We rose earlier, feeling better in the new time zone and another hotel. Hampton Inns seem, to me, better run and cleaner than our recent experiences with Holiday Inn Express. Also, they are cheaper of late.
We got going, and I even managed to start the blog. The in-room coffee makers did make two cups of coffee each! We met Jeanne at the lobby for breakfast, complimentary, and it was busy, and the food needed some restocking (but it was handled quickly and with a smile). I had a good breakfast and talked to the General Manager, Ed, and he was happy to hear that I was enjoying my stay. Later, he would share with us some of the history of the local older hotels. Ed seemed to love this work and said, “Us older guys get placed in the older hotels” (Majestic Hotel—now a Hampton Inn—opened as Chicago’s tallest building in 1906).
We then packed up, got some carts, rolled the bags and things to the entrance, ordered the car from valet, and I checked us out. This was our best and cheapest hotel so far, in the Loop of Chicago! With everything orderly and loaded, including ourselves, I headed north of Chicago to a chocolate store that Deborah has tried to visit each time, and alas, halfway there we checked, and yes, they are closed on Mondays! We retraced our path and headed to South Chicago for the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry and the Obama Presidential Library (we could not get tickets; they are sold out months in advance) just to see the library. We spotted part of it as we drove in.
We found the underground parking, found a spot, noticed how few folks actually parked between the lines, and walked into the museum. We acquired tickets for the museum and U-505. We tried to get them while we were in line, but the line was faster than I was. We headed in with a plan to see a few things, find lunch (with our expectations low—and they were not surpassed), look at the model ship and nautical collection, and then enjoy the U-boat.
The plan went well, with us enjoying the large model train set, some full-sized trains, the weather items, and then the old town display. We watched some of a silent film about a pair of gloves and perfume spilling, creating chaos. The scan of the old movie was poorly done, with compression artifacts jumping all over it and then expanded too large a size and magnifying the problem. It needs to be rescanned at a higher rate without compression, but it was still interesting (and a good candidate for reworking, like we see in the old Star Trek series and the earlier Star Wars movies).
We found the Kitchen and all grabbed our own meal; I had baked pasta that could have been better with some meat in it. Deborah and Jeanne, experienced in the ways of child-centered cafes, picked premade sandwiches. But it was still good to eat. We finished, found the ships, and I enjoyed the model, especially the Souvenir of the Sea American clipper model (here for the ship). It was a superfast ship (which was wrecked in 1859).
We did the space center next. There are three major artifacts there: Apollo 8, Gemini, and Dragon capsules. H had not seen any of these before so close in such detail (I do not remember one this close and in good condition at Air & Space in D.C., but it might be there). I had not seen Dragon before, and the one here had flown twice to resupply the International Space Station. It was scarred and burned. Bits of the inch-thick white panels were marred with breaks and burn marks. Apollo 8, while at least a third the size, looked fresh (even though it was from the 1960s). Still, it was good to see Dragon and see the updates and size, as large as an SUV.
The U-boat is always a treat, and we showed up with the small group on time, and our tour guide, a former Coast Guard member, managed to convey the risk and suffering of the crew and their 30% survival rate. For the first time, I heard a full account of the salvage of U-505 and that the repairs to the ship, done in occupied France, used weak metal (which is why there are shot holes in the superstructure). The explosive charges were not activated, and the cap for the drain in the sub was not thrown away. We also learned that 1/3 of the crew accepted US citizenship offered to captured German troops. The crew was not reported as captured, violating international law, to protect the capture of code books and machines. The machine removed from the boat, Enigma, was on display (loaned from the Cryptological Museum, which opened after I left Maryland in Fort Meade, within sight of the National Security Agency. I did not know there was a version with a paper tape printer. Wow!
We headed out after the usual exploration of the gift store and the acquisitions of plastic toys made in the mold-matic (my U-boat toy broke in my pocket while driving). The drive cost about $11 in fees for about 20 minutes of road time. We crossed into Michigan, the time moved back an hour, and suddenly it was dinner time!
We took pictures of the Presidential Library filled with happy smiling people. We will be back! We saw the new statue of the President and the First Lady from a distance. It looked like a lovely campus.
“You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention. Unencumbered by what is, ready to seize what ought to be. For everywhere in this country, there are first steps to be taken, there is new ground to cover, there are more bridges to be crossed. America is not the project of any one person. The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word ‘We.’ ‘We The People.’ ‘We Shall Overcome.’ ‘Yes We Can.’ That word is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone. Oh, what a glorious task we are given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.”
–President Obama, 2015
Before we could get far, we had to add air to the same tire that went low, slowly losing five pounds of air pressure over five days. We waited for the person in front of us, using the car to measure the tire pressure, and then left it running for us (it ran out of time just as we started). A few bucks later, we had the tire back up to pressure and also used the car to measure it. South Chicago is no place for a flat, even near the Presidential Library. But it did feel a bit better now with the Library. Excellent!
We stopped at one town, investing twenty minutes, to discover that it was summer and the line for a table was out the door. Later, we stopped again, waited 25 minutes, and The Three Blondes Brewery worked for us. It was also later by then, and the crowd was breaking up. I had great tacos, Jeanne had a pizza, and Deborah had salmon. The noise, the hard floors, and the complex ceiling reflected the sounds, making it hard to hear at first. As folks left, we could hear each other again — a problem at many newer places. Tempted by their brewed products, I had iced tea as I had ninety minutes of driving to go and the sun would be down for some of it.
The rest of the drive was boring, and we soon reached Grand Rapids, but we could not figure out how to get to the hotel. The hotel is a parking garage?! We called, and they said, yes, drive in, park anywhere, and the lobby is on the third floor. Parker, the agent at the desk who had answered our couple of calls (we called to say we were coming in late, after 10), checked us in. The rooms were lovely.
I had some paperwork to do on bill paying. I managed to sleep around 1ish.
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