Museum of Science and Industry

Upon arriving at the museum, we immediately got in line for the coal mine tour. We had to wait a little while before our tour began. It was pretty neat to see both the old and new machinery used to mine coal.


"While fixing a clock, Foucault accidentally proved that the Earth rotates. Foucault was making a small metal rod to fix a broken piece of a clock. An accidental bump set the rod into a back and forth motion. Curious, he rotated the rod to see if this swinging motion would also rotate. Instead, the rod continued to move back and forth along its original path. Soon after his discovery, Foucault proved to the world that the Earth rotates at the Paris Exhibition. This accidental discovery changed many people's view of the world."


We came across a small climbing wall that definitely wasn't meant for bigger kids. We could have climbed up into the ceiling if we had wanted to. Or disabled the sprinkler system.


The bathrooms have the coolest hand dryers! They actually dry your hand without you having to touch anything gross.


Lucy, Kathleen, Mom, and I went on the Green Home tour. It was really cool! We couldn't take pictures inside, so we took lots outside.


We had ice cream and water for lunch! We had a huge breakfast before the museum opened at a nice little diner close by. While we waited for the train that afternoon, we brought out the snacks that were hidden in our backpacks (apparently, you aren't supposed to check food into the bag check at the museum. We did anyway).




"The hug shirt creates the feeling of being hugged using actuators embedded in the shirt to simulate the warmth, pressure and duration of the hug and even the heartbeat of the sender. A hug can be sent from another Hug Shirt or from your phone as a text message."



This is a U-505 German submarine from WWII. It was captured by the U.S. Navy just a few days before D-day. Aunt Lucy bought us tickets so we could tour the inside, which was really cool. Our tour guide was awesome! He kept the tour interesting and kid friendly. Sailors were on the sub for three months at a time. In that time, they never showered or changed their underwear! The sub could be submerged up to 36 hours, in which time the toilets couldn't be flushed. There were 59 (?) men on the sub at a time, but beds for only 37 of them. One room of the sub still has the original flooring. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside.