Saturday Planetarium Fun

Ken and I heard on the news Friday night that the Adler Planetarium in Chicago was having one of its "free" weeks, so we decided to take in a little more of Chicago before we leave. Because we're leaving the area soon and we hardly ever take in the sights of the city anymore, we decided to spend the afternoon together downtown.

We spent the morning at home working on things and then took off for the city around 12:30, getting to downtown around 1:00. I don't know how we did it, but we managed to score prime street parking right outside of the planetarium itself, which if you know Chicago is nearly impossible to do. Just as we were making our first half circle around the street/meter parking outside of the building, a couple waved to us signaling that they were leaving and could have their spot. It was perfect.

We spent about 3 hours at the planetarium (it closed at 4:30) and even took in their "Night Sky" show in one of the theaters, which was pretty cool -- except "Steve" the speaker kept asking the audience questions about "what's this star named?" or "what were the names of the two rovers on Mars?" and there was this know-it-all kid in the audience (age: approximately 8) who knew the answers to EVERYTHING. Very annoying. There was a really cool exhibit on going to the moon with special collection items from Jim Lovell. We got to see a lot of real Apollo 13 gear and the actually Apollo 11 capsule that the astronauts landed in the water in on their return from space. In short, a very fun, relaxing afternoon.

Afterwards, we drove up to Wrigleyville to see Wrigley Field. Believe it or not, neither Ken nor I have ever seen it. Then we stopped for dinner at a place called Chicago Joe's which wasn't too far away. It looked fun from the outside -- sort of a unique form of a Joe's Crab Shack. The food was "American Fare," as Lisa would call it. We both had soup, which was wondeful, and Ken had the meatloaf and I had the Chicken Parmagiana. Again, though parking outside was limited, we somehow managed to score a perfect spot right in front of the building on the street. The Chicago parking gods were looking out for us that day.

We came home, relaxed, and then just for the heck of it, put in the movie Apollo 13 to cap the day off. I fell asleep about halfway through because it was getting late, but I've seen it before. Overall, a lovely way to spend one of our last Saturdays in Illinois together.

Nest weekend: A tribute to Gurney Mills with Matt & Lisa.