Month: July 2012

We planned for our last day at the lake to do nothing but relax before our long drive home.  We slept as late as we wanted, played in the water, and generally lounged around our cabin and the “beach.”

We all played ladder ball for a while.  In this game, you throw a bolo-like object made of two golf balls and a piece of rope at a ladder made of PVC.  We had been doing well earlier in the week, but we were all playing poorly on Friday.  We had fun anyway.

We all took the opportunity to relax in the shade and read.  It was quite relaxing.

Mid afternoon Rick, Tammy, and Angie stopped by to ask us to join them at their bonfire later that evening.  After a dinner of take-out pizza and a game of dominoes, we headed down to the Serafini’s resort.

We sat around the bonfire while Jesse and Mia set off fireworks.

We had also stopped by Walmart earlier in the day to pick up a bunch of Vernors and Red Pop to take home to Maryland.  While there, we found that Rainier Cherries are out, so we bought several tubs of them.  We brought a tub to the bonfire to share with everyone.  We love these cherries, but you can only get them a couple of weeks each year.  When they are available, we tend to eat them to excess.

With some sadness and a bit of lethargy we packed up all our gear and cleaned the cabin the next morning.  Our vacation was nearly over.

We had made arrangements to meet with an old high school buddy, Larry Foggia, and his family at Frankenmuth, Michigan, on the way home.  Frankenmuth was settled in the late 1880’s by German immigrants.  While it has become commercialized, the town had retained some of its German heritage in its architecture and food offerings.  It is also known for Bronner’s, a HUGE, year-round Christmas store.  I hadn’t been to Frankenmuth in 20 years.  While we nominally walked through bunch of stores, I wasn’t really paying attention.  I was mostly just having fun catching up with Larry, Carrie, and their kids, Nick and Marie.  Sadly we had to cut the visit short after just 3.5 hours, because we were having a great time.  I hope we have another chance soon to get together.

We got on the road about 2 PM, and arrived back home a few minutes for midnight, officially ending our 2012 vacation.  Sad face.

We had intended to spend this day driving to Dearborn to visit Greenfield Village.  We decided that we really wouldn’t enjoy six hours of driving to spend five hours at The Village.  Instead we decided to hit some of the souvenir stands up and down “the main drag” of Houghton Lake.

Acting on advice from Angie Serafini, we stopped at The Rocking Chair gift shop.  The main purpose was to get some fudge for ourselves and a block for me to take to work next week.  The gift shop itself reminded me of the kinds of places we would hit when I was kid — lots of different trinkets with Houghton Lake printed on them, a few T-shirts, puzzles, animals made out of shells glued together, etc.  It really felt like stepping back in time.

We stopped for Coney dogs at Joe’s Coney.  They were quite good; although, they were a bit pricey.  They were good enough that I stopped by there the next day to get a couple more for Tommy and me for lunch.

We had seen signs and flyers all over town for Zubler’s Indian gift shop.  We noticed that they advertise an Indian pow wow with dancing on Thursdays.  Though we hadn’t planned our schedule to make it, we drove up just as the pow wow was going to begin.  I have to say that it was sort of lame, having the production values of an unrehearsed, school play, but it was the kind of kitschy show you talk about for years afterward.  This gift shop too was like stepping back in time.

We returned to our cabin to relax for a couple hours and have dinner.  Candy had bought a pan of baked ziti to throw in the oven.  Baking it for two hours in the oven had the effect of heating up the cabin.  We played dominoes for a while and then decided to head out for some miniature golf.  We swung by to see if the Serafinis wanted to join us, but they were all out to dinner.

Putt-R-Golf opened in 1951.  It is the longest miniature golf course in Michigan.  Some of the fairways were incredibly long.  Someone opened a Pirate’s Cove (franchise) course right next door.  The woman running Putt-R-Golf, who had just inherited the place from her recently deceased mother, said that Pirate’s Cove was having little impact on Putt-R-Golf because of the loyalty of her patrons.  People staying in our resort said that their grandparents played at Putt-R-Golf.  While the course was in need of some repairs, it was interesting.  We had a good time.  I regret not having taken the kids to Greenfield Village, but we enjoyed the day more than we perhaps would have enjoyed six hours of driving, and there will be future opportunities to visit The Village.

 

 

We began day 11 in a leisurely manner, hanging around the cabin, playing in the lake, playing catch with a baseball, etc.  About 2:30 we linked up with Barb and Leonard Natkowski, college friends of my dad.  They have a house on a canal leading into Houghton Lake.  This was an opportunity to catch up with them and also provided them the impetus to take their boat onto the lake for the first time this year.  We then went to dinner together at the Spikehorn bar/restaurant, which was quite good.

We finished the day by completing a multi-day game of Phase 10 on the picnic table outside our cabin with a view of Houghton Lake at sunset.

Day 12 began with Rick and Angie Serafini, Tommy, and me driving part way around the lake to American Oak Resort to rent a ski boat for the day.  The trip back across to our side of the lake was eventful as we ran through the “middle bounds” where we fouled the propellor a few times with seaweed.  Eventually we made it through the “graveyard of ships” to our side of the lake and picked up the others who were interested in tubing and skiing.

We borrowed the float from Bob, who runs our resort, and the rope from Larry, who runs the Serafini’s resort.  We spent several hours taking turns on the inner tube.  Rick and I were smart enough to leave the tubing to the youngsters — as I’ve recently been reminded on a Scout trip that I’m no longer 20.  I drove the boat.  Tommy and Sammy had never been tubing before, but they both managed to hang on.  In fact, I worked hard to throw off Sammy after a while, but we finally had to admit defeat.

Angie, Mia, Jesse, and Dylan all took turns on the float.  I think Dylan had a particularly good time.  Angie was hot dogging it a bit, getting up on her knees and waving at me.  At one point, the float turned upside down with Mia on it.  She held on for a while until she realized the water was taking off her bathing suit!

After a short break for lunch, we put away the float and broke out the skis.  I haven’t been on skis since I was a lieutenant — probably close to 15 years ago.  After a few false starts, a pulled thigh muscle, and a face plant into the lake, I got up and was able to do pretty well — even crossing in and out of the wake a few times.  I think Tommy was surprised at how well I did.  I think I was surprised too.

I did most of the boat driving.  It was difficult for Candy to take good pictures of everyone skiing.  With the movement of the skiers and the boat, many of the shots were blurry.  He didn’t get any good pictures of Rick; although, he got up the first time and did a good job.

Tommy had begun work on his water skiing merit badge for Boy Scouts last Summer.  He needed to cross the wake four times as the final requirement to earn the badge.  Though he had trouble getting up at first, he did cross the wake four times.  We’ll submit that to his merit badge counsellor to get him credit for the badge.

We made a long, leisurely oval pattern with the boat.  We would start near the Serafini’s floating raft (which is barely enough water to launch the boat) and make about a mile oval, releasing the skier back at the float.  This provided a nice place for people to wait their turn.  Also others could help the next skier don the (ill fitting) life jacket and skis.  Apparently this is how the Serafinis have done this in the past, and it was really an excellent idea.

Everyone who wanted to ski was able to do so at least twice.  This shot shows Mia on her second attempt.

Angie was on the boat as I drove around with Tammy in tow.  Tammy got up on her first try and did a great job of crossing in and out of the wake and other tricks.  She was doing so well that Angie shouted, “I didn’t know my parents were so COOL!”

This is not the best picture, but here is Angie.  Not to be outdone by her newly designated “cool parents,” Angie got up here first time as well.  She did quite well, crossing in and out of the wake and waving to the camera.

For us old folks (Rick, Tammy, and me) getting up on skis was to demonstrated to ourselves that we hadn’t completely deteriorated.  Then we let the youngsters show us how its done.  Unfortunately we only had adult-sized skis, so Dylan and Sammy were unable to try.  The skis kept falling off them.  Rick and Tammy have nice kids.  This was a VERY fun day for all of us.  All of us got burned, and the old folks limped to bed at the end of the day.

We don’t get to see that side of the family very often.  Since my grandparents died, we don’t have as much excuse / reason to go to Mark (Illinois) and see that part of the family very often.  I hadn’t seen them since my grandmother’s funeral, since work wouldn’t allow me to get to Uncle Juzzy’s or Aunt Dorothy’s funerals. We planned our vacation to correspond with the annual Serafini sojourn to Houghton Lake, and I’m glad we did.  I don’t know if we interfered with their vacation, but I really enjoyed the chance to get together with them for something other than a funeral and have some fun.  For my kids, they’ve never really had a chance to get acquainted with that side of the family except for the infrequent reunions.  I fear that since all the old timers are no longer with us that opportunities will be even less frequent in the future.

After turning in the boat, cleaning up, and having dinner, we went with Tammy and Angie to see Spider Man at the Pines theater.  The theater was built in 1941.  See detailed information and pictures at http://www.pinestheater.com/  I wasn’t expecting much from the movie.  I went to see the theater, which was impressive.  The movie turned out to be better than expected.

 

Days 9 and 10 were spent at Houghton Lake, mostly relaxing.  We slept in the first day at the lake and had a leisurely day.  Houghton Lake is unique in that it is shallow (less than 10 feet) across most of its area.

The shallowness of the lake gave the kids an opportunity wade over a quarter mile out without the water being over their heads.  The owner of our resort loaned us an inflatable raft, and they made good use of it.

When not in the water, we played this ladder ball game.  Two golf balls are connected by a length of rope.  You toss this “bolo” at a ladder, trying to make it wrap around a rung in order to score a point.

In the evening we linked up with the Serafini clan to sit by the water, light a small fire, and chat.

Day 10 began with a canoe trip for three hours on the Au Sable River.  (I’ve seen this spelled a couple of different ways, but I think this is correct.)  We rented two canoes from Campbell’s rental.  Then I drove down stream and parked the car where we were supposed to terminate our trip.  The owners brought me back to the start point.  We canoed for three hours, then just pulled our canoes out of the water for them to retrieve later.

The canoe trip was quite pleasant.  This porting of the river, where it passes through Roscommon, MI, is not virgin wilderness.  Most of our trip was through “residential” areas where we were passing behind cabins and houses.  Other parts of the trip were through untouched woods.  I enjoyed that more.

Through our entire, three-hour trip, we never saw another canoe.

The water on the river is very clear.  Since it was between a few inches and three feet deep most of the way, you could clearly see the bottom.  We saw very few fish.  At one point we stopped to have a snack.  While the water was chilly, it was warm enough to wade across its depth.  Here the water was only about six inches deep.

After our canoe trip, we went back to the resort to relax.  Candy and the kids played in the water a bit.  I read for a while and took a nap.  After dinner we linked back up with Clan Serafini for miniature golf.  We had ten players and divided up into two teams: guys vs. girls.

The course was old and challenging.  While we’re used to twos and threes on most holes on other courses, fours and fives were more common on this course.

While it was a hard-fought match, in the end superior skill prevailed.  The guys beat the girls.

We then retired back to Rick’s and Tammy’s cabin for ice cream and an hour of shooting the breeze.  It was a good, relaxing couple of days.

 

Day eight began with a short drive to the Mackinac bridge.  At one time this was the longest suspension bridge in the world.  The island, straights, and bridge are named “Mackinac,” with the French spelling.  The fort and the city in the lower peninsula are named “Mackinaw,” with the English spelling.  The bridge marks the dividing line between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

A 20-minute boat ride brought us from Mackinaw City to the port on Mackinac Island.  Coming into port you can see the fort above the town.  There are very few motorized vehicles allowed on the island.  Most transportation, including the hauling of trash and cargo is pulled by horses.

You can see main street here.  There is a booming business in bicycle rentals.  Walking, biking, and horse-drawn carriages are the only modes of transportation on the island.  There are more fudge shops than people, I think.

We began our day on the island with an informative, horse-drawn tour.

One of our first stops on the tour was the butterfly center.  It was small but nice.

Our next stop was at Arch Rock, which was picturesque, but had no historical significance.  Along we way we passed the old post cemetery and the old fort’s rifle range.

We exited the tour at Ft. Mackinac, which is the main thing I wanted to see.  During the Seven Years War (French and Indian War), the British dismantled the fort in what is now Mackinaw City and moved it to a more defensible position on the cliffs overlooking the harbor on the island.  The fort was handed over to the US after the American Revolution.  After the War of 1812 began, the British landed on the north side of the island with 40 soldiers and 500 or more French Voyageurs and Indians.  They took the fort from the garrison of about 50 soldiers without firing a shot.  After the War of 1812, the upper Great Lakes was returned to the US.  The fort saw no action during the Civil War.  In the 1880s, the fort was used by the Army as the headquarters for the national park on the island, garrisoned by two companies.  The fort was abandoned by the Army when the national park was turned over to the State of Michigan to become a state park.

There were a number of excellent displays throughout the fort, like the one shown above.  This was probably the nicest presentation of a fort I’ve ever seen, with the exception of perhaps Ticonderoga.  There were numerous displays like this one in just about every building.

The presentations at the fort tend to focus on the 1860s and 1880’s period, rather than the French and Indian Wars or War of 1812 periods.  Note the docents in period uniforms from two distinctly different eras.

 

The thing Sam wanted to see that day was the opulence of The Grand Hotel.  This hotel was originally built by a consortium of steamship tour operators and train operators.  They wanted to create a destination that would encourage people to take the train and boat to visit.  The entire hotel was built in 93 days.  It was featured in the Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour movie Somewhere in Time.

Sam enjoyed looking around the hotel.  She said that she could tolerate having to live there for a couple of months.

The view from the porch, reputedly the longest in the world, was quite nice.  The stature on the left is that of Father Marquette the explorer and missionary.

In addition to the fort, there were a number of other historical buildings on the island to explore.

 

What Tom wanted to see was the Jack Pines Lumberjack show in Mackinaw City.  It was fun.  The events were largely the same as the Timber Tina show we saw last year in Maine, but there were a few new ones.

The audience was divided into two groups, each cheering for a lumberjack.  Ours won.

After the lumberjack show we drove two hours to Houghton Lake and checked into our cabin for the week.  We were keyed up from the day and the drive, so we relaxed for a little while with the end of the third Indiana Jones movie before bed.

Day 6 was largely a travel day.  We slept in a little and got on the road a little later than planned.  We drove seven hours (MapQuest predicted 6, Google Maps predicted 7, and the built-in GPS in Candy’s car predicted 9) to Munising, MI.  Munising is in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, on the shore of Lake Superior.  After checking into our hotel and stopping by the visitor’s center, we drove out to Chapel Falls for a four-mile hike.

The falls were quite nice, and the hike was pleasant.  One of the things we learned at the visitor’s center was that the town’s Fourth of July fireworks had to be postponed due to an electrical storm.  They were set for that night, the 5th of July, and the woman at the visitor’s center bragged that they were the best fireworks anywhere — “way better than Marquette, which is ten times our size.”  It didn’t get dark in Munising until 11:00 PM.  We staked out a piece of lawn in Munising’s Bayshore Park, played a few hands of Phase 10, and waited for them to begin.  They were, in fact, a tremendous fireworks display, which lasted a half hour.  Ten minutes after the fireworks, we had walked back to our motel and prepared for bed.

 

Day 7:  The reason we came to Munising was to see Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  Pictured Rocks was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson and was the first National Lakeshore.  The rocks themselves are a light gray color, but are stained different colors from the various minerals leeching through the rocks.  Green comes from copper, for instance, and red comes from iron.

Lake Superior is the largest, deepest, and cleanest of the Great Lakes.  It averages 40 degrees throughout the year.  At it’s widest (at Musining), it is 62 miles wide.  Ten percent of the world’s fresh water is contained in Lake Superior.  It’s deepest point is about 26 miles north of Munising, which I think is about 1300 feet.

We took a boat cruise to see the rocks.  The cruise took about three hours, which seemed a little overly long.  You can see some of the rock formations from the various hiking paths along shore, but you really cannot get the full impact of the Pictured Rocks except by boat.

The favorite food in the UP is apparently pasties (pastie rhymes with nasty).  The place with the reputation for making the best pasites in the UP is Muldoon’s, in Munising.  After a tremendous lunch of pasties, we drove into the Picture Rocks National Lakeshore to see Miner’s Falls.

We took a hike out to Miner’s Falls.  The walk was short, perhaps 1.2 miles.  Despite walking through deep woods, there were surprisingly few bugs.

 

We then drove several hours to get to Tahquamenon Falls.  These falls actually consist of the Upper Falls and five sets of falls, known collectively as the Lower Falls.

There were signs all over near the Lower Falls warning people to stay out of the water because of swift currents and dangerous undertows.  Still there were lots of folks wading at the top of the various Lower Falls.  When the land was deeded to the State of Michigan (this is a State park), there was a stipulation that no cars could come within 3/4 of a mile of the shorelines, so all the parking lots were far removed from the falls.

We had planned to drive from the Lower Falls to the Upper Falls.  We discovered that there was a four-mile trail from the Lower Falls area tot he Upper Falls area.  Candy and Sam weren’t interested, but Tom and I decided to walk the trail.  Candy and Sam drove around to the Upper Falls and waited for us.

I took this picture with the timer on the camera.  We saw little wildlife during our four-mile hike.  Though the river was clear, we saw no fish.  The trail was well marked.  Because this hike was impromptu, we didn’t have hiking shoes.  Despite the hike being mostly uphill, it was a relatively easy walk, and we enjoyed it.

We met Candy and Sam at the top of the trail and walked to the overlooks to view the Upper Falls.  They were quite impressive, as you can see.

After a quick dinner (I had another pastie), we headed to our motel.  We watched an episode of El Fago Baca (an adventure story from Walt Disney Presents), and prepared for bed.  Tomorrow we’re off to Mackinaw Island.

What is a ‘dell?’  According to the dictionary:

dell |del|

noun literary

a small valley, usually among trees: lush green valleys and wooded dells.

 

As we were planning this trip, when people heard we were going to The Wisconsin Dells, they would either nod in agreement or say that it was too touristy and that we should stay away.  Both were right.  The Dells are where the Wisconsin River cuts through layers of Potsdam sandstone to create some picturesque views.  Boat tours of The Dells have been offered here for over a hundred years.  Over time, amusement parks, water parks (including the largest one in the world), miniature golf courses (included the largest in the world, containing five 36-hole courses), Ripley’s Believe It or Not, T-shirt shops, and other attractions have grown up in the area.  It has a feel much like Gattlinburg and Pidgin Forge.  The main street has a lot of shops, but they have more of a beach feel than a Gattlinburg, crafty feel.

 

We began the day with an all-you-can-eat, family-style breakfast of pancakes, eggs, potatoes, sausages, ham, and biscuits with gravy at Paul Bunyan’s.  I really enjoy the Phineas and Ferb cartoon.  Those who watch the show will remember the episode Greece Lightning, in which the kids race chariots past a restaurant, called Paul Bunyan’s and the song that plays, “Paul Bunyan’s, where the food is good, but not too good, eh.”  So, we just had to eat here.  The food was good, the price was reasonable, and the services was excellent.

After breakfast we took a two hour boat trip to the Upper Dells.  This included two opportunities to get out and walk through some of the interesting rock formations.  At one of the stops, a trained German Shepherd leaped from a cliff to a tall rock formation, called Standing Rock.  It was pretty silly, but fun, and it happened so fast, I missed taking a picture of it.

The boat tour was very hot.  When we got off the boat to wander around, the sandstone formations provided some natural air conditioning.

 

After the boat ride, we went on the Bigfoot Zip Line “Tour.”  This was crazy expensive, but we had a great, three-hour adventure.  After a safety briefing and having our equipment triple checked, we boarded a “Duck” to get us to the first tower.  There were six towers with slides that ranged from 580 to 1300 feet in length.  The folks running the place were personable but professional.  This was a quality outfit.

There were fifteen of us in our tour group, so we never had to wait too long.  We had the same pair of guides with us the whole time, one hooking us in at the top, and the other one “catching” at the bottom.

All of us had been on a zip line before, but some of the other folks in our group were petrified for the first few runs.  A couple of people panicked and got caught in the middle, so one of the guides had to slide out to them and pull them to the landing tower by hand.

Because of Sam’s weight, she didn’t have to break on the way down.  She could just enjoy the ride.  This place even encouraged us to “do tricks.”  We took running leaps off the tower to start our runs.  We rode upside down.  We leaped backward off the tower.

At the end I felt bad, because a larger percentage of our guides’ pay is based on tips, and most of our group stiffed them.

By this time, we were very hot, so we went back to the motel to spend an hour in the pool.  The pool had two things you don’t often see at motel pools any more: slides and a diving board.

The water was a very comfortable temperature and was welcome after a hot morning on the boat and a hot afternoon (about 106 degrees) on the zip line.

Because the pool had a diving board, it offered the kids a chance to practice diving.

After the pool, we went to dinner and then drove down to the main part of the town to walk around the various junk shops.  We also had to get our obligatory old-time photo taken.  It wouldn’t be a vacation without the old-time photo!  One store we found was called Root Beer Revelry.  The entire store was dedicated to different kinds of root beer from different vendors, most in glass bottles.  Tommy and I bought a six-pack of assorted root beers.  Candy and Sam also bought a four pack of assorted other nostalgic pops.  As we were walking back to the car with these packs of glass bottles, we got LOTS of strange looks from the passersby who obviously thought Tom was carrying real beer.  In fact, at one point we saw a policeman rushing toward us, and I thought someone had called the cops on us!  It was very funny.

So, were the Wisconsin Dells touristy?  Certainly.  Did we have a great time.  Absolutely.

Happy birthday, United States of America.

 

The Star Spangled Banner

Francis Scott Key

 

O say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation.
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

(Source of lyrics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner)

 

Despite those poltroons in Washington who are intent of vilifying, destroying, or giving away everything that made this country great and everything I stand for, I thought it might be nice to list all four verses of our National Anthem before the ACLU, some atheist group, or someone else decides it is offensive and tries to have it banned.

Day four of our trip was dedicated to seeing the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.  I remember visiting this museum as a kid, and I hoped that time hadn’t over romanticized my memories of the place.  I have to say that it was better than I remember and that I could have spent another few hours there without much difficulty.

The two things for which the museum is best known are the U-505 and the coal mine.  The U-505 is a German submarine captured in WWII by Capt Gallery, USN, from submarine hunter killer team 23.4 of the 10th Fleet.  The story is remarkable.  In 2005 they moved the submarine from its old location on the museum grounds to its new home four floors below the museum.  The displays leading up to the tour of the submarine itself are quite well done.  (Interestingly, they use clips from the television documentary The World at War, but they’ve re-dubbed the narration (word for word it seems) with someone other than Sir Lawrence Olivier.)  I think they do a tremendous job of bringing the story to life.  The docent for the tour of the sub itself was quite good.  Sam really enjoyed the tour, especially the bullet holes on the port side of the conning tower.

We then took the tour or the coal mine.  In this exhibit, we went down a mine shaft into a replica of a coal mine.  Inside the mine they have working replicas of mining equipment to give you an idea of what working in a mine might have been like.  Before going into the mine, there is a really nice oral history of life in a mining town that I think was largely ignored by the other visitors.  The docent said that all those working the coal mine exhibit spend some time each year touring real coal mines within Illinois to re-familiarize themselves.  I got the impression that the docents really understood mining; they were not just talking from a prepared script.  I also found it interesting that only 50% of the nation’s coal goes toward the production of electricity.  The other half goes to pharmaceuticals, plastics, and other products.  The docent showed a picture of coal deposits throughout Illinois.  There’s a lot of coal to be mined if we were serious about energy independence and not giving money to people who hate us.

I probably could have spent another two hours in this wing.  There were lots of “school groups” here, which made it difficult to really take advantage of all the displays.  Tommy got a little frustrated at kids who would jump in front of him to fiddle with a display without really trying to learn anything about the science being taught.  Anyway, there were a number of displays that described movement of soils (the avalanche display was tremendous), winds, lightening, water flows, light, etc.  The exhibits were quite excellent.  You could hear the Tesla coil across the room.

We didn’t spend much time in the aviation exhibits, but this Stuka caught my eye.  There was a tremendous set of exhibits on genetics, but the area was crawling with kids, and we got there toward the end of our allotted time, so we only saw a small subset of them.

There was a large exhibit on the railroads and how steam engines work.  The centerpiece of the display was a huge replica of Chicago and the surrounding areas populated by model trains.  The kids didn’t want to spend much time there (We’ve seen model trains before, Dad!”), but the displays on how steam locomotives operate were well worth the time.

After an enjoyable time at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, we had to fight our way out of Chicago during rush hour.  Bad timing!  We reached our hotel in the Wisconsin Dells 90 minutes later than we had planned, but we still had time to take a swim in the hotel pool before bed.