Next stop on our way north to help Shaun move to a new apartment and visit with Kellie and her family was Chicagoland. Chicago is not really known as a camping destination, so we stayed about 50 miles from downtown in Michigan City, Indiana. We only experienced a small part of this amazing city, but really enjoyed what we did.
While in the city we spent our time at the Field Museum of Natural History. The Field Museum is huge, one of the largest museums in the world, and incredible. Its collections include flora and fauna from around the world, fossils, gems, meteorites, and cultural artifacts representing many cultures and civilizations. We spent two days in the museum and still didn’t see every exhibit. The number and variety of dinosaur skeletons on display was amazing. Big ones, tall ones, fat ones, small ones! Seriously, seeing them in person gives a sense of scale unavailable via photos or kids toys. There were two traveling exhibits we enjoyed – Mummies and Photographer of the Year. Due to the nature of these exhibits, only a little bit of each was allowed to be photographed.
(Giant sloth)
Sue is the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered. It was found in 1990 in South Dakota and named after the woman who discovered it. It is not known if Sue is a boy or girl. What a fearsome beast with such tiny arms!
We found the mummy exhibit fascinating. Egypt is most famous for its mummies, however, cultures in Asia and South America also left mummies behind. What they all have in common is a dry climate. Today mummies are studied via CT scans and no longer unwrapped. The museum treats the mummies with much respect and do not allow any photographs of the actual mummies.
The totem exhibit really made me think. They were huge – many were made from logs 4 or 5 feet in diameter and up to 30 feet tall! How did people hundreds of years ago move them into place? These totems were extremely important to the native cultures. They spent untold man years of precious time to craft them. Time not spent hunting and gathering to feed the community.
We also visited our nation’s newest National Park, Indiana Dunes, on three different days. The national park and the dunes state park work very closely together and share a visitor center. The park is located where 3 different eco-systems intersect, resulting in one of our most biologically rich parks. On our first visit we completed the 3 Dune Challenge, which involved climbing the 3 tallest sand dunes in the park. The hike was a little less than 2 miles with a 540 foot elevation gain, all through loose sand. It was a lot of work, but very satisfying.
Top of Mt Jackson, a 176-foot climb in loose sand and the first of the 3 dunes. We had just come up the trail that disappears in the picture above.
Mt Holden is 184 feet up loose sand at a 38 degree angle! The view of Lake Michigan was awesome and worth the climb.
On our second and third trips to the national park we explored the forests and enjoyed the early spring wildflowers. One trip was a guided wildflower hike led by one of the parks rangers. We recommend if you visit a national park that you look into the free guided hikes, kayak trips, and other excursions led by our park rangers. They are fun and informative.
We also caught up with my classmate Mike Mitchell and his wife Lori. We enjoyed lunch at Lou Malnati’s Pizza and really enjoyed catching up with each other.
Chicago is a great city to visit. So much to do from the zoo, museums, shows, shopping, food, sight seeing, urban wilderness and more. We enjoyed our week in Chicago and will stop again in the future. Next time maybe the Museum of Science and Industry. And yes, you can visit Chicago and camp while doing it!