Are We There Yet?

For those of you who follow my every move on Twitter and FB, you'll know that I recently packed up the family and took a train to Chicago. After spending several days visiting several museums there, we returned home (also via train).

A couple things I learned:

1. Driving in Chicago during the week is insane. Rush hour starts at 7 in the morning and goes until 7 at night (except for weekends).
2. Despite the insane traffic, the drivers there are fairly polite.
3. Speed limits are more like speed "guidelines".
4. If you buy the Chicago City Pass, it's a LOT cheaper to see all their Museums.
5. Parking at the museums is very expensive.
6. Only see one museum a day.
7. The Shedd Aquarium is awesome but at times repetitive. By the time we were done it was "Oh look, more fish". That being said, there are some awesome exhibits.
8. The Museum of Science and Industry has the only captured German U-Boat. It also has the best exhibits with lots of interactive stuff, like a giant hamster wheel and relaxation thing where you compete against someone else to move a ball to the other person's "goal" with your mind. (which I somehow won every time...no I don't know how). We could have easily spent several days there. As it was, we got there at open and left half an hour before close and we still missed a large chunk of it.
9. The Field Museum is really cool and has some amazing things in it. For example Sue the T-Rex. They also have over 20 mummies on display. Like the MSI, we couldn't see all of it before we got too tired to continue. The only disappointment was the Creatures of Light exhibit. It sounded like we were going to be able to see lots of cool bioluminescent critters, but it was all models and flashing lights. It did not live up to the hype.
10. The Adler Planetarium has some amazing astronomy presentations, but the floor plan was confusing (even with a map!) and it was a little sparse on the exhibits. However, it did have a huge play area which we let loose the rampaging monkey boy loose in for a while. He and the angsty tween really enjoyed it.
11. Food at the museums and even on the train is REALLY expensive except for Field Museum (which has a McDonald's).

We had a chance to go up in the Willis Tower Sky-Deck, but ran out of time (it was also included in the City Pass).

Sue, the T-Rex

Now on to #writemotivation update

• I woke up early Friday morning and fired off my submission email to Brenda Drake's pitchmadness competition. I have been desperately trying to not pay attention to my twitter feed until the Round 2 results have been posted. I don't know if I made it in or not. If I did, GREAT! If not, it happens. I'm sure there were a ton of awesome stories that were submitted. I just appreciate that she's doing all of this.
• Because I was on vacation, I didn't get on twitter much except at night and sometimes on my phone, so I didn't get much cheering on for my #writemotivation tweeps. My dino pompom waving will commence now that I am back.
• I got a lot of revisions done while on the train and at night when everyone fell asleep. I don't have accurate statistics, but I'm in ch. 22 of 30.
• Oh, and here's the blog post for the week!

'Till Next Time.