We had big plans for our third day in Chicago, Memorial Day Monday, including a much-deferred boat cruise and a trip the renowned Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. We’d gotten recommendations for this museum from a bunch of Chicago natives. Normally I’d be reticent to visit a science museum. Lots of trivial children’s toys, simple experiments, and so on. But it had such good recommendations (and it was totally worth it)!

At the museum, we:

Watched an egg transform into a chicken…

Watched a human being transform into a clown…

Saw a cow about to go for a moooonwalk…

Walked around the only U-Boat in the United States…

and through an amazing old train…

And caught a glimpse of Godzilla (or something near enough like it).

But for me, the highlight of the trip was seeing an actual Mercury spacecraft. One that had been in SPACE. This particular craft had an interesting story. It was piloted by Scott Carpenter, who saw the same “fireflies” as John Glenn, and was able to identify them as ice particles released off the spacecraft (he hit the wall of the spacecraft with his hand and knocked some loose). Nonetheless, he was distracted and as a result splashed down 250 miles off from where he should have; he never returned to space. But, he did became an aquanaut (!), and worked on Sealab.

After a full day in the Science museum, we got a few drinks, and then went on a boat cruise – there’s a number of them in Chicago and this one went along the river and then way out on the lake. It was a perfect night, warm, clear, not too hot, and the views were great.

When we headed out, there was still a lot of light, but we got to see the sun set while still out on the water, and then saw the city at night.

We also swung in close, and got a look over Millenium Park.

After getting off the cruise, we headed back to our apartment for an early night.

(The Chicago city flag is amazing and everywhere, and here’s a great TED talk about city flags in general, because they’re so interesting).

We flew back to NYC early on Monday, before the work day, and got a great view of the city before touching down and returning to the daily grind.