lisamoe

I'm back from out of town. The trip had it's high points and low points, but it was pretty much better than hanging around Tulsa anyway and I saw a lot of stuff. I brought back lots of wine, cheese and fudge, plus I bought a knife block at Chicago Cutlery to finally replace the one that my grandmother gave me and my first husband kept when we got divorced. I loved those knives and am really looking forward to using my new ones.

Ok, the trip to Six Flags over Texas this weekend. We got there before the gates opened and when they opened the ropes we ran in to try to go on the Titan, which is a steel coaster about 255 ft. tall. It was closed however, because there was a severe weather watch from the national weather service. Same with the Texas Giant (a wooden coaster 143 ft. tall.) We let the kids ride a couple of small rides and then they closed every single freaking ride in the park! We all had to go in the theater for the Spongebob 4D ride and wait out the weather, as it had actually started storming by then. The kids were whiny about not getting to ride anything and R and I were worried that it would be like this all day, but eventually it cleared up and by noon they had most of the rides going again, aside from the big coasters. We took the kids on the Runaway Mine Train, which is a classic small coaster and Jesse (9) loved it of course. Dingo (5) thought it was scary, which is just bizarre as he's ridden Space Mountain, Expedition Everest and the Tower of Terror with no problem at all, but whatever. He rode the Mini Mine train a number of times though and loved that.

We rode several of the small rides like the swings, the train, the sombrero, the Mine Train again, and the Yosemite Sam Gold River (a boat ride) while waiting for the coasters to open. We let the kids play some ganes too and Jesse won a giant Bugs Bunny that we then had to haul around the rest of the day. We rode the Runaway Mountain ride too, which is somewhat Space Mountain-like. It's a twisty indoor coaster in total darkness and was great fun. You can't get a good impression of how high it is when you're in the pitch black, but I understand it's just about 50 feet tall. We actually rode the Spongebob 4d ride too, which was a lot more fun than just using it as a weather shelter. It was a pretty active simulator 3d kind of ride/show.

They finally opened Titan at 3:30 and we left Jesse watching Dingo on the Sidewinder (a scrambler type ride) and gave him $20 for concessions and inbstructions where to meet us while we waited through the 30 minute Titan line. Titan was just awesome. It's the tallest coaster I've been on and that first drop was just exhiliarating. (Before that my tallest coaster was the 205 foot Mamba in Kansas City, I think.) It ran you back up through more really tall drops and curves and was just well worth the wait to get on. Very scary and fun! I would have gone again immediately if not for the line. R had had a chili dog for lunch and didn't feel entirely well after we rode though, so we retrieved the kids and went off to ride more kiddie rides and shop a little. By late afternoon, the lines were starting to thin a little and R volunteered to watch the kids on their rides while I went off to ride Batman: The Ride, as he still was not feeling like riding another coaster. Batman is one of those rides where you're suspended under the track in seats with your feet hanging down and it turns you over a couple of times, plus has about three areas where you corkscrew around the track. I loved it of course and have never been on that style of coaster before. After I met back up with the boys, Jesse and I went to ride Judge Roy Scream, which is an older wooden coaster about 67 feet tall that I remember from my own childhood. It's just about Jesse's speed right now. He won't go on the biggest coasters, but he does fine on wooden coasters under 100 feet. We went back to the mine train area after that and let the boys ride their respective mine trains several more times.

We were getting pretty much ready to pack up and leave then, but it turned out R and the kids wanted to go up in the Oil Derrick observation tower and since I don't really like heights like that (funny, huh?) I ran off to see if there was a line at the Texas Giant while they went observing. There wasn't and I got to walk right up and get on the first train. I have ridden the Texas Giant before, but I guess I had forgotten just how much it rattles you around. VERY rough ride, even for a wooden coaster. I guess because it's faster than most wooden coasters I'm used to or something. It was fun and exciting, but I just felt jarred by the end of it. I was pretty much ready to go after that. R's pedometer said we had walked almost 9 miles and it was almost park closing time, so we made our way up to the exit. I'm disappointed we didn't get to go on La Vibora, which is a bobsled style coaster and Jesse said he was willing to ride with me. I've been on it before, but I wish he'd gotten to go. Still, after a very disappointing morning, we had a fabulous afternoon and evening and I feel like we got our money's worth even if we missed a few things. The kids seemed very happy with the day.

So anyway, Mr Freeze and Flashback were closed for the season, and we missed another big ride or two, but I did make it on Titan, the Texas Giant, Batman: The Ride, Judge Roy Scream, and the little classic Runaway Mine Train which is a nostalgic favorite of mine, and that seems like a pretty good coaster day, no? If you want to look up stats for any of these coasters, there's links at http://www.aceonline.org/census/parkDetails.aspx?id=2093

We made it to Dallas fine. Jesse is very excited to be here. Dingo fell asleep on the way. R and I are just tired, though I did get out of the room and walk Jesse around a bit. He wants to get room service in the morning and if we're still tired we may give in on that. We ate junk food at DQ for dinner (We stopped at TWO DQ's) and I think we could stand to have a decent breakfast tomorrow.

It's 106 freaking degrees here today and it may still get a little warmer. My family called me this morning from Durango, CO to say that it was in the 50s and they were wearing sweatshirts. I hate them.

Today Mom and I took the kids to OKC to the Omniplex. Jesse got to hold a tarantula as big as his hand. He was very brave about it. I was brave to stand nearby and take a picture of it. Dingo got to play with lots of science exhibits and we all got to see the IMAX movie Fighter Pilot which was very good and exciting.

We went because the kids wanted to take a couple of day trips before I go back to work. We may go back to Eureka Springs too. Last time Dingo wasn't feeling well and it made the whole trip kind of a drag, so we'd like to try again and I won't have any more weekdays free for a while after the 17th unless I have more flextime than I'm anticipating.

Ok, off to get some stuff done.

So, the third day of our vacation, I let everyone sleep a little later than I had the previous two days because we were going to the Sears Tower first and it didn't open til 10:00.  We got a  good continental breakfast in the hotel and then walked on over to the Sears tower, which was just a couple of blocks from our hotel.  We passed a Giordano's pizza on the way and two of my guidebooks had mentioned it as a good place to get Chicago style pizza, so we took note.    We got to the Sears tower half an hour early in case of lines, but there wasn't a line and they let us go on up to the 103rd floor.  The view was great even though it was a little cloudy.  We liked seeing our hotel from up high, as we'd been looking the other way just the night before.  We could tell which room was ours and everything.  At the Sears tower we bought bus/el passes for the day and hopped on transit to get down to the Shedd Aquarium.  

At the aquarium they were having, in addition to the regular wonderful exhibits,  an exhibit on Lizards and the Komodo King.   We spent quite a while in there because I like lizards.   The Komodo was lazy and wouldn't come look at us, but you could see him behind a log.  Big lizard.  We also saw a dolphin show.  We watched half from the top and then went to the underwater viewing and watched the dolphins swim there.  We also saw OTTERS!  Sea otters and river otters.  They were lively and fun.    We didn't have time (as was the case most places) to see everything, but we made it to the Amazon area, the coral reef, and the penguins also.   ANd the gift shop.  We didn't miss a gift shop on this trip, lol.   Leaving the Shedd, we went down the street to the Field Museum.  

The Field is a massive natural history museum and I don't think I could even begin to talk about what we saw there, except as a list.  We saw Sue the Tyrannosaurus, many other dino skeletons, a room full of gems, a beautiful walk through exhibit on the South Pacific complete with a Maori meeting house that had been moved to the museum, an ancient Egypt walk-through exhibit, and in passing, some Tibetian and Asian items.  There were two special exhibits (besides  Tut) that were of note.  One was a display of photos from a photo album that someone managed to save from Auschwitz that showed the person's family and friends and documented the processing, sorting, work, and even people in the minutes before the gas chambers. (though there are no images of actual killing)   It's apparently the only such photographic record.  I would have taken Jesse in because I think it's important, but his Dad wasn't comfortable with that, so I went through it by myself (My Mom went through it by herself too, we had gotten seperated.)  Anyway, it was a striking exhibit.   The other special exhibit was the Underground Adventure, which pretended to shrink you and you walk through a display of what it's like right under the surface of the Earth.  That was cool , and Dingo's favorite thing.  

At 5:30 we had tickets to Tut at Twilight, so we queued up for that, picked up our headphones and went on in.  It was several rooms of the most fantastic artifacts and if you get the audio tour, which we did, you even get extra information narrated by Omar Sharif.   The items were all in  astonishingly good condition and well worth seeing.  At the end they had a display on scans they've done of Tut's body to try to determine more about him and the cause of death, as he was only 19 when he died.   It was very interesting what new technologies have shown that weren't apparent in the scans they did in the 70's.  After Tut we caught a bus back to the hotel and then walked a couple of blocks over to the Giordano's we'd seen earlier that day.  I'd never had Chicago style pizza before and it was great.     Huge thick pizzas just full of cheese.  Yum.  We ordered too much though.  When it says the pizza feeds one or two, your whole family could eat it  in actuality.  After that, we walked (I don't know how as our feet were so freaking tired) back to the hotel and went to bed.

So about that vacation...

The first night, Tuesday, all we did was drive to a small town near St. Louis and spend the night. We got in about 1:00 so we didn't really get enough sleep, but we got a little. In the morning, we drove on into St. Louis and went directly to the zoo. It's a great zoo. The highlights were the penguin and puffin exhibit. Much more awesome than Tulsa's. It was indoor and freezing cold and had a number of different kinds of Antarctic penguins. You could get right up close to them too, so close they splashed you. We rode the train all the way around, went through the great ape exhibits, and went through the River's Edge exhibit, which was a walking path that took you through a bunch of cool river animals. We also rode the carousel and the dinosaur simulator machine. After we left there, we went downtown to the arch. R and the kids had never been up in it, so that was very neat. Personally, I don't like the tight little elevator capsules to get up there, but I managed not to panic and once we were up the view was great.

After the arch, we went to the City Museum, which contained...geez, there's no way to really describe it. It was an interactive museum that was designed by artists instead of by pedantic children's museum curators. Outside, there was a massive several story play structure that consisted of welded wire tunnels, huge slides, two actual aircraft, a castle turret, walkways, ball pits, secret passages and more. It was truly a work of art. Art you could hurt yourself on, lol. I'm providing a link, http://www.citymuseum.org/home.asp and I'll post some pictures, because I just can't really describe how wondrous it was. I followed the kids through every one of those freaking tunnels and staircases and slides, btw, except a couple that weren't big enough for adults. Most of the adults were just watching, but I never said I was mature or had any kind of good judgement. When we entered the museum, the guy selling tickets told us "If your kids disappear in a hole anywahere in here that you can't fit in, they'll come out in the same room, but if it's big enough for you, you should follow them because they could come out anywhere else in the museum." That's the kind of place it was.

Upstairs in the city museum they had an art space where the kids could make all sorts of things, a shoelace factory, a small kids area, a slide that went down the three stories of the museum and a weird carnival/soda fountain/corndog art/robot nougat factory/sideshow. There was an aquarium too. And a ride on train for the little kids. And a "puking pig." AND...another mass of labrynthine tunnels, stairs, slides, and fantasy dinosaurs known as the enchanted caverns. It was in an old shoe warehouse many stories tall and the caves use 5 or 6 stories of it. There was a really long spiral slide starting near the top, which we all went down, even my dad. We all got an injury or two in the caverns cause they're made of metal and concrete. SO worth it though. And so enormous and twisting you can actually get lost in there. All the caves and the play structure outside (which is called Monstrocity) are made of recycled and scavanged pieces from other buildings in St Louis that had been torn down. Every surface in the museum is covered with mosaics, walk through sculptures and weirdness. There's a little log cabin with a bar in it right off the playground for grownups too. The employees are wacky artist types who urge your children to climb through unknown holes in the floor and stand under the puking pig. We all LOVED THIS PLACE. GO THERE NOW! HURT YOURSELF ON THE ART! YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO! Um, sorry, we just really enjoyed it...

On our way out of St. Louis we ate at a hippie coffeeshop nearby the museum that was recommended by a museum person. The food was good and it was a relaxing respite after the frantic four hours at the City Museum. When we left there, we drove straight through to Joliet, found a nice motel and took Jesse swimming, then went to bed.

Well, there is so much to say about this trip so far, but the part that's cool to me right now is that when we got to our hotel, which is a downtown hotel at the top of the Stock Exchange Building, they didn't have the kind of rooms that we'd reserved so they put us in suites instead. One of the suites, the one we're in with the kids, actually had a nameplate on the door that said "English Suite." I've never stayed in a hotel room with a NAME before. And as it turned out, we have a picture window on the Sears Tower, a bay window with a view of of the river and lots of Chicago another bay window in the bedroom with another great view. It has a dining room table and a stereo system and couches and a four poster bed and a marble bathroom and terrycloth robes. This is NOT the kind of place we stay. We stay in Super 8 motels, yanno? My folks room isn't QUITE as grand but it's still wonderful and spacious and fancy. I'll probably never stay anyplace like this again, so I'm really enjoying it. And Jesse, bless his luxury-loving little heart, is in heaven.

Today we went to Marshall Fields, Millenium Park, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Navy Pier. At Millenium Park we (the kids and I) played in the fountains and I got drenched but it was fun. At the Art institute, R, Jesse and I walked through the European galleries and the modern art and saw some armor and weapons, but we didn't even have time to go in the American or Asian galleries. It's just a huge place. At the Navy Pier we went to the Chicago Children's museum, shopped, ate at Bubba Gump's Shrimp, took a Lake Michigan skyline cruise, saw a magic show, rode a 3-D simulator ride and rode the huge ferris wheel. I don't like ferris wheels one bit. Just hanging up high in the air makes me panic though I don't mind when I'm in a building, or I don't mind when I'm on a roller coaster because you aren't up for very long. I was shaking by the time I got off, but the kids had a great time. Mom and R did too, but Dad is like me and didn't like it much. Of course it didn't help that it started raining and the wind blowing when we were almost to the top. Yipes! In the evening we had excitment trying to figure out the El.

I still need to talk about yesterday in St. Louis and what we did there, but I'm really tired and there's a marble bathroom and a terrycloth robe waiting for me, so it'll have to wait.

After this evening, my internet access will likely be sporadic until late Saturday. Boo hoo, I heart my internet. On the other hand, I will be at the King Tut exhibit in Chicago for the evening of the opening. So that makes up for not having constant lj for a few days, right?

After this though, I think I'm through with big planning-laden vacations for at least a year. I'm grateful to have been able to travel this year; it had been several years since an actual vacation, but still, the planning is a lot to do. Jesse is now planning us a trip to Cedar Point to ride roller coasters, but we told him it would have to be next summer. I'll be going to Kansas City in October and Dallas in November, but those will just be little weekend things.

Time to get packing.