And we made it! Our last day in Chicago, and pretty much the last real day of the trip. Rhyann would be flying back home out of Chicago bright and early on day 14, and while Derek and I had initially planned on taking Alex around the city to see things like the bean, we opted to just go back home. So this will be the last update for this trip, which means I finished logging the entire thing and it only took....six fucking months.
Back to the show!!
Today was Field Museum day, and I think this was my favorite day of them all. I really love the Field Museum, though I have a very complicated relationships with museums as a whole. I talked with the kids about it a LOT, on the way to the museum, and as we wandered through the exhibits. How so much of the things on display are stolen. How it's wonderful that the hall dedicated to indigenous people in the americas credits the proper groups of people, and mentions that the artifacts we have access to are the spoils of rape and genocide and terrorism and white supremacy, that it's pretty fucked up they only made white people and museums as a whole accountable in that one hall. That right next door, there are thousands of items just like the ones in the indigenous exhibit that are not credited, are not listed as stolen. Are not making us as viewers accountable. The kids and I had a lengthy conversation about that through several of the halls before their interest waned and I lost steam at talking to kids that were far more engaged in the cool shit on display. It's a hard line to walk.
Anyway, here are my hundreds of photos.
Walking up to the Field Museum! I was so excited. It was such a beautiful day, nice and cool. I had my kiddos with me, my hubbins with me, life was fucking grand.
Look at these little wonders! All grown and amazing. Still children, but that will never change to me. They'll always be my babies.
I'm sure there was a point to me taking a photo of the crosswalk to get to the museum, but I do not remember it all these months later.
The whole crew, getting ready to experience all of the wonder and amazing of the field museum!! I was most excited about the galleries of specimens. I love seeing dead shit nailed to fancy posts.
Alex wanted a picture of her and Rhyann under the pride flag. I was happy to oblige.
See? These shouldn't be there. It's weird to be so grateful to see such things, and so angry that I pay to see such things, and equally angry that these things are in a place where people that the culture doesn't belong to can gawk or ignore. I don't know how to balance that. I think the answer is honestly not to go to museums.
I appreciated this entrance into the hall for indigenous knowledge, but...it felt disingenuous.
As did this:
But I invite you all to take a gander at the things I took photos of in the gallery:
The hall of indigenous knowledge and acknowledgement pops out here, with totem poles that were similarly acquired. I asked Rhyann and Alex to find even one acknowledgement in here about how these items came into the hands of the museum...neither of them could find anything. We had a discussion about how acknowledging the sins in our history is crucial, but when you do it just for accolades and optics, as the Field Museum is doing, it feels cheap, tawdry, and like you're being patronized. Which, let's be honest...we are.
When world's collided my fucking titty.
My oldest, getting their learning on:
My youngest, taking in the calendar that filled me with bemused dread when I was her sibling's age:
Oh, you! I remember being Rhyann's age and having full on freak outs about cataclysms while being fully aware that the idea behind the Mayan Calendar being prophetic of society's downfall was absolutely absurd, if not completely fucking racist (the idea of the mythical other never applies to white people, does it? Right. Because we're fucking racist shitheads).
The hall of the Americas pops out into the Fresh Squeezed Science gallery, where all of us had a smashing good time playing around with al
Here's Derek, checking out the white possum that I think was named Rick. Or Ross. It had some R name that I can't remember.
Alex, taking the "what animal are you?" test that all of us took!
I was WAY off! The white possum's name is Shiro! Rick, Ross, Shiro, they're all the same name essentially. Right? Right.
Here's Rhyann taking the animal test!
Everyone wanted to visit Shiro!
Rhyann was a platypus on the animal test.
I was a skunk. That tracks, let's be real.
I have a book called Inside the Lost Museum that I always think of when I see bird specimens on display.
After the fun of the fresh science room, we headed off to Jurassic Oceans.
Now.
If you're wondering why this travel series has been called "Nobody expects...misterrrrrr CHEESE!" it's because as we wandered through this exhibit, a very enthusiastic little kid had been hollering all manner of funny things, and while I generally do not enjoy when kids are noisy, this particular kid was a riot. Their [arent was not as enthralled as I was, so the little kid was told to pipe down as to not disturb other museum visitors. The little kid looked pretty crestfallen at not being able to marvel and exclaim their joy for the whole museum to hear, but this kid also had a bunch of spunk. Because as loudly as they could whisper, immediately after being told to hush up, they shimmied their little shoulders and announced, "Nobody expects....mister CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE!" and then off they dashed, to surprise us all. And they were right. I had not been expecting Mister Cheese.
Anyway, here's Jurassic Oceans.
Wild Color was next, and I really loved this exhibit, except for the lights. They were really harsh on my poor, sensitive eyes, and I had to shield my eyes a lot. I think I actually put my sunglasses on about a third of the way through the exhibit. I still loved it, though!
Rhyann is regal and ready in red!!!
Alex is youthful and adorable in yellow!!!
As a note, I did want to use alliterative words here like I did for Rhyann. Rhyann has the added bonus of their name starting with the same letter as the color, and Alex doesn't, but I have a bone to pick with google. When I asked for positive adjectives that start with Y (all I could think of was youthful), I was sent to a page that suggested the words "yapping", "yearnful", "yuletide", "yeasty", and "yeast-like". I'm not sure if I need to reframe my ideas of positive, or if that website does. Jury is out.
Rhyann and Derek checking out Rhyann's boots glowing in the ultraviolet light!
Alex's BTS bracelets had a similar glow, which thrilled Alex to no end.
I loved that this room shared the same aesthetic as Alex, and so did she.
BEAUTIFUL PLUMAGE.
After wild color, it was lunch time. Luckily there was a Chicago hot dog cart at the front of the museum. Derek ordered hot dogs for the kids (they sat and ate them under a tree in front of the car, a very shady and lovely picnic spot), and then fully housed his hot dogs in the car with me. I had none hot dogs, for obvious reasons.
I loved the field of flowers out front!
Thank you for doing the bare minimum, I suppose. Now do better.
I was daydreaming about a photoshoot in front of the building. It's absolutely dreamy, and I envy photographers who get to shoot here.
THE GEM ROOM. I was most looking forward to taking Rhyann to the gems, rocks, and minerals section of the museum. This is just going to be an ass ton of photos. This is maybe 1/5 of the displays, maybe less, and it's all of the stuff that I thought was the prettiest. I took videos of everything being sparkly...all of these years and I'm still Jeremy...but I won't upload them.
Rose THOUGHT she threw this shit overboard like a selfish ol' bitch at the end of Titanic. Joke's on her!
I deeply covet these rings. DEEPLY. COVET.
For when you want to make your revenge STYLISH and EXPENSIVE. You would pronounce it Ray-vahhhnjjsh.
These fucking hanging decorations killed me. I love them so much, I want to incorporate them into studio space.
Alex had a bit of an overstimulation meltdown early on into the day, and it was hard for her to keep herself together. It frustrated Derek, but I was fine to keep slow and steady with her so she could still enjoy the museum, but on her terms.
This museum really is beautiful. So spacious! It needs all the room it can manage to house its stolen and ill gotten artifacts.
This is another favorite exhibit of mine, the Cyrus Tang Hall of China. No need to note my conflicting feelings, I've mentioned them several times. I just love all things China. I wish I had taken more opportunity to learn about where my grandfather came from FROM him instead of piecing things together with the small amount I know about where in China he was born, and what happened to where he was from. Other than that, I don't know very much for sure, everything is just an overall appreciation for China.
A pi ying show! Alex and Rhyann stopped to enjoy the shadow puppetry. It was quite beautiful.
My tinctures!
Look at how delicate and beautiful. The talent and artistry just blows my mind.
Have...have they ever SEEN a peach?
I REALLY fucking loved this teapot.
And I loved this separation installation. I definitely want something like this in my studio.
We really had nowhere left that was mandatory to see except....DINOSAURS, MOTHER FUCKERS!!! The exhibit wasn't CALLED that, obviously, but we saved the best for last.
WE ARE RESPLENDENT.
Uh oh! A storm was a brewin'! But not really. It was just kinda overcast.
I'm sure like, seven people in the world have seen The Prophecy 3 (I actually love that movie. It's so fucking bad, but I have a huge soft spot for how unintentionally hilarious it is), but this reminded me of the dead angel in the desert.
SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUE!!!!!!!!!!
I think Derek was more excited than the kids were to see Sue. I loved how happy he was to be here!
EXTRA EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT! FIELD MUSEUM EXCLUSIVE!!! It's science clickbait!
Well. Thanks for nothing, Hogwort.
It was getting near closing time (whoops, we had planned on hitting up the art museum, but...yikes), and they were starting to set up for some sort of gala. We thought it might have been a wedding, but I think we determined it was a graduation ceremony for a college.
Everyone! Michael Jackson is thriving in the Egypt section of the Field Museum! Heehee! Shamon!
Obviously I needed to keep this logged for later. I have eight cats, and I care for several outdoor kitties. Gotta keep my vet costs as low as possible.
Here's Derek, checking out all of the wood in the Hall of Botany or whatever it's called. Being wistful and daydreaming about a heist for his woodshop, I imagine.
And that was pretty much it from the museum. We went into the gift store, because you're obligated to, and after wandering around for a little bit, we spotted Field Museum alcohol.
Well. Clearly we had to try them. They had them in small bottles, and big bottles. The small bottles came in a sampler box, so we bought that, and then drank them on the steps of the field museum like really curious alcoholics with a thirsts for numbing our emotions AND knowledge:
And....they were actually really fucking good. So good that we went in and bought the three full sized bottles of each. A rye, a gin, and a vodka. We weren't expecting to add more liquor to our already plentiful booze larder we acquired on the trip, but oh well.
And then it was food time again. Derek loves dim sum, so we headed back to Chinatown. Rhyann had never had dim sum, so we were thrilled to take them for their first try. Alex didn't want to eat anything there, I couldn't really eat anything there (though I did have a bite of chicken foot, turnip cake, and a small nibble of their egg roll, because Derek said it was wonderful), but this was all for Derek and Rhyann.
....he was irritated that I was documenting everything.
Derek said the beef with broccoli was tops bloopy. We ended up bringing this to Alex for her dinner.
Look at those potstickers. Perfection.
UNGFFGHGHGHGH. The pillowy, delicate goodness!!!! Packed with char siu!!!
I thought these were actually a little greasy and not worth the bite I wasted on them, to be honest.
The chicken feet, however. Not soggy, not gelatinous, they were excellently prepared.
Now THESE, on the other hand. They were exactly the egg roll Derek and I have been searching for since China Doll in Texas. And these are a much closer drive at six hours instead of eleven. Fuel economy win!
I love that they're so willing to try new food!!!
These turnip cakes were absolutely heavenly. I wanted to smash all of them into my face, but alas. I could not, and did not.
I was so sad we didn't have time to walk around and go into all of the bakeries and things, I would have loved to grab some things to take home, but Rhyann had to leave super early in the morning.
Look at these blues. The cornflower blue of an oncoming storm is one of my favorite colors in the world.
I obviously went to Veggie House for the last time of the trip. I literally at there every night, despite Derek bringing me home Nepal House the first night we were in Chicago. Did I want to eat that? Yes. But I wanted Veggie House more. This avocado salad? SO simple, but I dream about it constantly. I have yet to be able to replicate it at home.
My egg tofu? Wondrous. I do sometimes buy egg tofu at Olive Supermarket, my favorite place in STL, but I can't get it as perfectly crisp and delicious as Veggie House does. I actually JUST bought some egg tofu last weekend, I think I'll make some tonight.
And that, folks, is all she wrote on the trip to Cleveland, Ithaca, and Chicago! I did lie a bit, though. I took some photos on our day we returned home, so I will do a returning home post, but it'll be far more brief, with far fewer photos, than these last few blogs.
I did it!!!! I finished a trip blog!!! Now if I could just go back and finish Big Island and our last NOLA trip. The only trip I haven't done in here is our North Carolina trip, but I wanted to spend more time actually HAVING that trip, because it was the first time I was seeing my oldest child in sixteen years, and it wasn't in me to document that, I just wanted to live it. It was a great trip, would have been a blast to write up, but I was so glad I got to be 100% in those moments instead of worrying about taking photos.
My dad and Caryn will be coming here next year at the time we normally take our trip, so I'll document that as a trip of sorts, but I secretly have my heart set on taking a short jaunt with the kiddos to NOLA after my dad and Caryn leave. I think Rhyann and Alex would love it. I'm kind of pricing it out, because I know Derek will freak out as I promised that we wouldn't take any trips until our big, huge trip in 2024....that one is one I'm super nervous about documenting, but also super thrilled about the challenge of blogging.
Anyway. We'll see how 2023 shakes out for trips, but I expect Derek will reject the jaunt to NOLA, as 2024 is going to cost us an arm and a fucking leg. Maybe three sets of legs. It's going to be an absolutely EPIC trip, though. I am so fucking excited to start officially laying out plans with my dad and Caryn in a few months!!!!
