome!

I loved how they explained that in the 1930's, everybody was looking for something that would last and was streamlined in order to save money.  Lots of products got that shiny metal minimalist look.

Look, honey, it's a water sprinkler and an ice crusher (think the ice crusher in your refrigerator).

Mail hook on the outside of the train.

Then we went back up a couple of levels to the main level.  This exhibit on the human body was set between the balconies of the transportation and science exhibits.  We kind of breezed through this one call the "You! The Experience" since we had just gone over most of it this year.  It was hard to take pictures of everything because they were surrounded completely by glass.  But how cool is this pull apart skeleton?

This is the rotunda between the two big exhibits.  They had some music playing and the lighting would change.

Scanning to see where our veins and arteries are.  This is Keturah's hand.

This was both gross and fascinating.  This is a REAL donated slice of the human body!  And they had a whole body's worth! 

Here's the explanation.  These have been here since 1943?  That's 75 years!!!  That's before Gary and Leah were born!  And they still look "fresh!" And yes, a testimony to the methods used to study our bodies, just cut it open!  Incredible!

I know you can't read this, but this picture represents a very important part of the human body exhibit.  They had real human embryos/fetuses/babies from different stages in a pregnancy prepared in the same way as the other human bodies above.  They've been preserved for decades.  There was no pro life agenda here, but, how can you not be pro life after looking at all these babies and reading what is being developed at what stage.  First of all, it was hard to imagine the pain each of these set of parents went through when these miscarriages and stillbirths happened.  There were even twins on displayed.  Second, you really could tell all the babies features at just this 10 week stage.  Incredible.  It was a dark room and I couldn't get great pictures but I also want to be sensitive to those going through the pain of losing a child.  I took Keturah and Justin through this. Why?  Because we've had this discussion many, many times already.  It was brought up through our history lessons on the 20th century on Roe v. Wade.  They both watched as Abishai grew inside me, and saw the posters on the wall at the doctor's office explaining the same stage of development.  It's a hot button topic and can be explained in terms that younger ones can understand without showing the actual process.  I haven't shown them how the procedure is actually done.  They can use their imagination for just a bit longer.  Someday I will if they need more of that, or they can join email lists where they share that information from the pro life groups.  I think they both will remember this exhibit because we took our time and I tried to keep reminding them that women would get abortions at this or that stage and even right up until the end.  It's appalling.  It's one of those things that to me is black and white.  We have a choice and it should always be to give our babies life, no matter the circumstances.  They have rights, too.  Anyway, I'm glad we saw this.  And for the record, the kids did not cringe at it.  Again, it didn't show abortion, but just the stages of fetal development.  And I would think seeing REAL humans in jars would upset them a bit, but it didn't.  I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.  Maybe they are comfortable enough with the topic that it's not a shock.  Anyway, excellent stuff.

Hamster wheel! The kids got to run on the wheel and see how fast they could go.

Then we went around the balcony to the top area of the transportation exhibit.  The kids got to "fly" a plane and see how the different parts affect flight.

I wasn't sure what pictures to take inside, so I didn't.  We've all seen the inside of a plane before although this one has been very heavily modified to explain the history of commercial flights.

I enlarged this picture so you could just read it.  Pretty neat!

Abishai doesn't remember his first/last flight when we moved two years ago, so there ya go, you're on a plane!  You could look through the window on the opposite side down to the rest of the exhibit hall.

There's the landing gear!  I kept hoping it would go down again, but never did.  They also had wires exposed so you can see how the controls in the front affected the wings in the back.

Jared said that this was one of the last models of commercial planes to have stairs going down and out the back!  Cool!

Another view, this time from the balcony, of all the planes they've managed to fit in here.

A replica of the Wright brothers' plane.  I was a little bit disappointed up here because I was hoping for more of a history of flight.  But instead, there's a huge section of flight simulators that cost $10 to ride.  Ugh.

We got tired of chasing him so we put the leash on.  He's trying to escape like a caged animal.

This is what Jared was talking about late last night on the way home.  Here's the old football stadium.

Under the old bleachers, a place to create the first man made nuclear reaction.

These were just replicas, but, how cool to see the original drawings of what one scientist there at the experiment saw and see how he explained it in detail about colors and widths, etc.

Report from one scientist at the nuclear reaction.  These papers had "classified" written on them and then a stamp with a date and place for another signature indicating that it was no longer classified.

War planes, including a German one!

Jared said he teared up either today or when he probably read them long ago.  But these are letters from Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev during the cold war and the arms race.  Incredible show of wanting to preserve humanity.

Then we went down a level to a little area called "Yesterday's Main Street."  We only went down here because Grandma liked it.  The kids have seen enough of these things that we walked in and out of the exhibit pretty quickly.  It just showed how different shops would have been set up maybe 75-100 years ago? There was a "nickelodeon" theater showing silent movies though.

Then it was off to the ice cream treat that Grandpa left money us money for.  Of course Jared doesn't eat sugar and I don't eat dairy, so only the kids had treats.  Keturah had birthday cake, Justin had cookie dough, and Abishai had vanilla.

Yum!  Real ice cream dishes, spoons, etc. just like you find in an ice cream parlor 50 years ago.

Feeding Daddy.

Ice cream molds! Cool!

I love seeing the local history revealed.

Then we went down another level again to where we started with the space and U-boat exhibit to explore just a little more.  I'm not sharing every picture I took of this castle but it was incredible!  It was called "Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle."  As you walked around it, there was an audio recording explaining the different rooms.  Each area had incorporated different fairy tales into it like Cinderella's carriage and a pictorial of the Wizard of Oz (I think) was here in the garden.

Rock a bye baby cradle in a tree.

These were all of course miniatures.

So many incredible features!

Cinderella's slippers and the three chairs from Goldlilocks and the Three Bears.

The Prince's bedroom.

Parlor.

The princess's bedroom.

King Arthur's knights of the round table!

While Keturah and I saw the fairy castle, the boys explored farm tech and future energy Chicago.  When we joined them and I saw what it was, I was like, we don't need to see this because we've seen it at every state fair we've been to.  But of course, Abishai needed to be in the tractor.

Working hard at driving.

Pat-patting the cow.

 Exhibits we saw but breezed through were an awesome circus themed one complete with awesome displays, an eye spy section, and wild west wagons.  I wanted to go back and take pictures but we were in a rush near the end.  We didn't go in Imagining the Museum (which probably had some history of the museum), Idea Factory (where kids could do their own exploring and hands on experiments, but we both said that they would never want to leave there and our Children's museum as plenty of that), a Ships gallery, a Racing Cars exhibit (again, I think we know all about racing cars by now), Fast Forward (scientists of the future), Extreme Ice, Earth Revealed, Whispering Gallery (which was a big room to hear your echo), the Art of the Bicycle, ToyMaker 3000 (we would have gotten stuck in there for sure), Mirror Maze (timed entry and we couldn't stay that long), Coal Mine (we didn't go up in it), or Reusable City.  Justin wanted to go in "Genetics" but we didn't stay long when he realized how scientists are trying to create clones.  In fact, he made a comment about one statement about being able to choose what your child will be, like hair color, eye color, temperament even, etc.  Tinkering with God's design is a risky business and very controversial.  I'm glad he caught onto that and we did briefly explain it to together.  But it's a big topic we didn't have time to really do it justice right now.

This is just the main part of the museum here, not including all the wings and the underground levels.  I'm sure this was the main area and then they added on.

We left our car in their garage and walked under a major roadway to the 57th St. beach on Lake Michigan.  I was determined to get us to the water since we didn't go down on the Navy Pier or go down the steps at the Shedd Aquarium.  And to think across that great lake and north a bit is Muskegon where Gary is from!  It feels like an ocean!  This is looking north.

Quiet, clean local beach with life guards, changing rooms/bathrooms, etc.  Sweet!  We stayed off of the beach because we didn't want to have sandy feet on our way home.  This is looking south.  It's just a 10 minute walk from the museum.

Water intake facility?  Either way, we were looking straight across the lake and not finding land!

Showing the Canadian the Great Lake Michigan!

Aww, the boys!

It took a few tries, but finally got a good shot. Justin looks so big and that's because he's my size!

Abishai wasn't very sure of the rocky area we were on and a couple of waves did get up on the rocks.  Daddy picked him up so he didn't get his feet wet.

Touching Lake Michigan over the sea wall.  Obviously we were careful and made sure we weren't on the areas that were blocked off.

Then we turn around and find this munchkin.  Watch the video, but he was enthralled with the sand.  And he should be!  He was born on an island!  The fact that he was interested in the water and LOVED playing in the sand makes my heart happy that somehow the island imprinted itself on him.  Maybe that's a stretch, but maybe, just maybe in his subconsciousness there's a connection.  Or he's just a typical kid who loves to play in the sand that is not contained in a box at home.

Full on "let's get dirty" mode.  We could have gotten wet and dirty and changed when we got back to the car, but no one really wanted to.

Having the time of his life!

Jared suggested that we take this picture like the one we have in Charlottetown.  Aww, I'm just glad it turned out!

I'm not sure if all these buildings count as being on the University of Chicago's campus, but, point is, the museum is on or next to this massive research university.  I had no idea how prestigious this school is until Jared explained it to me.  He said it's easily $50,000 a year to go here.  We saw some pretty incredible buildings driving through it yesterday finding the nuclear reaction spot.  I can't imagine walking or biking all over this campus. 

Finally, I'm in the home stretch.  This blog post has taken about 3 hrs to journal and I haven't even added videos yet!  But, we were glad to see our home state come into view.  We did encounter some overnight construction that caused traffic to slow down quite a bit, but other than that, it was so good to see the corn fields and soybean fields again.   None of us are city folks.  Take us back to our rural/suburban community, thanks, where the pace is slower, the air is cleaner, and there's just room to breathe.  Actually, the van's check engine light came on and there's a possibility that it was because of air pollution (which I did see over the city as we drove into it both days).  The light has now turned off, 5 days later, so who knows.

Better color saturation on these photos from my iPhone. Sometimes the lighting in a room, especially if it's fluorescent doesn't play well with the DSLR camera.

I eat it myself!

Panoramic of Lake Michigan at the 57th St. Beach park.

It feels a little bit like being back on Prince Edward Island.  80 degrees, a bit of a breeze, and lots of trees, rocks, and water.  The sand isn't red though and the water isn't salty.  Jared loves the fact that there's no jellyfish and no salt.  He even bought a shirt saying that.  Remember, he was born in Michigan and lived there for a year.  It's not a bad state.  Same lake, different states.

Two huge days of walking!

Well, well, well, what do we have here?  Just the CFA cow playing a ukulele on ukulele night at the same CFA we stopped at on our way up to Chicago!  Yes, we like what we like and can trust good old CFA.  Abishai had fallen asleep of course as soon as we started driving, so we wanted to wake him up and make him stretch his legs if he needed to.  But he was too tired to do much on the playground.  The kids also didn't whine when we asked them to just get a sandwich.  It was already late in the day so they didn't need pop and there's bread with the sandwich so fries are not necessary for a carb.  Plus, we still had food in the cooler so Jared ate out of it.  Gary and Leah left the cooler with us just for that purpose just like they did after the St. Louis trip. 

We also went ahead and put a fresh diaper on Abishai and put him in his jammies so we could easily transfer him to his bed when we got home.  It was after 10:30pm when we did get home.  But everyone got everything in, we put away food stuff, and left the rest until the next day to unpack.  Sort of.  I had to wait for Jared to do something before he was ready for bed, so I ended up puttering more than I thought.  I did leave my big red bag full of stuff and zipped up to see if Abishai remembered that his Legos were in it.  And of course, he did remember and had them out in the morning before we woke up.

We then kept Abishai awake until we showed him the wind mills.  Well, he wasn't interested at all and kept asking for his paci and blankie.  We finally gave them back to him around 9pm as the sun was setting.  I had to turn in my seat to get a good view of the sunset which was kind of behind us because the highway heads southeast into Indianapolis.

The epitome of Indiana.  Cornfields, soybean fields, wind farms, and a gorgeous sunset across the fields.  We are home again, away from the city.

Not sure which picture I like better, but I'm glad I got the stylized shot with the sunset in the mirror.  Maybe I am getting better at seeing and lining up these shots!

I love the purples and blues here.

Beautiful clouds.

Different exposures, and the colors in the mirror.

The sky open before us and an open road, just the way we like it.  Welcome home.

The almost full moon shining through the clouds.  Harvest moon? Or just really close moon? (whatever it's called, but it did look bigger/closer than normal).

I made a playlist of all the videos.  Enjoy!
Chicago Day 3

And that is the THE END to the 2018 Johnson Vacation/Road Trip(s).  We are all so ready to be home and get back into routine.  It was an intense, chaotic, hopefully memorable for all the right reasons two weeks.  And note to self, we aren't cut out for this sort of back and forth road tripping. Maybe a road trip where we don't come home in between would be better.  Or just staying in one place and exploring that area like we've done for all these years.  Sometimes you shouldn't mess with a good thing.  I'm thankful we got to visit St. Louis and Chicago.  We can cross those cities off our bucket list now.  But I'm thankful we are home and now it's time to hustle to finish the rest of our summer bucket list before Benaiah goes back to school.  So much to do, so little time.  THE END