Return to the windy city (sounds like a movie title!)

US rail travel involves a lot of silly back and forth. Anyway I had to go back to Chicago to get my train to Kentucky. I had some time so stashed my pack and headed towards the lake. It was so much warmer than in the weekend.

I went to the Field Museum of Natural History, which is gigantic and - it being a weekday - packed with screaming kids/bored teenagers. Consequently it was daunting and annoying at the same time. They have the world's largest or most complete T-Rex skeleton (named "Sue") which was cool to see. The other highlight for me was a complete Maori meeting house. It was deserted so it was nice to have a quiet moment in there. It's a really beautiful whare full of great carvings. The sign at the door said removing your shoes was optional. I was tempted to attach a sign regarding bad tapu but I restrained myself.

I had a bit of a walk along the lakefront and then met up with Rodney, a friend the girls and I had met in the weekend, and we went to the Planetarium. Being short on time we just wandered around the museum part of it. They had some quite cool NASA stuff in there and really great views of the lake.

Then it was back to the train station for me and onto the overnight train. I managed to position myself near a door and an airconditioning unit so had a crappy sleep.