The Adler Planetarium

We took Nate to the Adler Planetarium yesterday. I hadn’t been there since high school. Lee, Marli and Nate had never been there, so it was a great day for everyone. The weather was absolutely perfect, the sun was shining, there were no frigid windchills to deal with. Do you know how awesome it is to have an aunt who works at the Planetarium? It’s nearly $100 awesome! She gave me the inside scoop on the shows and left my name at the desk so we didn’t have to pay the admission and show fees. They just gave us our tickets, we forked over $2 for a locker, and we were off. There was so much too explore and it was amazingly uncrowded for such a beautiful weekend day. We checked out the “Shoot for the Moon” gallery first, which was chock full of pictures and displays and information on the Apollo and Gemini missions. Then we wandered into the gallery with the display of the original Gemini 12 spacecraft. It was amazing to see the actual piece of history that was flown to space and back. They showed a movie in that gallery explaining the mission and it’s return. I would have stayed longer checking stuff out in there, but we moved on. The next room had lots of hands on stuff for the kids to do. There was videogame-like simulator for landing a spacecraft on the moon. Marli and I crashed big time, but Nate nailed it on his 3rd try. There was a spot for the kids to write down what they would take to the moon in their own survival kit and post it on a wall. Nate would bring a PB&J sandwich; Marli, my little teenage girl, would bring hair stuff, makeup, food and water. Then we pressed on into “The Solar System.” The kids really enjoyed this section, learning about the planets and checking out all the hands-on activities they had in there. We took a break and ate lunch in the café over looking the frozen lake. After lunch we wandered downstairs and found the Atwood Sphere. That was really cool. We sat in this little cart that pulled us into a not that big sphere and it closed us in, then the night sky came to life and we learned a little about the night sky over Chicago. We wandered around the galleries down there until it was time for our first show, which was all about black holes. I love their shows! This one was pretty interesting, but the one we went to right after was even better. Night Sky Live was in the Sky Theater. For about 15 minutes before the show there was a guy in there answering any questions people could throw at him. He really got everyone involved. This show is really neat. They show the sky that we see over Chicago on that day. He showed all the constellations, and then put line drawings up so you could see why they chose those figures for each star cluster. I think that might have been my favorite part. I want to stay in there for hours and learn more about it all. We spent way too much money in the gift shop and headed home. I think I scared Lee with my “city” driving. But I just don’t have the patience for his “country” driving in the city, it makes me crazy. The kids have been talking about the day since we got home, so it appears that the trip was a success!