Escape from the Museum Campus!

The first escape was from the Shedd Aquarium, which seemed worth the pain at first but eventually became an intolerable cacophony of crowds and noise and humidity (for me, anyway. Richard doesn't care as long as he can see everything). Breaking out into the fresh marine air of the Museum Campus itself was a huge relief, except that I was desperately thirsty. And then we came around a corner and there was a glorious juice cart selling tropical fruit drinks embellished with pineapple, cherries, and little umbrellas! Honestly, that mango pineapple smoothie was the high point of the day so far. It was also located just outside the elusive east entrance to the Field Museum, which we had been searching for (closed off main entrances being kind of the theme of the day). 

Thus refreshed, we finally we got to my favorite museum, the stately Field Museum of Natural History. I have always loved these places: the Peabody Museum in New Haven, the Museum of Natural History in New York, the Milwaukie Public Museum. The classical architecture, the vaulted ceilings that dissipate noise instead of amplifying it, the dinosaur skeletons and giant elephants that always adorn the main hall. I was happy to just relax and gaze at the ceiling for awhile, but Richard wandered off and came back with reports of dioramas in the Hall of Mammals.


I just LOVE classic nature dioramas with their skillful taxidermy and lovingly hand-painted backgrounds. I even love the way they start out in kind of random order as the dioramicists plied their art on whatever the intrepid museum exploration teams of the era brought back with them. So here's some white tail deer.  Here's some African anteaters. Here's some tapirs.  Here's some mountain goats. 


And here's a rare type of Alaskan bear called a Glacier Bear that I've never heard of. But wait, there's more!  And more and more and more and MORE!!  There are hundreds of dioramas, arranged along a multitude of twisting and branching corridors. Just when you think that you might be getting back to the main hall you realize  that it is just a whole new wing of dioramas, now arranged by continent. We have only 25 minutes to get back to our bus stop for the last hop-on bus of the day and we are completely lost. We encounter other people, all of whom are also lost. The museum is closing soon and we wonder how many tourists end up spending the night here. But finally we see the glimmer of natural light in the distance and find our way back to the multiple skylights of the main hall. whew  I'm glad we got to the dioramas, but I think I've had my fill of them for a while.


Then we get to the real adventure - getting back to our hotel. We made it to the bus stop in plenty of time, but the bus doesn't come. There are some city buses nearby, but all marked Out of Service. Increasingly large groups of people wearing vaguely sports-team-like striped clothing are streaming by. Other passengers arrive with disturbing news. Due to some sort of soccer extravaganza taking place at the nearby stadium, all bus service has been blocked. We try to call a Lyft, but it clearly isn't working - we cannot get to the location where we are instructed to meet the driver. Other people try to call cabs of different types and get the same news - the Museum Campus is locked down! Cars can get in, but no public transportation. And the cars that have gotten in are just lined up in long lines outside the overfilled parking lots. 

At this point I am exhausted and defeated, so Richard uncharacteristically takes charge, declaring that if we just walk THIS WAY we will eventually get out of the Museum Campus and back to that busy north-south street we can see in the far distance. So we creep down a steep grassy slope and under a hulking underpass labeled Grant Park (which is the next gigantic lakeshore park to the north). We're probably less than 2 miles from our hotel, but we are already exhausted (not to mention old and arthritic).

Then on the other side of the underpass, our savior appears: a dashing Serbian pedicab driver who would be happy to take us not only 2 more parks to the north but all the way to our hotel door. He is friendly and cheerful, and it's a lovely ride through a lush green part of the lakeshore, with a touristy turn around the impressive Buckingham Fountain for good measure. I am not sure if pedicabs are actually supposed to be on the city streets, but when we get to the Art Institute he doesn't hesitate to dive into Chicago traffic, wheeling around cars and down the centerline occasionally, dropping us right at the hotel door. It was a little bit hair-raising, but he seemed perfectly self-assured so I guess he does this all the time. Anyway, it was an upbeat end to an intermittently frustrating day.