Tuesday (Day 2):

After dropping Norman off at the Sharp plant, the boys and I again got on Hwy 55 and headed east toward Chicago.  This time, we went to Adler Planetarium, which was also along the lake.  The gusty winds blowing across the lake were very icy today, too!  Brrrrr!!!

Looking back toward the city from the planetarium, the Sears Tower stood tall & proud and beckoned us to come visit it, too.  (It’s the tall, dark building on the left.)

The Adler claims to be the most advanced planetarium on Earth and has announced a new vision to be the world’s premier space science center.  We (especially Samuel) enjoy learning about outer space, but we get really tired of hearing/reading about all of the anti-God/Bible theories that get thrown in amongst the facts.  But, there were still a lot of interesting displays to see.

One of those was the fully restored Gemini 12 spacecraft flown by Astronauts Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin in 1966.

Samuel was excited to see something in real life that had actually gone into outer space.  He was even more thrilled when he got to touch something that had originated in outer space!  This 1,015 lb. iron-nickel meteorite was found in the huge Meteor Crater in the Arizona desert.

They also had an actual moon rock, but it was under glass.  This one was brought back by the Apollo 15 crew in 1971.  And, contrary to popular belief, it is NOT billions of years old!

The Lunar Leap allowed kids to learn what it feels like to have less gravity.  Meanwhile, they could watch themselves on the tv screen and pretend that they were actually jumping on the moon.

We also watched a fun 3-D IMAX movie called “Fly Me to the Moon”.  It was a cute animation with actual footage from the Apollo 11 flight and landing on the moon spliced into it.

This solar car looked pretty cool!

Our timing worked out really well today!  We ate lunch at Galileo’s Café in the planetarium, so we were able to stay all day.  Also, this time we headed back early enough that we had to sit and wait for Norman to get out of class.  I suppose it helped that I didn’t take the wrong exit, too.  Ha!

I asked Norman if he was wanting to do any sightseeing with us while we were in Chicago, but he didn’t seem interested.  After a long day in class, he just mainly wanted to relax of an evening.  So… after supper at A&W/Long John Silver’s, it was back to the hotel and pool!  J

(Day 3 coming up…)