Day
5 - Tuesday, June 27It's about an hours drive into Chicago. I'd always wanted to see what the "windy city" was like. Plus it was kind of famous for the gangsters, like the mother city for the town I was born in (Moose Jaw - Al Capone's northern getaway). By the way, according to the history books, it's called the windy city, not because of the weather, but because of the boisterous politicians at the turn of the last century! In fact, it was pretty much dead calm that day and very hot.
We decided to check out the Life Sciences Museum. There were many others but you only have so much time... We could have spent at least a full day here. The museum is full of every imaginable animal from today as well as many extinct ones, birds, dinosaurs, plants, gems, and cultural exhibits (including the inside of a pyramid). It took us several hours and we didn't have time to even read the captions let alone the entire story of each exhibit :( Definitely a must see if you're ever in Chicago.
Around supper time we headed out to continue our eastward trek. This was the start of the infamous highway tolls. It seemed like it cost more for tolls every few miles than it did for fuel! Every entrance and exit to the turnpike had to have a toll booth. I'm sure a large portion of the toll revenue went to operating the booths!
We found a little campground a few miles off of the turnpike. It was a quiet little place called Harrison State Campground. No showers though :( Had to rough it this time. Another first.... This was the first time that we had ever seen fireflies! How wonderful.