It has been one month exactly since the kiddies and I went to Chicago. It has also been four weeks to the day. Now, it doesn't often happen that one month equals exactly four weeks; in fact, such convergence occurs only 3 months in 48. As such, it calls for special celebration and that, my friends, is why I have waited until today to post Part Two of our Chicago trip.

And you thought I just hadn't gotten around to finishing it.

(You're pretty smart.)

And so without further adeiu (whatever that means), or perhaps without further ado... whatever... I now present Chicago Pics, Part Two-- hopefully with far less commentary than part one, but we shall see.

Oh, and in case you need a refresher, Part One is here.

One of my biggest concerns about our day in Chicago was the matter of getting from Point A (the art museum) to Point B (Shedd Aquarium). At a cursory glance, they didn't look to be walking distance from each other, which left me with several options, all of them involving public transportation. Although it shouldn't have, the thought made me uneasy. To be sure, at age 14 I used to take a city bus to our downtown all by my lonesome on a regular basis. But this is not 1979, I am no longer a naive and carefree teenager, and we are not talking here about Grand Rapids Michigan. Anxieties persisted. Suppose we take the wrong bus and end up on the other end of town in some less-than-desirable neighborhood? Suppose we take the right bus but it is populated with violent-looking, odiferous, foul-mouthed people? Suppose we hail a cab and the driver looks creepy? Taxi or not, do I really want to get into a car driven by a strange man I don't know?

(Yes, I'm a little sheltered.)

Before we left the art museum, I asked a friendly staff member for her opinion on the best way to get to Shedd. Bus? Taxi? El-train? Her reply brought instant relief: "It's less than a mile and a half, and it's a nice day. In the time you spend waiting for a bus, you could walk."

It's safe, right? "Oh, sure. It's just down Michigan Avenue here. Business people and tourists everywhere. That's what I'd do."

And that's what we did-- after going several blocks out of our way to retrieve our backpack, of course. (Insert ornery grumble here.) I brushed aside the fact that hoofing it between the museums would leave our already-weary legs that much more tired. Michigan Avenue was busy and broad and open and bustling, and I really was most comfortable just walking.

Early on, we passed a Starbucks and I was sorely tempted. A hot drink would sure be a nice antidote to the cold wind. (Yes, Chicago is in fact Windy, although it didn't seem overly so to me. I live in farm country where winds blow rampant.) But buying a coffee for me would mean buying hot chocolate for the kids, thus blowing my self-imposed budget challenge. I resisted the lure.

The last leg of our jaunt took us past the Big Lake, our Big Lake, Lake Michigan. And then...

We walked up the steps, past the signs stating clearly that this is an Exit Only, smiled at the security guard, and entered with no problem. (We're homeschoolers, remember. We can't read signs.) By this time, it was about 1:30 and we were famished. Fortunately there were tables in the lobby filled with people eating purchased hotdogs and sack lunches. We found one with three empty seats and proceeded to devour the contents of our backpack (excluding the puzzle books and Spaz' mp3 and Gameboy). The Chicago Dog stand was tempting, but after all the grief we'd gone through earlier in order to avoid buying lunch, I was not about to succumb. Okay, truthfully, had Spaz asked before we finished lunch, I'd probably have bought him one. As it was, he brought it up as I was cleaning up the trash, and I really wanted to just get into the aquarium already, so it was an easy No.

In retrospect, we should have had a Chicago dog while in Chicago, even if we had split it three ways. But at the moment I was happy enough to just stick with my skinflint challenge and head within to see what we had come to see. We had just under two hours.

I was surprised at the small size of Shedd Aquarium. For what they charged, I'd expected it to be much larger. Of course, they didn't charge us anything because it was a free general admission day and we weren't doing any of the extra$.

Our first stop and overall favorite was the Amazon Rising exhibit, featuring "anacondas and piranhas, giant spiders and tiny toxic frogs... tetras, turtles and fruit-eating fish called tambaqui." (I lifted that description from the website because I am feeling too lazy to come up with one myself.) The exhibit took us through a year along the Amazon, showing the river and its creatures during its various stages of rising and falling.

Here's one of the aforementioned turtles (although I bet you could have figured that out without me telling you):

And I'm pretty sure this is a tambaqui:

This, apparently, is a "giant in a floating meadow". Spaz & I thought it made a pretty funny picture (and yes, I blocked out the distracting spectators):

Some of the pictures came out rather interestingly due to reflections of the glass & water and restrictions against using flash. Here are a couple of them- undoctored except for a bit of brightening and contrast. They almost look like something we'd have seen at the art museum:

(If you look carefully, you can see part of my face & my red-jacketed shoulders at lower left in the pic above and part of Spaz ' jacket in the pic below.)

Others came out quite poorly, but with some playing around, they turned into pretty cool "paintings" as well:

Really, we got so few good pics at Shedd (or at the Art Museum) that I had to make the best of them somehow.

One of the few really good shots was one I took in the Waters of the World exhibit. Of course, the reason it turned out so well was that I was testing Fuzz' camera to make sure I really had disabled the flash... and I hadn't. Oops. Fortunately aquariums, unlike art museums, are not overrun with snooty diligent & dedicated staff members ready to pounce on gently admonish anyone who commits an infraction.

The Carribean Reef exhibit (which was actually a huge round tank in the center of the building) featured a live diving demonstration at 3 pm. That was perfect timing for us and our tired legs. We nabbed an empty bench 7 or 8 minutes ahead of time and thus got to rest our weary bods while simultaneously observing, learning, and enjoying. We watched and listened as the diver swam around underwater feeding the various creatures in the tank and told us (via headset) some of their stories and histories. The most fascinating creature for the kids was a sea turtle that has been at Shedd since the 1930's. Spaz got a picture of her (turtle, not diver; who cares about pics of humans), but again, it turned out poorly enough that my only recourse was to play with it and turn it into "art".

There were still parts of Waters of the World that we had only given a cursory glance, but the clock was ticking. I was afraid that the kids would be reluctant to leave, but just as I was about to give the 10-minute warning, Spaz said, "I'm really tired. Can we just go?" Fuzz concurred and that was that. Fuzz did suggest that we check out the bathrooms before leaving. That may or may not have been inspired by our surroundings, but it was a really good idea since we had a nearly-2-hour train ride ahead of us. (Yes, there are bathrooms on the trains; no, we didn't want to have to use them.)

All that remained of our adventure now was a long train ride, a shorter car ride, and our one meal out.

And there just might be a Part Three for that, and there might not.