Ah, vacation. The chance to rest and re-charge your proverbial batteries. We all crave the chance to slow down and enjoy life, and get away from the rat race. Only a moron would do anything to disrupt that peace.
Julie and I decided to get up at 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning.
Remember how she wanted to visit
Millenium Park? Well, she still wanted to do that. I think she mostly wanted to fool around with her fancy-pants camera. Our plan for the day was to drive to Indianapolis and meet up with friends at the Indianapolis Children's Museum, so we figured we needed an early start in order to see the park. Not to mention we'd have to beat Chicago rush hour traffic.
Our kids haven't really figured out what the words
weekend or
vacation mean in terms of adjusting your sleep schedule, either, so they typically get up about 6:00 or 6:30 anyway. So we figured 5:30 wouldn't be too different.
We had our Pop Tarts and were all packed up and checked out of the Best Western by 6:30. From there, it was a short drive downtown to a parking garage conveniently located directly under Millenium Park. After spending a few moments deciphering their automated parking fee system, our first stop was the
Cloud Gate Sculpture.
I'm sure there's some artsy reason for calling it Cloud Gate, but everyone in town calls it The Bean, which I think makes much more logical sense. Our early rise gave us the entire park to ourselves, so we got to have a lot of fun exploring and taking pictures. A jogger happened by and volunteered to take our family portraits in front of this tribute to the most musical of fruits. From what I hear, beans are also good for your heart.
If you look closely, you can see the kids all modeling the Disney Chicago t-shirts that KatMark got for them. They couldn't wait to try them out. Thanks again, Kathy!
Family pictures out of the way, it was time for Julie to play with the camera. See what you think:
Sarah got a picture of Julie and me in front of The Bean in which we look exactly like two people who got up at 5:30 a.m.
We wandered around the park a bit. There are a few other sculptures and gardens there, such as
this creepy one in which people spit water at you. For summer concerts, there is the
Jay Pritzker Pavilion, designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry to resemble...what a few beer cans cut open and pulled apart would look like, I guess. Sorry, this is what happens when you make an engineer try to interpret art.
Remember
Buckingham Fountain, the majestic centerpiece of Grant Park I showed you a few chapters back? We decided to see this magnificent display of hydraulic splendor up close and personal, especially since we had the place to ourselves. Millenium Park kind of runs right into Grant Park, which is the huge open space next to Lake Michigan downtown. It was a longer walk to the fountain than we'd realized, and we had to cross a couple of busy streets to get there. But it was all worth the effort when we finally reached the right block, ascended the stairs to the park, and found...
...they hadn't turned the fountain on yet.
Well, I guess that makes the pictures unique.
We needed to get on the road at this point, and some poor soul had to go back and get the van, which was still parked way the heck back by The Bean. That would be me, in case you were wondering. In the meantime, Julie took pictures of the kids in the gardens. One of the kids was feeling grumpy at this point. I'll let you try and figure out which one.
I walked the 8 miles back to the garage, signed away the life of our firstborn son at the pay machine (sorry Dave), and then drove out to pick up the rest of the family. With all of the streets being one-way pairs I actually had to loop downtown under the El in order to get lined up straight, but it wasn't too bad. Eventually I gathered Julie, Sarah, Scotty, and Grumpy and we were on our way with little trouble. It was nice seeing all of the morning traffic headed in the opposite direction.
I'll pause here just to say that we were a little sad to leave Chicago. I really love that city. It seems to have a little bit of everything: a scenic setting by the lake, a memorable skyline with lots of interesting architecture (with a river downtown), decent public transit (even with lousy maps), great museums and attractions, and a distinctive blue-collar culture and food scene. I think we could have used some more time to explore, and I highly recommend visiting the city if you've never been. Just don't go in winter.
The plan was to drive down I-65 to Indy. Brian and Barry had warned me that I-65 was famous for 2 things: inexplicable road construction and windmills. And darned if they weren't right. Several miles of the highway were reduced to one lane with no visible work being done on the other side of the cones. Yet I refuse to poke fun at another state's DOT, simply because I understand the constant abuse these poor, unappreciated workers face as they work hard to provide a service that is constantly taken for granted. If a lane is closed, I know there's a good reason for it.
But I couldn't tell you what it was in this particular case.
You want windmills? Indiana has giant windmills!
Those were a lot more fun to look at than the traffic cones.
While on the way, I called a couple members of the Dis Dads Indiana chapter to try and arrange meet-ups. I ended up being 1 for 2 on that count. David (theduck619) was available and actually worked very close to the Children's Museum; he'd be stopping by. Andy (afwdwfan) wasn't going to be able to make it.
He works southeast of Indy and had some commitments that evening, so he wouldn't be able to make the hike up to see us. I'm sorry we missed you, Andy. Next time, we'll make it happen.
Right around lunchtime, we pulled into the parking lot of the Children's Museum. Since we'd had our fancy-pants lunches the day before in Chicago, it was back to PB&J + Cheeseballs. And, thanks to Barry and Bambi...
Chocolate Cow Pies!
Say it with me now: Mmmmm....cow pies...
By the way, you can see a partially-colored U.S. map next to Sarah in that picture. She was coloring in various states when we spotted their license plates. If I remember correctly, we ended up with 46 out of 50 on this trip!
Coming Up Next: We'll actually get to those dinosaurs and other stuff I promised at the end of the last chapter. Plus, my annual rant about adults being forced to pay full admission at children's museums!
How about I mistook one great guys TR full of wit and adventure for another?
)
work harder at having fun then we do at working.
