My husband David and I met up with parents Shel and Leah, siblings Mitch and Gloria, and also Aunt Gwen for a day at the Museum of Science and Industry. Mom Leah had gotten tickets to the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit, but the real reason for the outing was the annual family celebration of Hannukkah in July. We picked a perfect day for it; there were record temperatures, crazy drivers on the tollway and downtown, a huge car show on the lakefront, and of course people were already staking out spots for Venetian Night tonight, which seems to involve boats, fireworks, and music.

The highlight, or lowlight, of our day outside of the museum itself was the eye-popping sight of a very heavy-set guy cutting in front of us on Lakeshore Drive at about 70 miles an hour, riding an expensive, fat-tired racing motorbike. As he was riding in the “bendover” position, and his shirt was hiked up, we were treated to the glorious sight of his hairy buttcrack. Spontaneously, we both shouted “Oh! OH! OH!!!” and waved hands in front of our eyes as if to ward off the visual plague. Then the guy cut in front of a large Expedition that had been honking and flipping off at us earlier, so we got to witness a little poetic justice as a visual metaphor. Asshole, meet buttcrack. Buh-bye.

Anyway, the museum, right. We wandered along this train, which is outside of the paid-entry precincts of the museum proper, in the entrance lobby. At the tail-end of the train, facing the trademark rounded end of the observation car, there’re some benches and some exhibits of 30’s style streamlined housewares inspired by the train’s futuristic design, and there’s a short educational film. We had some time to kill, so we enjoyed watching the film, but everyone got there just as they were finishing telling the story of the glory years of the streamlined “silver streak,” so we didn’t hear get to the end of the line. Maybe next time we’ll visit it properly and get the whole story.

Via: Flickr Title: Zephyr By: GinnyRED57
Originally uploaded: 29 Jul ’06, 12.50pm CDT PST