We had a wonderful trip to Chicago; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Rochester, Minnesota; Coloma, WI; and back to Chicago. The kiddo got to take her first plane ride, which went really well. We were not voted the worst passengers on the plane. We drove many miles, but we got to visit with a lot of people.
Downtown Chicago. The Willis Tower (previously called the Sear's Tower) is the tallest building in North America.
Uncle Rob's condo on Eagle Lake in Wisconsin.
Becca attempting to crawl in the lush, green grass in the Petrifying Springs Park.
Nick and Becca lounging in the grass.
Becca's new crawling/yoga move. She can hold that leg up for quite some time.
Dipping her toes in the Petrifying Springs. She is lucky her toes did get get petrified.
Dipping her toes in Lake Michigan. It was a little cold, but she loved watching the waves.
There were a lot of these old barns around Wisconsin.
Some of the Orthey family.
Sam and Becca.
Uncle Rob's family.
Nick's grandparent's old house in Milwaukee.
The first time Becca and I saw the Mississippi River.
A pretty neat house looking over the Mississippi.
Excitement over petting the cat statue.
Becca not taking a nap in a crib that is about 100 years old.
Visiting cousin Diane in Minnesota.
Nick, Judith and Becca at a nature place in Rochester, MN
Becca trying to touch a Timber Rattlesnake.
Amazed by the fish.
In awe of the turle
A bee in the butterfly gardens.
The main building at the Fermilab where Kayle works in Chicago.
Nick showing his architectural photography skills.
It takes a lot of concentration for me to understand how people came up with this idea for the accelerator tube under the ground, but Nick seems to really absorb this info well. This is the tube that is laid in a huge circle under the ground where they run protons through at almost the speed of light.
This is where Kayle works. He actually works in one of the buildings on the other side of those trees. The tube is laid in a ring that runs outside of this picture a bit.
Becca standing on some important stuff. in the tunnel. Actually we are not in the tunnel, but just a replica of what the tunnel looks like.
Kayle sitting at his desk making a very important discovery.
I can't describe to you how big this pit is, but each one of those blocks in the back of the room weight about 8 tons. Behind that huge wall of gigantic concrete blocks, hides a Compact Muon Solenoid detector...we will just call it a particle detector. It weighs about 13,800 tons!
This is an old part that was in the huge particle detector machine. It was, and maybe still is, radioactive. All of this is very hard to imagine, but they do make things that I can understand. Thanks to science like this they were able to make diapers so absorbent today. They were able to improve the formula for superabsorbent polymers until they made a diaper that could hold copious amounts of liquid and still be thin.
