An impromtu trip to Chicago

We don't often get to hang out in the big city, but this past week, we got to visit two! We left Eugene at 6:15am on Friday morning all set for a visit to the Big Apple, and according to the folks at Delta everything was looking good on the East Coast - no serious delays that they could see. When we landed in Chicago a few hours later the flashing "canceled" signs across the departure board greeted us, along with our gate agent saying "Why did they let you take off from Eugene???!!!" A Noreaster had blown in the night before and shut down all the NY airports. We were not happy. This vacation was not destined to be smooth - you may remember that we were supposed to be in NYC for Thanksgiving but T got sick, so we had to cancel our flights at the last minute.

So we were forced into an impromtu weekend break in the windy city. Luckily our luggage made it with us and we got a discount at a decent hotel. Close to the airport, so not super convenient for touristy activities, but we had fun navigating the public transport system, and since T LOVES trains, he had a marvelous time.

We planned a visit and worked out our route to the Shedd Aquarium, but by the time we got there, it seemed that every person who was stuck in Chicago had the same idea. The line was a quarter of a mile long. So we headed across the street to the Field Museum of Natural History to visit Sue the largest preserved Tyrannosaurus Rex ever discovered. Even more engaging for the T man though were the two 10 feet tall african elephants on display - he made us visit with them for at least twenty minutes, while he reminded us continually what noise an elephant makes. I think our fellow museum goers were wondering what we were feeding our baby to make him sound like that.