Day 7: Chicago

So for the next couple days my dad's cousin Elaine was kind enough to let us stay at her house in Glenview, IL (short drive from Chicago).

The main thing we did today was visit the Field Museum, which is a huge natural history museum with everything you'd expect: dinosaur skeletons, precious gems, mummies, and more taxidermied animals than you can shake a stick at.

Day 6: IA to IL

My mom likes to use the word "gaudy" in describing the architectural stylings of the Iowa State Capitol building. I'll just say it featured bulbous green towers with gold trimming, the largest middle tower looking like it was literally covered in gold foil. We spent time walking around the complex, at first trying to find an entrance that was not marked "Staff Only," then giving up and instead spending time taking pictures in front of the various statues/fountains on the grounds. At the fountain, my dad suddenly said, "look there's a squirrel!" I was thinking "where?" Then I looked in the fountain and saw a dead squirrel floating face down in the water. It was simultaneously sad, gross, and interesting. We imagined the squirrel was running around the edge of the fountain, perhaps playing with another squirrel when it slipped and fell in. After that it would never have been able to climb out on the fountain's sloped walls... Unfortunate design or the perfect squirrel death trap? Then as we walked away from the building, I saw a bird smashed flat as a pancake on the driveway. There were a lot of dead animals on this trip. Roadkill raccoon, much mangled deer on the side of the road. One was strewn about the highway so that parts of its body were in one place, then later down the road we saw its head.

Later we went to the Des Moines Art Center designed by famous architects Eliel Saarinen (who taught at Cranbrook), I.M. Pei, and Richard Meier. Saw some pretty cool stuff, including some Cindy Sherman photos.

Then we began the five hour drive to Chicago.
I was excited when we went the wrong way and had to get off the main hwy to turn around and I was able to take this picture of a corn field! Hah! It was oddly exciting because I've never been up close to a real corn field before. I kept imagining Clark Kent would suddenly fly up out of the corn...



Somewhere along the road I spotted this RV...

Day 5: NE to IA

Drove over to downtown Omaha's Old Market district today. Saw tons of intriging decrepit old buildings and tried to take advantage of them through my lens. Not sure if I did a good job. Since today was Labor Day there was a moderate crowd milling about the shops/restaurants, though it seemed half of them were closed. I am really fascinated by the architecture of downtown Omaha with all its large, rusty, turn-of-the-century, industrial brick buildings still in use. Had some great food for lunch at Upstream Brewing Co., yes they brew their own beer and rootbeer, we saw the vats (or whatever they're called).

I stopped off in one particularly interesting section of warehouses that had a variety of "street" art.













Drove the couple hours to Des Moines, IA. Saw the largest rainbow I'd seen in quite a while.

Day 4: Colorado to Omaha

10:55am: Visited Garden of the Gods, a natural park with notable rock formations and wildlife (which we did not see during our short stay) located in Colorado Springs. Took a short tour on a shuttle bus. Saw people rock climbing... Seems so fun! Too bad I don't have upper body strength.



Attempted to visit Cave of the Winds, but left soon after arriving due to the extremely long wait we'd have to face because of the throngs of people already there.

Continued on to Denver where we struggled to find parking while continually running into the "Taste of Colorado" fair/festival which had blocked off several major streets in downtown Denver. The main goal was to visit the Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Art and then get food at one of those places my dad saw recommended by Rachel Ray. Well we finally found parking and made it to the museum, which actually turned out to be quite nice. It was relatively small (in the former studio of "Colorado's Pre-eminent Artist" Vance Kirkland, but we expected it to be like one room or something that would take like 10 minutes to see. It wound up being very interesting, filled with 20th century designer furniture and products (tableware, telephones, household appliances) of the Art Noveau, Bauhaus, Arts & Crafts, and Art Deco styles, along with other modern paintings and prints. Awesome designer chairs! My mom kept telling me she wanted to sit in them.

After that we realized we had no time to eat any place in Denver as we had to take off on the 7 hr drive to Omaha, NE.



After driving all night on what seemed like the most monotonous highway in existence (especially in pitch darkness), we arrived at our hotel in Omaha after 1am. Dead tired is what I was.

But before we got to the hotel, we fueled up at this random gas station that had a sign that said "YOU ARE NOWHERE."

Day 3: Grand Junction to Colorado Springs, CO

Woke up early, ate breakfast, took a stroll through the quaint "downtown" Grand Junction, CO mostly little shops, restaurants, a bank, etc. It was all of about 4 or 5 short blocks and eerily quiet for Labor Day weekend.
The best part was when we overheard a woman ask her friend if he wanted to eat at the Japanese restaurant they were passing, and the man replied, "No... I don't much care for Oriental cooking." My mom and I just looked at each other and started laughing. I mean, I've never heard anyone say "Oriental cooking" before. Haha, imagine if someone said "No, I don't much care for Caucasian cooking." What is that? Aside from that bit of total unhipness, the cool thing was that the streets of downtown Grand Junction were lined with various unique metal sculptures, like a buffalo made out of chrome fenders and a horse made out of railroad spikes and the flying birds sculpture below.




Then at around 11am we left and headed for Colorado Springs. The trip was quite long and included diversions such as getting lost and (briefly) heading the wrong direction in Denver. Strangely, it had been sunny and summerlike the whole trip, then suddenly as we neared the vicinity of Denver we were enveloped in fog, the weather becoming cold and misty, occasionally raining. We ended up arriving around 5:30pm, inappropriately dressed in summer clothes, shorts and flip flops and no jacket or umbrellas. Just hoping it isn't like this for the rest of the trip...

Later we ate dinner in a restaurant called Solo's which happens to be inside an old airplane.

Day 2: Bryce Canyon, UT

Thursday night we stayed at a place called Ruby's Inn. We had a room by the lake.



10:40am: Took a shuttle to Bryce Canyon. It was quite amazing. I've never been to anything like it.



Lightning! Thunder! Rain!
In the midst of our exploration of Bryce, there was a sudden thunderstorm. I quickly snapped a few pictures before we ran to catch the shuttle.



After dinner at Ruby's Inn we hit the road and drove to Grand Junction, CO.