Pictures of real dead things

This weekend I went on a whirlwind trip to Chicago, the great city of the Midwest. We spent most of our time with Marshall's family, and I got to tell my "babykilling ant nanny" story a bunch of times. People love that one, and it makes me seem interesting.

The one thing I can say I saw in Chicago was the Field Museum. I'd been to the Field Museum a couple of years ago, when I drove cross-country to school. I was super psyched at the prospect of seeing Sue again.

Sue gets invited to more black-tie museum benefits in death than in life (scientists believe). That night, she would be attending a gala for excellence in Illinois masonry.

The Field Museum has a lot of stuffed animals. These furry rodents were involved in mortal combat - wait! It's too late! They're already dead! And one is forever placed in an indecent, and unflattering position!

Dead things can also be aesthetically pleasing.

Marshall eats the last of the passenger pigeons.

We spent a lot of time in the Natural Disasters exhibit. It's pretty awesome of how museums have become so much more than, as Marshall put it, "putting some shit in a box." We jumped up and down to measure our seismic impact! We created our own volcanoes and watched them grow and explode! We stood in the middle of a tornado! Like the real thing, but on screens, in a museum, and not dangerous. The only thing the exhibit was lacking was a taxidermized critter or two. Gotta have it.