I was miraculously able to overcome my maladies and summoned up enough energy to spend a day at the Field Museum. Guys, this museum is AWESOME! By far, one of the coolest things I have ever been to. Monday was a free day, which meant that every ill-behaved YMCA group/blue-collar family from the greater Midwest made a visit. Brock and I were slack-jawed disgusted at the manners of some of these kids. Granted, it's much easier being on the outside looking in, thinking "What are their parents teaching them?! My children will never behave like that!" but at the same time, this is no excuse to accept rambunctious brats as the norm. I have no problem with kids being excited...talking a little loudly, saying "Ooh! Lookatthatlookatthat!" They're in one of the coolest museums in the world, for crying out loud. But when kids are YELLING, running around, disrespecting sacred artifacts and being downright annoyances to all those around them, it's time to draw the line.
Just watch, Heavenly Father will send me down the naughtiest bunch He's got sitting up in the heavens and just sit back and laugh.
Regardless of the sheer pandemonium that a free day at the Field Museum brings (hey, if you're gonna be cheap, deal with the consequences!), Brock and I had a fabulous time. The Field is MASSIVE. We were there for six hours straight and still left walking past exhibits we'd never noticed before! Here's a list of some of the coolest things we saw:
1. Sue! The world's largest, most complete, and best-preserved T-rex. She's actually not as big as you'd expect her to be! But awesome nonetheless :) Her skull, which weighs 600 lbs, was too heavy to put on the skeleton so it rests in a glass class nearby!
2. The Lions of Tsavo! In 1898, these two lions killed and ate 140 men who were constructing a bridge in Kenya. Caves were found piled high with human bones. Crazy!! Their skins were once used as rugs, but have since been taxidermied (now officially a verb) and put on display in the Field.
3. Hall of Jades. An impressive collection of over 500 jade artifacts from Neolithic burial sites through the Chinese Dynasties and up to present day. Gorgeous stuff!
4. Pacific Spirits. A celebration of the vibrant culture of Pacific islanders. They even have a real Maori meeting house, complete with hundreds of tribal carvings, that was donated to the museum on the stipulation that people remove their shoes before entering.
5. Pawnee Earth Lodge. This replica of a Pawnee dwelling is also an interactive exhibit that showcases their traditions. Cue Pocahontas :)
6. Inside Ancient Egypt. Mummies and hieroglyphics galore. They even have a real written excerpt out of the Book of the Dead!
7. Africa. This is a fun exhibit that starts in a Senegal market and takes you all around the continent. You even experience life on a slave ship!
8. Water. This was a special exhibit that you had to pay a little extra to go into. I know what you're thinking: "Water? What's so cool about water?" But this exhibit was awesome! It made me realize how crucial and special water is to our planet. It is the one thing that literally makes life possible here. We all know that water can go from a solid to liquid and a gas, but this exhibit showed how that amazing transformative ability is responsible for so much life! The more I learned about water, the more convince I became that there truly is a higher power looking out for us.
We also learned about how little freshwater there is available for us to us. On top of that, most of the freshwater is locked up in glaciers! When all is said and done, humans subsist on a fraction of 1% of the world's water. Isn't that insane?!
Other things we learned: Europeans use 30 gallons of water per person per day. Americans use 113 (Ethiopians use 3!). ?!?!?!? Brock and I have started taking "military showers" since this exhibit :) (Wet yourself. Shower off. Soap/shampoo yourself. Rinse. Done.) We also stepped on a scale and learned how much water is in our bodies! Brock has 16 gallons of water in him, I have 12! Crazy!!!
There are so many other exhibits that we saw and so many more that we wish we could have seen! You could literally spend weeks there. After a few hours we gave up reading all the plaques beside the exhibits because there was just so much information! We're definitely planning a second trip there. I would say that the Field Museum is definitely a must-see if you're ever in Chicago!
Haha oh Kristi just looking over your past posts and your Nauvooo one is hilarious! Especially the beginning how you are suppose to correctly pronounce Nauvoo! Haha oh boy,just love you too much!
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