Natural History is lost on me.

Having discovered that nothing in Chi-town opens until after 10 am, Dad and I had a lazy morning today after Mom headed to her conference. We had Dunkin Donuts again (not my fave, but it's right next door) and then heavily researched our Thursday night entertainment. Unfortunately, the two Second City shows were completely sold out. Our other two options were the Million Dollar Quartet, a re-enactment of a historic jam session featuring Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and some other guy, and an improv show called ComedySportz. After much debate, we bit the bullet and bought tickets to ComedySportz (it came highly recommended by our saleslady yesterday at HotTix).

Next up, we headed toward the L. Yes, Tim and I decided to try our luck with the Chicago Transit Authority. We bought day passes, and I'm pretty sure I'm now an L pro (okay, there was that one mishap at the end of the day when I led us into the ghetto, but we all make mistakes). We took the train into what I believe is East Chicago for lunch and the Field Museum of Natural History. We lunched at a restaurant called Yolk, which was fabulous. It's kind of like IHOP, but better. The French toast was excellent, and the fresh-squeezed strawberry-orange juice was phenomenal. Aaaaand I just might be a coffee drinker after all.

The Field Museum boasted a giant sign featuring Sue, the most complete T. Rex skeleton in the world, and promises of a 3D movie called "Waking the T. Rex." They had us at "3D." Who would've guessed a museum movie would be educational? There were no Sharp Tooth versus Long Neck battles, there were no high-energy, gory attacks. Mainly it was information on collecting fossils, the woman Sue was named after, and a little bit of computer animation here and there. Snoozefest. We also went to exhibits on Mammoths and Mastodons, Ancient Egypt (which was mildly redeeming), and soil (woohoo!). But hey, we would've always wondered about that 3D movie.

Our next adventure involved me guiding us out of Chicago on a train going the opposite direction of the city, but that was quickly and easily corrected. And now we are safe and sound in our little hotel room-- which reminds me, apparently Al Capone and his men lived on the third floor of the Hotel Allegro (my current home sweet home) at one time. Neat.

Tonight we're going to Mia Franscesca, an Italian place near the improv theater. Italian is far and wide my favorite food group, so I'm not sure if I'm more excited about the restaurant or the improv. There's sure to be a review on both tomorrow.

And speaking of tomorrow, we're headed to the airport at 8:15 in the morning, so our Thursday night affairs bring our little adventure to the Land of Lincoln to a close. Not a bad midweek trip, if I do say so myself.