Kinsey’s seventh grade class took a trip to Chicago at the end of this year of school.  And I agreed to chaperone…yes, that right mid move I agreed to go on an overnight trip to Chicago to supervise teen girls.   I am out of my ever lovin’ mind.

That being said, it was a wonderful weekend to hang out with K and her friends.  We had a good time and quite and adventure at that.  We loaded coach buses at 4:30 am on Thursday morning at the school and then headed out for the 6 hour drive to the windy city.  Our first hiccup came when the teachers discovered that the DVD player on the bus didn’t work.  That meant no entertainment for the 50+ children on board for the journey.  But our kids handled it well and most of them slept on the way.  Our first stop was the Shedd Aquarium.  It was a wonderful place to visit, though my girls (I had charge of 3 for the journey) thought that the amazon section was smelly.  The seahorses and the big turtles were the highlight of the tour.

Our next stop was a 3 hour long scavenger hunt down the magnificent mile.  The prize… $100 cash to the winning team!  I use the term scavenger hunt loosely, this “hunt” was created by the tour guide company and consisted of a 6 page questionnaire about the buildings and history on the street most of which could only be answered via massive Internet search…and we were computerless.  But my girls wanted that cash.  I took one look at them and said, “we are going to cheat”.  We were the first off the buses and while everyone else stood around trying to make a plan we were off to the first stop on the hunt.  With phone in hand I called Todd at work and he became our life line to google.   After three hours my girls were exhausted but we had answered nearly all of the questions (most of which were completely unanswerable without google I might add!).  The majority of other teams gave up long before the end of the hunt and spent their time shopping, but not my girls.  They grilled store clerks and security guards.  We even got the DJ’s from WGN to put us on the radio and try to answer some of our hunt questions!  We met a silver man, an ice cream man and visited what has to be the most awesome bathroom in America at the American Girl store. 

 

These are my girls standing out in front of the oldest building in Chicago to survive the great Chicago fire.  But I have to say that what made the scavenger hunt worth all the exhausting effort is that WE WON!!!! 

 

 

 

 

To top off the full day we were dropped off at Navy peer to do some shopping and eat dinner.  We were so tired that we ended up wandering almost to the end of the peer before I finally made them stop someplace to eat.  They were just too tired to make a decision.  But we couldn’t leave there without riding that famous farris wheel and admire ourselves in some funhouse mirrors.

We arrived at our hotel at a little before 10pm and ran off to our room only to discover that the hotel had an enormous indoor pool!  The girls desperately wanted to go swimming and I finally agreed to let them go jump in fully clothed (since we didn’t pack swim suits).  The moment the girls jumped in we were ordered out of the pool by a hotel staff member.  He said that they couldn’t go swimming without proper swim attire.  Ah well, they at least got to jump in and say they did.  At least that how I felt at first… about 20 minutes later we made a run to the vending machines and discovered that they were allowing the boys to swim in clothes because they took their shirts off!!!  Talk about sexist!!!  I told the girls we should burn our bras in protest of the double standard but despite the injustice I think they were too tired for a full sit in.  So we slept instead.

The next morning started off with a buffet breakfast and then headed out to the museum of science and industry where they posed for a group photo, rode on tractors, experienced space aged robots that danced and drew pictures, and even saw baby chicks hatching.  The place was so HUGE that we couldn’t possibly have gotten through it in the 3 hours alotted.  So we hit the hot spots which also included a tour of a real submarine.

 

This is a really screen you can stand in front of at the museum.  If you hold very still the butterflies will actually begin to land on you!

 

 

 

 

After we left the Museum we were off to the Zoo to have a sack lunch and enjoy the animals.  We ended up arriving at the Zoo an hour late which only gave the kids 1 hour to eat and see the animals.  We all quickly made our way to the pavilion for lunch only to find that the tour company had accidentally ordered us kiddie snacks and not meals!  So everyone headed out to forage for real food while the teacher had it out with the tour company.  We ran around and got to see all the animals at the top of our list and then had just enough time for a ride on the carousel.

 

 

The trip home got even more adventuresome.  During the zoo outing our brave teachers took a cab and searched Chicago for a branch of their bank and refunded everyone the money for their sack lunch, then also went to one of the teachers parents home to get VHS tapes for the bus ride home (because as you remember the DVD player did work but the VHS did).  We were back on the buses and headed home by 4pm.  We had bee given our refunds and told we were stopping at a food court just on the other side of Indianapolis for dinner.  The kids were staved so it was going to be a long 2 hours.  Unfortunately it got even longer.  About one hour into our drive home we got stranded in a traffic jam and didn’t budge one inch for over an hour!  The kids were starving and water was starting to run low.  And the only entertainment for the kids was “A river Runs Through it”  and classic episodes of “The Fugitive” playing on the TVs.   We finally pulled into an exit at 8pm (it wasn’t even the place we had planned on stopping at) for dinner.  We were told we had 40 minutes to get our food and get back on the bus.  Just picture it… 3 fast food joints, nearly 200 people, and 40 minutes.  It was a mad house.  We all made it back on the bus though in time.  As they were doing roll call I realized I had left my back pack at the fast food place!  I jumped off the bus and ran down the street to the place and gratefully it was still there untouched.  There is nothing quite like having a bus load of people waiting on you.  Then we were on the road again.

A bout another 30 minutes into our journey we suddenly pulled off the road.  We were informed that one of the other buses had broken down.  After some waiting and communication between the bus company and the drivers they were told that a new bus was not going to be coming to replace the broken one and a mechanic could not be had till the morning.  After a brief consult the teachers decided to circle back and load the stranded students and chaperone’s on the other three buses and just get us home.  most of our girls were going to have to sit 3 to a two seater for the remaining 3 hours home.  We were finally reloaded and back on route by midnight.  And arrived exhausted at 3am Saturday Morning back at the school.

Needless to say I don’t believe the school will be using that tour company again.

Despite everything Kinsey had a blast and I am thrilled I got to share it with her!