Chicago Part Four (fin)

This is my last post, covering day 5 of our trip and day 6, which was just me traveling home.

Austin wanted to cram a ton of stuff in to our last day - and I did, too, but it was HOT and so muggy. We started off at the Field Museum, for FREE thanks to Mike (my friend Jenna's fiance). Woohoo!

Devon used to be in a band called Archeopteryx, so I was psyched to see the museum covered by this huge Archeopteryx banner:



This was another museum where I loved the architecture... the exhibits were pretty good, too, but there were a million rambunctious children everywhere... and I got a little overwhelmed. Blah.





I was starting to miss home so it was nice to stand on this huge floor map of the Pacific Ocean. Hey, there's my house!



Austin and I split up, which was probably good since I think he spent allll of his time oohing and aahing over the dinosaur exhibits. He was really into dinosaurs when he was about 10, and now he's getting all back into it. Nerrrrrd!



(more Archeopteryx):



One thing that was really frustrating about the museum was the layout - there were several exhibits that I couldn't find an exit out of. This one even had an exit sign RIGHT next to a sign that says, "this is not an exit".... huh?!



Austin and I were really impressed with our sticky visitor badges - they were white but they turned purple when we walked outside. Oooh! Technology!!





Next we walked up the Lakeshore Trail (so lovely, and with a little refreshing breeze) to where the river meets the lake. Lovely! We saw some movie construction going on and speculated as to whether it might be for the new Batman movie. More on that later.

We walked up the river shore a little to find the Architectural Boat Tour that we wanted to take. Success! First we spotted a cute little bun that let me take his photo before scampering away:



And now, the boat tour. It was awesome!!











There was a bit of rain but nothing like the Friday before. My feet were tired and Austin was dying to go up to Sear's Tower... so after some thought, we split up again. Little did I know that he would get a free photo of himself in front of, well, a green screen with the view from Sear's Tower superimposed onto it. Sweet stuff!

Later, back at the apartment, we had a good time just chit chatting and hanging out on the balcony.

We had a delicous dinner, and then we walked back to the U of C to spy on, yes, Batman filming!!!



Okay, so we didn't see Christian Bale (sigh) or anyone famous, but it was really mellow and cool and interesting.

On the way home I took some experimental nighttime shots of the beautiful buildings in the area... I had no tripod but just held my breath for 1 second long exposures...









And that's my trip! Thanks for checking it all out... The slideshow (also embedded below) has even more photos if you find yourself with a long lunch break or something...