Destination: Museum of Science & Industry
Date: 1/8/11
Cohort: Molly
Cohort’s favorite thing to do/see in Chicago: Going to see a Sox day game at Comiskey Park and enjoying the sunshine, an overpriced beer and a brat... especially if Paulie (Konerko) is up to bat. (She insisted that I call it Comiskey.)
Date: 1/8/11
Cohort: Molly
Cohort’s favorite thing to do/see in Chicago: Going to see a Sox day game at Comiskey Park and enjoying the sunshine, an overpriced beer and a brat... especially if Paulie (Konerko) is up to bat. (She insisted that I call it Comiskey.)
Somehow, I had never been to the Museum of Science and Industry before. Actually, I don’t know why I’m pretending not to know why I haven’t been there. There are three reasons:
1) It has “science” in the name
2) It has “industry” in the name
3) It is really annoying to get to without a car (and costs $18 to park if you do have one. $18!)
But, for you, dear blog reader(s), I have overcome my misgivings and embarked on a scientific and industrious adventure!
My dear roommate, Molly, joined me, despite having been to the museum several times. The lure of the temporary Muppet exhibit was quite strong, and she was eager to check it out. When our third roommate, Lucy, heard there was a Roomie/Muppet expedition, she was most disappointed to learn that she wasn’t invited, despite meeting the residency requirement and looking remarkably muppetesque herself.
I was excited for the Muppet Exhibit too, so it was our first stop. Sadly, calling it “The Muppet Exhibit” is inaccurate. It is actually “Jim Henson’s Fantastic World.” So, not quite as Muppet-centric as one might hope. Our bad. Right away, though, we came upon a case with Kermit in it. (Sorry – no pictures were allowed inside this portion of the museum.) We then embarked into a labyrinth (get it?) of posters, photographs, and concept art from his career, occasionally peppered with a childhood icon.
It was really cool to see his drawings of puppets-to-be, complete with people inside them so that one could understand how they operate. Like Big Bird - it had never really occurred to me that whoever is in there has to hold one hand really high over their head to operate the mouth, and then use the other hand to operate his arm. I’d never noticed that he only gestures with his left arm. Watching YouTube videos of the big guy this morning, I can’t help but think it looks like he had a stroke.
We did get to see Bert and Ernie, Rowlf, Miss Piggy in her wedding dress from The Muppets Take Manhattan, and someone I was really excited about, Gobo Fraggle. It’s kind of eerie to see your old TV buddies sitting there lifeless under glass. As Molly pointed out, it felt kind of like being at a wake. Back out in the main part of the museum, they had some pretty awesome photos up of the Muppets hanging out around Chicago. Here’s my favorite.
You’ll note at the bottom of the photo that there are Christmas trees. I promise it really was January 8th when we went. There was a huge tree in the center where you could get your picture taken, with steps to help you get closer in order to do so. I found the last one a little impractical, even for my stork legs…
Next we checked out the museum’s oldest exhibit, the coal mine. After cramming into a little elevator and riding down into a mine shaft, there is a guided tour to learn all about coal mining through the ages. You even get to ride in an awesome little work train! This was all particularly exciting for me, since when I was a little kid, I had a lump of anthracite as a pet. I also had a big wooden ampersand. I was weird. Molly proved to be excellent at monitoring miner safety.
Being a miner takes a lot out of you, (plus the tour lets you out in the food court) so Molly and I opted for a lunch break. I found a sweet Muppet cupcake which I naturally had a really hard time eating, and pretty much immediately dropped on its face.
Next to FarmTech, where we raced to see who could get teat cups on a cow faster, though the results were inconclusive since I messed up hitting the timer button. I would like to take this opportunity to repeat, “teat cup.” We particularly enjoyed the unit on cow poop.
We also got a nice couple to take our picture with a cow (once all the darn kids got out of the way) and then forced them to let us take their picture with it in return. (This is on their camera. You don’t get to see it.)
Next stop was the real U-505 submarine that was captured from the Nazis in 1944. (U stands for Unterseeboot, AKA undersea boat.) U-boats were primarily used against Allied merchant ships bringing war supplies across the Atlantic to Britain. You can, for a fee, go inside the submarine, but we just opted for the free outside info. There was still plenty to check out.
Next we went in search of the fairy castle, which we thought would be fun and awesome and pretty, but was really just a big creepy dollhouse full of weirdly ornate furniture and real jewels with a creepy voiceover playing through weird little telephones. It was weird. And creepy. We finally hit up Molly’s must-see, which was the baby chick hatchery. I was kind of freaked out at first because there were three freshly-hatched chicks that were all slimy and pink lying prone on the floor of the incubator, and I thought they had all died. They were, however, just getting used to being chickens, and eventually hoisted themselves up and tottered around.
Apparently, once they get less terrifying, they are promoted to the cute-chick case, where they run around and peck little bits of hay off of each other or sit in a fluff clump.
We did some other stuff too, and missed a TON. (Which, we learned in the coal mine, is 2,000 pounds. Okay - we already knew that one.) Unless you are some sort of learning-cheetah, it’s impossible to get through everything in one visit. But, we still saw a lot of awesome stuff. You might say we came to the museum as newborn chicks, addled and slimy, and left perky, adorable, and fluffy with knowledge.
