Category: Place

When In Doubt, Seahorses and Dinosaurs

We were in West Palm Beach, Florida recently without a concrete plan for how to spend a day, so we went brochure fishing and found ourselves at Cox Science Center and Aquarium! It’s right next to Palm Beach Zoo, which I thought was pretty convenient, and it partners with a variety of food trucks on weekends so that there’s food. More importantly, it’s a neat little science museum!

First of all, dinosaurs. This is both the temporary exhibit currently on display and a theme of their outdoor space, where a handful of dinosaur chairs and things abound; the indoor, more involved version includes animatronics and a Mesozoic tour of Pangaea, mapping out dinosaurs by continent! This was especially cool to me, as it put eras and geography back in context in a way that growing up with Jurassic Park did not. Similarly, even for dinos where I knew which current-day continent they were found on, it hadn’t occurred to me that at the time that they existed we still had supercontinents, and so where those species were relative to each other was very different! It was just a hike from South America to Australia, once upon a time.

Outside, along with the dino walk, a number of physics-based exhibits, a splash pad, and a gem panning station! You were welcome to buy a bag of gemstones, shark teeth, or fossils, complete with mining substrate, and experience panning for yourself. Inside, some engineering-for-kids stuff that reminded me of the DuPage Children’s Museum here in Illinois, a meteorology exhibit, space rocks, logic puzzles, and, of course, the aquarium! I was especially excited about this bit, as it’s specifically focused on the Atlantic and Florida. Also, animals. I spent a lot of time here, taking photos and reading signage, of course, but also attending a number of activities! Including alligator petting. And feeding! Which were, notably, separate events. Turns out it’s also very entertaining to watch fish demolish a piece of lettuce!

If you’re ever in West Palm Beach, this is a great something to do that’s mostly inside, a little bit outside, and easily spanning multiple interests – we didn’t really get to the Planetarium schedule, and they have that too! There’s whole sections that are definitively aimed at kids, and as adults we wound up making most of a day of it.

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Christkindlmarket!

Yes, yes, it’s a little early for the Christmas season – as an American, I generally assume it starts after Thanksgiving. But the Christkindlmarket is open, and the weather was good, and I had a great time!

For those who don’t know, the Christkindlmarket is a “German-style outdoor market” that pops up in the holiday season, with locations in both Chicago and Aurora. It’s largely Christmas themed, though not exclusively, with vendors selling everything from ornaments to elaborate wooden puzzles to cakes. They represent locations around the world, also – my lunch was Dutch, my new gloves hail from Ecuador, and there were handmade journals from Nepal! There’s always a combination of well-made staples and novelty items, and a food selection for everybody. The poffertjes pictured below, for instance. Or the vegan empanadas at Fons! Regardless, it’s a great way to spend an afternoon.

Poffertjes - aka Dutch mini pancakes - cook in a specialized pan, which has divots for up to a hundred of them at a time. Behind the pan is an apron with the words "Puffy Houzz" on it. A Santa gnome smiles benevolently at something beyond the camera.

My examples are all from the Aurora location, I should note, which also has glassblowing lessons this year.

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Welcome to Gallery 200!

Gallery 200 is an art gallery in West Chicago that’s run by artists, for artists, featuring the work of local creators in all sorts of mediums! Paint, markers, felt, jewelry, dishware… to paraphrase, “you can walk through three times and always find something new.”

My experience so far has specifically been at the exhibit openings, an evening reception with snack food, several of the artists, and, this month, live music! The gallery is usually open on afternoons, Wednesday through Sunday, and I’ve just learned they offer workshops as well! It’s such a magical little corner of the world, truly, full of pretty things and lovely people.

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Hispanic Heritage Fest at the Zoo

Yesterday played host to Brookfield Zoo’s Hispanic Heritage Fest, an absolute blast of an event I hope they bring back in future years! Events we didn’t get to included the bilingual story times and games, and… that’s about it! There was enough in the schedule that we didn’t make it to every single item in a given category, and enough room in the schedule to hit a little bit of everything.

Events we did get to included multiple Zoo Chats featuring thematically appropriate animals, like Andean condors, llamas, and Eastern screech owls; various dance performances; and the general wandering a zoo entails, with special signage listing which Spanish-speaking countries each species heralds from! Say that five times fast. There were also community groups and vendors set up for a few hours in the East Mall, and special menu items at the nearest food sources. All in all, a lively, educational time!

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Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art

For my Midwest folks, because I didn’t know about it – Lizzadro Museum is in Oak Brook, Illinois, and dedicated to carved and polished stones and gems. There’s a gorgeous collection of jade pieces, mosaics, and information on both the cultural contexts and the materials themselves.

I don’t think I need to say much about this one, really. It’s not a large museum, and it covers a lot without ever feeling like the displays are crowding each other. If you like art, rocks, or the historical contexts in which either has existed, you’ll find something to enjoy here.

Beyond that, I’ll let the photos speak for themselves!

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Pride Week at the Zoo

“Why do you take so many cat photos?” I asked myself once.
“Because they’re doing something cute.”
“But they’re always doing something cute.”
“That’s why I take so many cat photos.”

This, it turns out, is true for more than just cats, which is how I came out of Brookfield Zoo – somewhere I’ve been more times than I can count – with even more animal photos. In my defense… just look at them!

A brown snake is curled up to form two loops on either side of a stem, easy to mistake for part of the plant amidst the large leaves radiating out from it.
“I am one with the plant and the plant is with me.”
A Pallas's cat is curled up in a crevice so small it has zero free space, about halfway up the rock wall of its enclosure. It is not a small enclosure, nor a short wall.
“I fits, I sits. Even if nobody is sure how I got up here.”
A whole cadre of flamingoes following the wooden path with railings, usually used by humans. They're escorted by a zoo employee in a pink visibility vest as they do a loop of the building before returning to their enclosure.
The flamingoes took full advantage of their parade around The Swamp. Not pictured: one walking right up to us and waiting impatiently for its photo to be taken.

We seem to have had really lucky timing this trip, from start to finish! Happy Pride indeed.

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Midwest Tulip Fest

When last I wrote about Kuipers Family Farm, I sung the praises of their apple picking and sunflower features, with a blurb about the pumpkin experience I’d never actually done. Well, I’ve still never been to their pumpkin picking, but they’ve now added a tulip festival!

In front of a building labeled "The Farmstand," a metal structure is completely surrounded by pink tulips, with a gradient from darker in the middle of the petals to lighter on the outside, and yellow at the very bottom. There are occasional white and yellow tulips interspersed.

Like the sunflowers, the tulips span seven acres, and you can pay extra to cut your own and bring them home. Or, if you have cats like ours who don’t understand “don’t chew that” (tulips are bad for them), you can just pay admission to wander and enjoy. It’s in the same area as the pumpkins with what I assume are year-round features (though again, never having been to the latter, I can only infer). These include a sort of jungle gym, games like tetherball, and a small zoo! There are also food vendors. All in all, it was a lot bigger than I expected, and of course the tulips were gorgeous! Their season is over now, but there’s always next year.

A swathe of deep purple tulips, almost black, on tall green stems. Seemingly much taller for the fact that they were photographed at their own height.
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Cosley Zoo

Chicago’s west suburbs have the privilege of several good zoos, and one of them is Cosley! We went recently to see their coyote, Wiley, who’s in full winter poof. Consequently, photos! Not just of Wiley.

Wiley, very fluffy for the winter, giving the impression of looking over the top of his glasses despite not wearing any.
A deer, sitting loaf-style on the ground in a way that reminds me of my cats. Watching the camera with much less side-eye energy than Wiley.
Lynxes! Two of them. The one in back is upright and, like Wiley, looking down whilst glaring up at the camera. The one in front is happily lounging in the sun and ignoring the camera in favor of licking its massive paws.
This duck looks like the Aflac mascot with an afro. White bird, orange beak and feet, and this big white poof of feathers on the top and back of its head. It stands on shore, posing for the camera, while mallards swim in the background.

A lot of Cosley’s critters are native to right here in Illinois, which has characterized it for me as the most domestic of our local zoos. There’s something to be said for bigger zoos like Brookfield, certainly, with species from all over the world, and something to be said for ones like Cosley, which taught me a lot about the animals right here. I love that we have both! (Also Phillips Park, which falls somewhere between the two… but that’s a post for another time.)

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Welcome to the Ice Age!

In past years, Brookfield Zoo has had either a Lego animal display or a dinosaur animatronics exhibit available all through summer. This year, they changed it up a bit and brought us Ice Age Giants instead! Also featuring life-size animatronics, this exhibit focuses on megafauna from the most recent Ice Age, from wooly mammoths to giant cheetahs to something called a “Josephoartigasia.” (Picture a capybara, except it’s 9-10 feet long!)

This post is absolutely, 100% an advertisement for this exhibit. It’s awesome, it’s informative, and it runs through October 30th (free with general admission!) so if you’re in Chicagoland you should definitely check it out!

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The Museum of Science and… Super Heroes?

Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry is both expansive and entertaining, full of different wonders to learn about and explore.

On our most recent trip, we started with the upper level balcony area, learning about the science of storms through a variety of interactive displays. Some were physical, like the tornado tube and the controlled flame in the wildfire section, which you could, adjust the fuel and mist content for to see how it altered the live thermal readings. Others were purely hypothetical, such as a simulation about how scientists study lightning by launching rockets to draw it to them.

The next section, Chemistry, had its own fascinating facts, and what may have been my favorite of the permanent displays — a large table with the periodic table projected on it, and pucks with which we could select elements, and then combine them off to the side, unlocking intriguing facts about each new compound. I also particularly enjoyed the firework simulator, which shows you how different chemical compounds burn different colors, and then lets you choose a few (and patterns for them) to light up the virtual sky! Meanwhile, the coolest part of Taking Flight (presented in partnership with Boeing and United Airlines) was either the actual retired plane you could tour… or the lesson on the various signals ground crews use to help the plane park safely. I feel like there should be an obvious answer here….

There are a plethora of other amazing exhibits, like Genetics (they have baby chicks!) and Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle, which is the single most intricate dollhouse I’ve ever seen, full of fun tiny Easter eggs like Cinderella’s slippers and the golden harp, and of course the many areas we didn’t even get to this trip, but none of that is actually why we were at MSI this fall. No, our trip was prompted by something a little more… Marvel-ous.

That’s right! Through October 24th, 2021, the Museum of Science and Industry has partnered with Marvel to bring forth a superhero-themed exhibit, showcasing the evolution of the super hero genre and its many iconic characters! Do I sound like I’m advertising this? Yes, I suppose I do. But y’know what? This was awesome. The way they had everything laid out combined history, some statuary photo ops, framed comic book panels (many of which were the original art), and a variety of the very same costumes worn in the movies, which had me geeking out at every turn. And this is coming from someone who hasn’t read the comics! (And now kinda wants to!) It was just… wow.

All in all, MSI is one huge hub of geeky, nerdy glory, with so much variety it’s 99% guaranteed to have something for everyone, and if you’re in the area I highly encourage you to check out Universe of Super Heroes while it’s available.

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