Our Trip to Chicago
My children had Spring Break last week and we decided we would go to Chicago for two days and see some of the museums. We were there for 2 days and 1 night.
On Monday we left around 8:30 (there is an hour time difference which really worked in our favor) and arrived at the The Field Museum as it was opening. Our favorite exhibits here were Sue the T-Rex and the Animal exhibits. I found the animal exhibit the most fascinating because they had about every animal you could think of stuffed and behind glass. I thought it was very neat thinking about how they came to be there. Many of them were from long ago and brought back from expeditions to all of these far away places. Back before we had tv shows to teach us about all of the animals. I know that they don't go on hunting expeditions anymore to bring the animals back and just get them from animals that die in captivity or in the wild. It is still neat! Everyone was very exhausted after the day there and we headed out of town to our hotel. But before that we had to make a very important stop on my agenda IKEA. I love their stuff and was very excited about going to the store. If only I had the money to buy everything I wanted! It was fun and I was able to leave w/ a cart full of some things on my list! Caleb was the only one who went into the store w/ me (everyone else stayed in the van to take a nap) and he enjoyed himself also. His favorite thing here was the cart escalator.
The next day we started out at the Museum of Science and Industry here everyone was very excited to see the U-505 submarine. We were disappointed that several of the big exhibits that we were most interested in were closed for the day. There was still lots to see, the boys enjoyed the 757 plane that you could walk through along with the trains, dinosaurs and lots of other things. It was very busy and we tried to hit the highlights because we wanted to head out midday. I also wanted to visit the Chicago Children's Museum. I think they all enjoyed it here. It is located at Navy Pier which is a cool place in and of itself and then the Museum is here also. The kids' favorite thing here is a Schooner Ship that they could climb through and the dino dig. It was a nice place and since it is for kids it was much more relaxing for Mom and Dad. :)
One of our motivations for choosing Chicago was the fact that we have a membership w/ the ASTC which is a bunch of science museums across the country. Basically the way it works is you buy a membership, ours was about $50, and then you get to go to all of these other museums for free or a big discount for a year. A great investment! I paid $9 to get into the Children's Museum and that is it. We got into the other places for FREE!
Some of the ways I saved money on the trip was the ASTC membership, staying out of town in the Suburbs, and taking snacks and water. Gas is a big expense these days for all of us but this was about a one tank trip for us. I know that we had to use gas to drive out but not paying for parking and saving $50 on the room was worth it. And we can't just have a double room because there are 6 of us now. It makes things a little more complicated. Parking is a big expense in a place like chicago accounting for about $50 for the 2 days.