As I am staying on I had to check and see what room I will move to but so pleased they have left me in the same room!! That will make my life nice and easy. So no packing etc, just the normal start to the day.
After a quick breakfast I headed towards Michigan Avenue to catch the #146 bus to the Adler Planetarium. A 146 came along so I hopped on and checked with the driver to see if it went to the Adler but it did not, apparently there are two 146 buses with slightly different routes. Enter rude American #2 who pushed past me and told me to get out of the way he wanted to get on the bus, no please!!!! Hmmmmm!!! Anyway, while waiting for the #146 I was supposed to take, another guy was chatting to me about the buses and the big Car Exhibition that he was going to, he was very pleasant so made up for the other one!!
Finally, the correct #146 arrived and it took about 35 minutes to get to the Adler, the worst part was through the loop with a lot of traffic, lots of traffic lights and the inevitable road construction work going on. We passed the Field Museum and the Shedd Aquarium, my next two days of fun!!
The Planetarium is all about the universes of which ours is but one, the planets, the stars and so on. There is also much information about space flight and exploration, including the Apollo missions and the Mars Lunar Buggy. There are science and education programmes, it is all very interesting. I found one interesting interactive space and nearly made myself travel sick as I do not do very well in helicopters!! It was a drive yourself simulation of a space buggy flying over the moon at a fairly low altitude, it could go up and down as well as forward and could also carry out banked turns!! I had fun but had to slow down a bit after a while. It shows the moon asit really looks with all the craters and names many of the important points, including a couple of rovers that have been left there!!
I watched a movie, Cosmic Wonder, inside a domed theatre. There were three parts, the first was the Chicago night Sky and we were shown what is visible, Orion the hunter for one as well as various nebulae. Next, we explored the earth at a low level and were shown all the different satellites that are running around up there, it is amazing that they don't crash into each other there are so many!! There are a set of satellites over the equatorial regions that have Geosynchronous Orbits, in other words they stay over the same spot on the earth all the time. There are others that have Elliptic Orbits and these are elliptical in nature so vary in their relationship to the earth beneath, these are all needed or our GPS systems. There are a huge number of Communications Satellites up there for all our cell phone calls, International TV and so on. The final part of the film was all about what is out there beyond our own solar system. For example, they think there are 600 billion galaxies that are known to man and we do not know if there are more out there!! It is just mind boggling and certainly puts our planet into perspective.
There is a lot of interesting information all round the planetarium and lots to look at. There were meteorites from various places around the world and a machine that simulates a meteorite hitting the ground. 
There are telescopes on display right from the very primitive early examples. There is a lot of information about the moon and NASA is heavily involved in providing data to the place. Underneath the theatre, there are forty servers that take data from NASA and elsewhere to provide the visual scenes that are so realistic.
I also paid a visit to the Atwood Sphere, a 100 year old planetarium. It was the first to be built and does not show the actual night sky but a replica of the night sky. Holes were drilled through the shell to from the stars, galaxies, planets etc and show them in their correct place. The dome moves around the people so a variety of views can be seen. It was originally outside and the sun provided the light through the holes but now it is an internal structure and artificial light is provided. It must have taken a good many hours/days/weeks to drill all the holes in the correct places!! It was a real undertaking and is named after the man who designed it.
After, a few hours, my mind was in overload so I decided to return to the hotel. I took a couple of photos from the outside which provided different views of the Navy Pier area. By this time, much of the cloud was broken up and the sun was shining through!! There was a bus waiting so that was good and then on the way back I went to Trader Joe's again for more supplies, this of course meant a coffee at the Starbucks next door!! Then onto the USPS for a few stamps and finally back to base. The temperature reached the giddy heights of 25 degrees F at 3 pm today, my a heat wave!!
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