On Wednesday afternoon, we spent a few hours at the Art Institute of Chicago. Upon entering, the lovely lady in the ticket booth gave us two “must sees”: the Thorne Miniature Rooms and the Impressionism exhibit. I must have spent an hour and a half in the Impressionism area alone, and the paintings in this exhibit were exquisite and truly breathtaking. Having always loved paintings from the Impressionistic Period, I had never seen any of the work in person. There was an entire room devoted to Claude Monet, and I was in heaven! The paintings I had only ever seen in books nearly lept off the walls, with their stunning color and depth of painting. I could have spent hours in that room alone. This was probably my favorite part of the trip to Chicago, spending time gazing at paintings I had never had the pleasure of seeing except in books up until this day. This was definitely an experience to check off of my bucket list! We even hopped over to the Sculpture Park to see the infamous Bean!
-Tracee Colgrove
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On Thursday morning, we left Chicago and headed to Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. We went to the Jelly Belly Factory and went on a tour. When we got there, we walked through the doors and all we saw were bright colors. There were 50 different kinds of jelly beans you could sample at the sampling bar. After wandering around for a little bit, we were brought to the back to start the tour. We were given hats to wear, because of FDA regulations in the factory. The tour only lasted about 30 minutes. They talked about how Jelly Belly was made and who made it. We learned that President Reagan was addicted to Jelly Belly jelly beans, and he even had a jar just for jelly beans on Air Force One. After the tour we were allowed to wander around some more and buy jelly beans. They even had a section for the misfit jelly beans, which were misshapen, too big, or too small. Those were called “Belly Flops”, and they were sold at a discounted price.
-Nick Morlock-Holm Our final stop on the way home was at Alex Jordan’s House on the Rock. When we entered the building, it seemed like any other museum. The entrance was clean and contained a gift shop, and it was quiet and calming with a fountain. The first building you enter into contains information about Alex Jordan, the man who built the House on the Rock. He began the process by carrying bucket loads of building materials up the rock by himself. He was an eccentric man, and he decided to build the house, because he wanted to have a place to display his interesting collections throughout the years, caring nothing for what others thought about it.
Once we exited the main building, the thrill ride began. Jordan had collections containing hundreds of dolls and doll houses, a room full of circus displays, different types of armor, and three full sized carousels! One section, as we walked in, opened up into a huge room containing a life-sized whale a giant squid!! It reminded me of Moby Dick, and it was incredible to see the recreation of a battle between two massive beasts. Another section contained different cars he had collected through the years. Just as we finished one trip through wonderland, we entered another. The carousels were huge, containing odd creature combinations of people and animals. It was as though we had fallen into the rabbit hole walking through this odd collection of wonders! |
Staff:Kitra Barros Links
June 2020
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