We’ve only got two things planned for today; heading to the Chicago Museum and then getting our late afternoon flight, but we get up earlier than planned and decide to finish packing and then head to the museum early. We don’t grab breakfast as we’re still full from dinner last night.
The Chicago Museum is good and we go to exhibitions that cover the founding of the city as a hub between the East and West coasts and the various disasters that the city has faced; the Chicago fire showing how much the central part of the city has changed.
After we’ve gone through the main exhibitions in the museum there is a kids section and we have fun with their sensory area as I pretend to be a hot dog, we count up how many deep pan pizza slices equal a Chicago pizza slice in weight and smell the various smells of the city. There's also an interactive digital exhibit where you choose pictures to represent your experience of Chicago.
We grab a coffee and cake in their café and still have an hour to spare before we should leave to catch our flight so decide to wander the parkland and district around the museum. We’d half been hoping to find another dive bar for a snack, but the road is too busy as it is the main route along a park. Inside the park though, we spy that there is a lake area and then a zoo. The zoo turns out to be free, so we pop in and hunt out a few of our favourite animals before getting back to the car and heading to the airport.
Once in the car we still have made good time and it’s an hour before we should be at the airport, and it’s only 30 minutes away by GoogleMaps so we decide to pop into a Guitar Centre store that’s on the way. The store is huge and Scotty browses the guitars there, pleased with his purchase that is in the boot of our car. We get back on the road and start our final drive which is first on some main roads to take us to the freeway. We must get stopped at every red light as it feels really slow going. When we finally do get onto the freeway it’s the middle of the afternoon but is packed. It’s a slow trundle and I read the signs incorrectly which means we miss the filter onto the express lanes to O’Hare as they are in the central reservation, rather than from the right. But the express isn’t going much faster and so we all continue to crawl along.
It’s past the time we’d planned to get to the airport and we’ve still not reached the turning so are getting rather panicked. We start talking about how we’ll try and move the cases quickly between the car and the shuttle and the likelihood of having to buy another ticket if we miss the flight. We’ve checked-in online already, but know that it is now cutting it really fine.
We finally reach the turn-off and from here the traffic suddenly clears so we have a good run to the car rental place. When we pull up there the shuttle bus is loading up, so we quickly hoik our stuff out of the boot, check with the man that he’s logged us in and jump on the bus. Phew! We’re not sure which terminal our flight is from, so at the first terminal stop I jump out and find a helpful looking guard and ask him if the United International flights leave from here or the “international” terminal (the last terminal on the shuttle route). It’s here so we grab our bags and set off inside. It’s looking good until we see the queue at the desks. It’s winding around the floor and we join it, but ask an assistant if we can just drop the bags off as we’ve already checked in online. No, this is the queue she says. Scott remembers that we decided to upgrade our seats on this flight as a treat to give more leg room and locker space for the guitar and it turns out this was a great move as we’re now ushered to a totally queue-less desk to check-in. Sorted.
Finally things start going right for us as the guy is really helpful with Scott’s guitar being taken as hand luggage. There’s a queue for security, but we’re not fussed any more as we’re all checked-in and they have our bags so no need to rush about. After all that rushing though, the flight is delayed; first by 15 minutes and eventually by over and hour. Still, the later the flight maybe the more sleep we’ll get as it’s an overnighter.
About an hour into the flight Scott points out of the window into the darkness and says he can see lightning. I have a peak and think he’s got confused about the flashing light on the wing of the place (!) but then I see it! It’s great as we spend about an hour flying through and seeing all these amazing forks come out of the sky. Luckily we must be flying at altitude which means we aren’t affected too much by turbulence from the storm, so we have the perfect view.
That, and the leg room we have from upgrading, are probably the best things about the flight as we struggle to sleep later and find the cabin crew unfriendly. For both the drinks and meal trolley the cabin crew make sarcastic comments and go about with sour faces. It’s annoying that despite it being dark and us having had our meal service they don’t dim the lights in the cabin until over halfway through the flight. We’ve got our eye masks and ear plugs but even with the nice extra legroom we really can’t sleep. Scotty watches a few films whilst I lie there persistently trying not to open my eyes. We’re both knackered when we come in to land - Scotty more than me as he hasn’t even managed to rest on the flight. We’ll have to formulate a plan later for getting over the jet lag before the party at MVR tomorrow.
We manage to lug our bags onto the tube by balancing a packed holdall on top of one of the wheelie cases as with four bags, laptop and guitar hands are at a premium. We’re tired on the tube but again manage the transition up the lift at Cally Road and Jim is outside to meet us. We grab a little sleep later in the afternoon, but make sure we get up again so that we don’t get too out of sync and can sleep tonight. We go to bed on Thursday night and sleep for 13 hours!
The Chicago Museum is good and we go to exhibitions that cover the founding of the city as a hub between the East and West coasts and the various disasters that the city has faced; the Chicago fire showing how much the central part of the city has changed.
After we’ve gone through the main exhibitions in the museum there is a kids section and we have fun with their sensory area as I pretend to be a hot dog, we count up how many deep pan pizza slices equal a Chicago pizza slice in weight and smell the various smells of the city. There's also an interactive digital exhibit where you choose pictures to represent your experience of Chicago.
We grab a coffee and cake in their café and still have an hour to spare before we should leave to catch our flight so decide to wander the parkland and district around the museum. We’d half been hoping to find another dive bar for a snack, but the road is too busy as it is the main route along a park. Inside the park though, we spy that there is a lake area and then a zoo. The zoo turns out to be free, so we pop in and hunt out a few of our favourite animals before getting back to the car and heading to the airport.
Once in the car we still have made good time and it’s an hour before we should be at the airport, and it’s only 30 minutes away by GoogleMaps so we decide to pop into a Guitar Centre store that’s on the way. The store is huge and Scotty browses the guitars there, pleased with his purchase that is in the boot of our car. We get back on the road and start our final drive which is first on some main roads to take us to the freeway. We must get stopped at every red light as it feels really slow going. When we finally do get onto the freeway it’s the middle of the afternoon but is packed. It’s a slow trundle and I read the signs incorrectly which means we miss the filter onto the express lanes to O’Hare as they are in the central reservation, rather than from the right. But the express isn’t going much faster and so we all continue to crawl along.
It’s past the time we’d planned to get to the airport and we’ve still not reached the turning so are getting rather panicked. We start talking about how we’ll try and move the cases quickly between the car and the shuttle and the likelihood of having to buy another ticket if we miss the flight. We’ve checked-in online already, but know that it is now cutting it really fine.
We finally reach the turn-off and from here the traffic suddenly clears so we have a good run to the car rental place. When we pull up there the shuttle bus is loading up, so we quickly hoik our stuff out of the boot, check with the man that he’s logged us in and jump on the bus. Phew! We’re not sure which terminal our flight is from, so at the first terminal stop I jump out and find a helpful looking guard and ask him if the United International flights leave from here or the “international” terminal (the last terminal on the shuttle route). It’s here so we grab our bags and set off inside. It’s looking good until we see the queue at the desks. It’s winding around the floor and we join it, but ask an assistant if we can just drop the bags off as we’ve already checked in online. No, this is the queue she says. Scott remembers that we decided to upgrade our seats on this flight as a treat to give more leg room and locker space for the guitar and it turns out this was a great move as we’re now ushered to a totally queue-less desk to check-in. Sorted.
Finally things start going right for us as the guy is really helpful with Scott’s guitar being taken as hand luggage. There’s a queue for security, but we’re not fussed any more as we’re all checked-in and they have our bags so no need to rush about. After all that rushing though, the flight is delayed; first by 15 minutes and eventually by over and hour. Still, the later the flight maybe the more sleep we’ll get as it’s an overnighter.
About an hour into the flight Scott points out of the window into the darkness and says he can see lightning. I have a peak and think he’s got confused about the flashing light on the wing of the place (!) but then I see it! It’s great as we spend about an hour flying through and seeing all these amazing forks come out of the sky. Luckily we must be flying at altitude which means we aren’t affected too much by turbulence from the storm, so we have the perfect view.
That, and the leg room we have from upgrading, are probably the best things about the flight as we struggle to sleep later and find the cabin crew unfriendly. For both the drinks and meal trolley the cabin crew make sarcastic comments and go about with sour faces. It’s annoying that despite it being dark and us having had our meal service they don’t dim the lights in the cabin until over halfway through the flight. We’ve got our eye masks and ear plugs but even with the nice extra legroom we really can’t sleep. Scotty watches a few films whilst I lie there persistently trying not to open my eyes. We’re both knackered when we come in to land - Scotty more than me as he hasn’t even managed to rest on the flight. We’ll have to formulate a plan later for getting over the jet lag before the party at MVR tomorrow.
We manage to lug our bags onto the tube by balancing a packed holdall on top of one of the wheelie cases as with four bags, laptop and guitar hands are at a premium. We’re tired on the tube but again manage the transition up the lift at Cally Road and Jim is outside to meet us. We grab a little sleep later in the afternoon, but make sure we get up again so that we don’t get too out of sync and can sleep tonight. We go to bed on Thursday night and sleep for 13 hours!
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