{"id":1207,"date":"2012-07-04T11:49:03","date_gmt":"2012-07-04T11:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bucksurdu.com\/blog\/?p=1207"},"modified":"2012-07-04T11:49:03","modified_gmt":"2012-07-04T11:49:03","slug":"2012-summer-vacation-day-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/2012\/07\/04\/2012-summer-vacation-day-4\/","title":{"rendered":"2012 Summer Vacation, Day 4"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The front of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Day four of our trip was dedicated to seeing the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. \u00a0I remember visiting this museum as a kid, and I hoped that time hadn’t over romanticized my memories of the place. \u00a0I have to say that it was better than I remember and that I could have spent another few hours there without much difficulty.<\/p>\n

\"Tom<\/a>
Tom and Sam in front of the U-505<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The two things for which the museum is best known are the U-505 and the coal mine. \u00a0The U-505 is a German submarine captured in WWII by Capt Gallery, USN, from submarine hunter killer team 23.4 of the 10th Fleet. \u00a0The story is remarkable. \u00a0In 2005 they moved the submarine from its old location on the museum grounds to its new home four floors below the museum. \u00a0The displays leading up to the tour of the submarine itself are quite well done. \u00a0(Interestingly, they use clips from the television documentary The World at War, but they’ve re-dubbed the narration (word for word it seems) with someone other than Sir Lawrence Olivier.) \u00a0I think they do a tremendous job of bringing the story to life. \u00a0The docent for the tour of the sub itself was quite good. \u00a0Sam really enjoyed the tour, especially the bullet holes on the port side of the conning tower.<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/a>
Sam and Candy in the "underground" mining train<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We then took the tour or the coal mine. \u00a0In this exhibit, we went down a mine shaft into a replica of a coal mine. \u00a0Inside the mine they have working replicas of mining equipment to give you an idea of what working in a mine might have been like. \u00a0Before going into the mine, there is a really nice oral history of life in a mining town that I think was largely ignored by the other visitors. \u00a0The docent said that all those working the coal mine exhibit spend some time each year touring real coal mines within Illinois to re-familiarize themselves. \u00a0I got the impression that the docents really understood mining; they were not just talking from a prepared script. \u00a0I also found it interesting that only 50% of the nation’s coal goes toward the production of electricity. \u00a0The other half goes to pharmaceuticals, plastics, and other products. \u00a0The docent showed a picture of coal deposits throughout Illinois. \u00a0There’s a lot of coal to be mined if we were serious about energy independence and not giving money to people who hate us.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The wing with displays about the science behind storms was Tom's favorite part of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I probably could have spent another two hours in this wing. \u00a0There were lots of “school groups” here, which made it difficult to really take advantage of all the displays. \u00a0Tommy got a little frustrated at kids who would jump in front of him to fiddle with a display without really trying to learn anything about the science being taught. \u00a0Anyway, there were a number of displays that described movement of soils (the avalanche display was tremendous), winds, lightening, water flows, light, etc. \u00a0The exhibits were quite excellent. \u00a0You could hear the Tesla coil across the room.<\/p>\n

\"Stuka<\/a>
Stuka hanging from the ceiling of the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We didn’t spend much time in the aviation exhibits, but this Stuka caught my eye. \u00a0There was a tremendous set of exhibits on genetics, but the area was crawling with kids, and we got there toward the end of our allotted time, so we only saw a small subset of them.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A tremendous train layout in a replica of Chicago<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was a large exhibit on the railroads and how steam engines work. \u00a0The centerpiece of the display was a huge replica of Chicago and the surrounding areas populated by model trains. \u00a0The kids didn’t want to spend much time there (We’ve seen model trains before, Dad!”), but the displays on how steam locomotives operate were well worth the time.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Blackhawk Motel in the Wisconsin Dells<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After an enjoyable time at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, we had to fight our way out of Chicago during rush hour. \u00a0Bad timing! \u00a0We reached our hotel in the Wisconsin Dells 90 minutes later than we had planned, but we still had time to take a swim in the hotel pool before bed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day four of our trip was dedicated to seeing the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. \u00a0I remember visiting this museum as a kid, and I hoped that time hadn’t over romanticized my memories of the place. \u00a0I have to say that it was better than I remember and that I could have spent … Continue reading 2012 Summer Vacation, Day 4<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}