Field Museum

Probably the three main reasons I wanted to visit Chicago were to see a Cubs game at Wrigley Field; to visit several world class museums; and to check out the innovative architecture that has been a hallmark of the city for over a century.  From the architecture side, here's a gorgeous high rise with vast views of Lake Michigan.  I wouldn't be surprised if you could see across the lake to the Michigan shore on a clear day.

The Field is one of the world's leading museums of paleontology and anthropology.  This is Sue, the most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton found on the planet.  90 percent of Sue's bones are bona fide bones.  The other ten percent have been reconstructed.

These are the hides of the actual man eating lions of Tsavo that stopped work on a railroad the British were trying to build between Mombasa, Kenya and Uganda in 1898.  Seems that the lions were discreetly picking off a few workers each night and gobbling them down for dinner...in all, they ate up to 135 people in less than a year!  Work on the railroad was stopped, I would imagine because it became difficult to recruit men for the job.  You think??? Well, in the following year an intrepid Brit gunned down both lions, work resumed, and the railroad was completed.  About a quarter century later, he sold the skins to the Field Museum and taxidermists did the rest.  These are male lions...maneless because of the arid climate of their habitat.

More predators.  This is one of the earliest alpha land predators, Eryops.  He lived almost 300 million years ago, well before the dinosaurs.

Eryops was succeeded in the badass position by this guy, Dimetrodon...Permian period, 260 million years ago.  The bones on his back supported a large sail.  It is thought that Dimetrodon could regulate his body temperature by exposing the sail to the sun...or not.  This fellow died out in the mass extinction at the end of the Permian period, which eventually led to the Age of Dinosaurs.

There were badass critters in the ocean as well as on the land during the Mesozoic Era.  This is the skull of Mosasaurus, a real live sea monster...30-40 feet long, agile, and real mean. 

The Field has a fine collection of mammals from the last 65 million years.  Here are a couple of Ice Age beasts, a wooly mammoth and an Irish Elk, known for its impressive rack of antlers.  Many specimens of this fellow exist, mostly found in peat bogs in Ireland.  They are excellent at preserving dead things from Ice Age mammals to humans several thousand years old.

The Field has many artifacts from South Pacific island tribes, and also a good collection of ancient Egyptian stuff.  These are genuine hieroglyphics, written by a scribe in Egypt over two thousand years ago.

And in the background, the Chicago skyline.  Now THIS is a skyline!  World class.  Lake Michigan adds perspective.  This pic was taken on the afternoon of Sep 4...the lake was calm.  24 hours later, after a long period of gusty north winds, the lake looked like an ocean...whitecaps everywhere, and large breakers smashing against the rocks, throwing spray into the air.  It's fascinating to a west coaster how fast the Great Lakes can change moods.

Chicago's skyline is not a recent concept.  This was one of the original homes of the skyscraper...they've been building them here for over a century.  This pic shows some of the older highrises near the lakefront.