Saturday, J and I visited the Field Museum for the first time. We’d intended to go to the aquarium, but that line was around the block, and they share a complex plus it was on my wish list… So there we went! It was, in a word, huge. We spent most of the day there and still didn’t get to really see everything, but we got to most of the exhibits. It’s a really interesting blend of both old and new, with dioramas going back over 100 years, many of which are amazingly accurate, along with very modern interactive exhibits that span everything from natural history to anthropology.
The entrance hall was grand, of course, and I enjoyed getting to see Sue the t-rex in person. I also learned they aren’t sure if she’s actually male or female, but is called “Sue” after the woman who found her. We saw a movie included with our admission about the process of finding fossils and the particular discovery of Sue two decades ago; she is still the most complete t-rex skeleton ever found.
It made me think of the tyrannosaur exhibit we saw nearly a year ago in Sydney, and how much it seems like we know about these extinct animals, and yet how little we really do know, and about how much of that knowledge comes from this specific specimen. It’s mind boggling, really.
We saw so many exhibits that I couldn’t even begin to name them all, but my favorite single item was probably this composite fossil because I’m always fascinated to see things preserved together. Sometimes when you see individual pieces it becomes easy to think of them as single plants or animals, but then you see something like this and you can almost picture the whole little habitat where they lived. We also spent a good bit of time in their collection of Egyptian artifacts, and in the reassembled burial chamber with actual 5000 year old carvings on the wall around us.
I came away with a remarkable perspective on just how everything is related and about our shared history. It’s fascinating to me to see how far humans have come, and how much has changed on our planet of the millennia, and to be able to come face to face with it is pretty amazing.
My other small story for today is about dealing with what seems to be the never-ending snow. Most of it melted this past week and the grass started to show in most places again but then the flurries came back and the ground is covered in snow again. One of the things I’ve done to help make things feel a bit less bleak is to bring the spring inside: I’ve gotten a few bulbs and they’re happily blooming in my kitchen window.
Sometimes it’s the little things, right?
Joanna Volavka 