Some Light on the Places Visited In The Beautiful Trip - Part 1

I had been living in the U.S. for the past 9 months and most of the time, as everyone knew, I am working from home. I do get two days off every week and the question arises as in how I spend the time when not working. Even if not every week, at least twice in a month I am spending time visiting new places. This has been my go-to option since the past many months in U.S. This post is all about the same – a tourist on a visitor visa rather than a worker on a H1 visa. I hate to admit but it has been the reality which had happened without any deviation.

Since I am writing on this, let me give you my two cents on the notion of ‘visiting new places’. As a child, I never visited public places in my own city itself. There is a small public museum in my hometown where I grew up and I never bothered to visit the place till date. Visiting new places is not on the radar and as long as no one took me, I never went on my own. After I began to work, there is the same routine of two days holidays in a week. At that time as well, I never had the drive to visit new places for entertainment or education. There is no room for fun and there are occasions when I denied few friends who wanted me to join in a group visiting a zoo. I never visited the zoo in my home or work cities till date either.

I wantedly never went to visit any place during my initial work years due to the inner fire I had during those years. I remember vividly that the major place of attraction I visited during those work years is the One World Trade Center when I came to U.S. for first time. That day, I went visiting the places in New York came to a pause and I resumed it in this trip. The mode of operation is all same – catch a train, visit a place or two and return by end of day. To say it again, till the time this activity caught me, I never visited anything major during the down or free time. This has never been on my work or to-do list. I never took myself or encouraged these kind of touring trips which just involves visiting places alone.

The change has been visible these days. Due to some peculiar reasons, I had been retired to the present-day situation where I am spending days doing this stuff. There is nothing wrong in taking up this activity as well, as long as there is something to learn from. While I initially resisted these kind of tours, now I am trying to answer myself as it is nothing wrong. If you cannot be the best, you can be second best as well. Based on this premise of exercising the second-best option, let me tell you what U.S. offered in this category. From what I had seen myself in the past many trips, U.S. has been extremely tourist friendly and a heaven to tourists. There are so many options to spend your day either you are a newcomer or a resident. The people are more inclined towards these activities which is why these are existing in first place. To inform more, I would like to list all the places of interest which I visited ever since I came to U.S. last year. There are quite many places on the list and here I present them for this post.

Art Institute of Chicago – I first visited this place after coming to Chicago since I came to know that this is where Swami Vivekananda delivered his famous speech way back in 1893. The place sits in the central location of downtown and has been renovated keeping its old charm intact. The appearance is great like any U.S. site and the visit made my day. I remember asking for the exact location where Swamiji delivered his speech when I was still fresh in awe of Chicago and the location. This aside, there are many artifacts and pieces of ancient, modern art in the museum to spend time savoring the beautiful collection.

Dusable Museum of African American history – This is the second place of interest I visited. From outside, I knew Chicago because of Swamiji’s speech and the South Side of Chicago where African Americans live. Since I ticked the first box, I went to tick the second box as well – to know about the African Americans and the museum located in south side of Chicago. I remember viewing in virtual reality, the speech of Martin Luther King Jr and some other prominent people. The sculpture of Harold Washington in his office who is the first African American mayor of Chicago left an impression in memory. There is an auditorium where there is play going on and I very much liked the visible progress of the minorities in the city, country.

Chicago History Museum – This is the place I visited to know more about the city I have been living in. Any city comes to bigger fame by virtue of marquee events and the world’s exposition in 1893 was one such event in Chicago. There are many prominent people, organizations, inventions which came out of this city as a visible indicator to its history. One prominent incident which was widely projected and carried with me is the Great Chicago Fire which was a conflagration that burned during October 8–10, 1871. The fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly 3.3 square miles of the city including over 17,000 structures, and left more than 100,000 residents homeless. There are several such pieces of interest shared in the museum.

Navy Pier – Boat tour – This is the location seated next to Lake Michigan and houses all kinds of activities like Giant wheel, boating etc. I particularly liked the boat tour in the huge lake around the coastline of Chicago. I never felt the water body as lake but as a river or sea and surprised to know about the lake as big as a land of a state.

Field Museum – This is the museum I went with friends and not alone. It is another one of many museums in Chicago. The collection grew out of items on display in the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The exposition delighted visitors with 65,000 exhibits filled with natural wonders and cultural artifacts, many of which later found a permanent home in Chicago at the newly created Field Columbian Museum. Since opening in 1894, the artefacts have grown to nearly 40 million. I particularly liked the huge skeleton structure of a Dinosaur in the center of the place.

Naper Settlement – I visited this place which houses a small museum on the history of Naperville and many other landmarks of the earlier times. The place is located in the downtown and very peaceful. It provides timeline information which is attributed to its growth to present day as one of the happening cities in the state.

First Division Museum at Cantigny Park – I visited the First Division Museum inside the park when I went to see the Cantigny Park. The museum sheds light on U.S. Military History Through the Lens of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division — also known as the Big Red One (BRO). U.S. Military History is presented with an added perspective of preserving BRO artifacts, archival materials, and history. There are many war tanks located in the park from the WW-1 and WW-2. In addition, you can also visit a large park with some beautifully designed landscapes.

Morton Arboretum – The arboretum houses trees, plants, and shrubs from around the world which displays them across naturally beautiful landscapes for people to study and visit. The collection includes 222,000 plant specimens representing 4,650 different kinds of plants. The place is all about climate, trees, conservation, and sustainability. The abstract work of Human+Nature sculptures are built around these goals.

In addition, I visited the below places as well, on which I will provide some details in next post.

Harley Davidson Museum

Pabst Mansion

Milwaukee Art Museum

Milwaukee County Zoo

American Writers Museum

St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station

Missouri History Museum

St. Louis Art Museum

There is a zoo inside the forest park of St. Louis, but it was closed on the day I visited. Apart from it, these are the 16 prominent places I visited, in addition to a number of temples and other events attended during weekends. As you can see there as many as 11 museums among these places which make them an integral part of American cities, sub-urbs and smaller towns. The idea of establishing a museum is in itself a noble one and coming up with so many of those, speaks volumes about the distance this country has travelled. If America is a nation, American cities are built to visit at least once. I am glad this mission is accomplished to an extent as I visited places in three different cities during this trip. I will write more about this experience in my next post, in addition to covering these additional places I visited.