Day 3 – Thursday, August 6
Today was the day for the other main reason I went to Chicago. The first was the Fermilab DZero/Tevatron tour. When I was here 2 years ago I wanted to do this experience, but they were all sold out so I couldn’t, but today was the day!
As is a typical morning, I got up, had breakfast, headed to the CTA station, parked, and caught the Blue Line to downtown Chicago and then a bus to Shedd Aquarium. I had purchased my ticket ahead of time with my special experience which also includes access to all the exhibits and a aquatic show. Hint – if you ever go to any of the museums or Shedd, buy your tickets online ahead of time – you skip very long lines!
I got checked in and got my armband (their version of a ticket that shows the staff what areas you can go in) and my ticket for the aquatic show. I started looking at some of the exhibits – including going to the penguins as one of the first stops – I just love penguins! Also, those areas are right by the aquatic show where I’d be going to shortly, so it made sense to stay in the area. Then I headed up to the aquatic show entitled “One World”. This was the same show as they had two years ago, but still really neat and makes me cry a little – what can I say – I’m an emotional dude! After looking at a few more exhibits, it was time to head for my Extraordinary Experience (their name for their special experiences you can do). Last time I did the behind the scenes tour, and this year it was time for my Penguin Encounter!!! Yes, I did say I love penguins, and now I’d have a chance to learn more about them and get up close and personal with one!
We headed to the encounter area and put on some rubber boots. Penguins like to poop and they just poop when and wherever they want! We then watched a short video about some activities they do with penguins to keep them entertained and mentally stimulated while in captivity, since they don’t have the normal things in the wild to keep them busy. Then it was time for our trainer and penguin to come and join us. There was a total of 9 of us for the experience – there is a limit of 10. The other 8 were two families with 2 adults and 2 kids each, and then me! I was lucky enough to get a seat closest to where the trainer did most of the talking and showing of the penguin.
Jason, our trainer, brought in Izzy for us to see. He talked about penguins, how they train and care for them, about their feathers, how they straighten their feathers if they get messed up, and other items. Some interesting tidbits are that to straighten their feathers, they just take a big breath of air and they all just lay down nice and neat – how I wish I could fix my hair like that! Also, there are no external physical features of a penguin to determine their gender, so they tell one of two ways. Either a blood/DNA test or wait and see if it lays eggs. Jason also showed some of the tricks that Izzy has learned.
Then as Jason talked more, he took Izzy to each person so we could feel her feathers and wings. You can tell the feathers are waterproof as they are very sleek and almost slippery. Their wings feel leather like and you can tell they are strong – which makes sense if you ever see them “fly” through the water. The main reason penguins are flightless birds are they have no real predators in the wild, so they don’t need to fly away from anything. Also, at one point Izzy walked over to me and started sort of pecking at my leg, it took me a little while to figure it out, then realized that she thought my “feathers” on my leg were all messed up and she was trying to groom them! Then at the end, we each got a chance for posed pictures (my picture is above) with Izzy (whose ID number is 409 (4th generation, 9th hatch)) and Jason (whose number I didn’t get, maybe next time!). Then it was time to say goodbye to Izzy and Jason, change back into our regular shoes, and go on with our day.
The rest of the day at Shedd I just spent looking around at the other exhibits including their special one on Amphibians and a new display on the Great Lakes. Last time I was here the special exhibit was on jellyfish and the Great Lakes displays were under construction. One of the neat things in the amphibians exhibit was seeing a tadpole complete with tale, but also the start of the legs. I guess I never really thought about that for awhile they’d have both and it was really neat to see.
I did go see the penguins a few more times and tried to spot Izzy (they have colored bands on their wings to ID them) but it is hard to see the bands through the glass and at a distance, and if they are moving around it is hard to keep track of them. I did get to see my “birthday buddy” penguin. It hatched on June 9 – my birthday! The only way I could tell which one it was, is because it still was fluffy and hadn’t completely grown in its waterproof feathers yet. Baby penguins grow up really fast, so in a few months, the new one will look about the same as the others, except for the ID band. Also, if you notice I keep calling my buddy “it” because “it” doesn’t have a name yet, which is because they don’t know the gender yet. As I mentioned, they need to do a blood test to determine the gender, and it is too early to subject it to a blood draw just to know the gender, so they’ll wait awhile and then do it. I am wondering how much of a donation it would take to name the penguin!
Somewhere in the day I did have a late lunch/early dinner at the on site cafeteria. Also, I didn’t do the stingray touch – that doesn’t really interest me, and when I was there two years ago I forced myself to do it, and wasn’t anything special, so I skipped that. After saying goodbye to the penguins, I headed out and caught a bus to my next adventure of the day!
Next it was time to head to the “Chase Bank auditorium in downtown Chicago” to attend a recording of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” – the NPR News Quiz! If you don’t know the show, they have 3 guests (typically comedians or at least people with a comedic view of the news) and they talk about the week’s news and have listeners call in for games, and it is extremely funny. To me, a trip to Chicago isn’t complete without attending a recording. This was different than my past trips to Wait, Wait because they now have assigned seats, so you don’t have to wait in many lines, since your ticket has your seat already assigned.
A few other highlights of the taping was that they had technical problems with the phones and audio for the listeners to call in. It seems like they just redid a lot of the auditorium, including nice new comfy seats, and it wasn’t quite working. They finally got it working and the show recorded just fine. Also, we needed to record some filler bits for a “rerun” show that they air when they want a week off, but since they take bits and pieces from a variety of shows, they need to record parts to tie them together. Typically they record the show straight through from start to finish without any major stops and then just rerecord a few pieces at the end where people stumbled over their words. However, this time the big news story of the week was happening right at the same we were recording the show – the Republican debate! So when they got to the part of the show where they were talking about it (during a listener call in game) they just skipped over commenting on it and continued with the show. Then at the end, the panelists and host got information about the debate from a staff member who watched it, and they recorded the material to fill in the empty spot. They also said not to tell anyone, so you just didn’t read that!
After the show is done, they offer a little bit of time for people to ask questions. After a few questions, a staff member told Peter (the host) to check his email (on his tablet), so he did. He said that it was someone’s birthday today, so we all sang happy birthday to her. Then the guy she was with asked Peter if he could ask one more quick question, Peter said yes, and then the guy said that the question wasn’t really for Peter. He then proceeded to get down on a knee and propose to his girlfriend (the one who had the birthday). She said yes! Peter did then ask him if he was prepared to hear a “no” answer (he wasn’t) and then asked her if she wished she could have said “No”, (She was happy saying “yes”).
Then it was time to leave the auditorium and I headed out to get Peter’s autograph on the book that I bought (written by Peter). Then headed out to hop on the Blue Line, head back to the CTA station, my car, and my hotel. And that is day 4 of my adventures with one more day to go! You can see more pictures from my day on Facebook.