Chicago Bound

After coming back from Dallas, I had two days at home before packing back up and meeting Jo in Chicago where she had a three day conference and I spent a little time with my sister.  Jo flew in from Miami and I enjoyed a trip on Amtrak's Hiawatha Express (got to love Amtrak's names for the routes).

My sister and I spent a day hitting some of the lesser known Chicago museums as we have visited enough to have cleared our checklist of the bigger ones.  So we spent the morning at the excellent Money Museum managed by the Chicago Federal Reserve.  Fun time learning how the Federal Reserve works along with a nice background on how money evolved over the course of the countries history.  One of the fun facts, to me anyway, was the first two attempts at a national bank both failed.  Not sure how a national bank fails but we managed to do it twice before finally creating the Federal Reserve system in the 1900's. 

After the morning learning all about money, including how to spot counterfeit bills, we enjoyed a tasty lunch then it was up to Andersonville neighborhood to tour the Swedish museum.  Here we learned about Swedish immigrants to the states and their landing in the Midwest.  I remain amazed at how people can uproot themselves from their country of birth, pack one or two trunks, and start all over in a new country where they often don't speak the language.  I have a hard enough time moving from one state to another and that is with a moving van full of my stuff.  On the way home we stopped in the Lincoln Park Conservatory to enjoy seeing some green plants for once since the winter has been so brutal this year.

On Friday, Jo and I headed to Elmhurst for a short visit with our good friends, John and Linda.  Always fun catching up on all the doings for their family.  As per our usual trip with John and Linda we enjoyed a delicious dessert, what is life if not lived around dessert, that Linda whipped up - a peanut butter, brownie, Reese's peanut butter cup trifle.  Fortunately, since it was food eaten while "on vacation" it had no calories, at least for Jo and I.  Saturday it was home to take in an Admirals hockey game with some of Jo's HR team before we collapsed on Sunday.  Jo had managed to sleep in 5 different beds in 10 days so she was exhausted, since it is always hard to sleep the first night in a strange bed.