Stanley Field Hall

Kathy and I spent a couple of weeks in Chicago this past October for our annual fall vacation. As I will explain in another post, it was an eventful trip - but on the day we visited the Field Museum everything was still ok. We arrived before the museum opened and I think we were the first guests through the main entrance. I asked Kathy if she would mind if we went directly to the dinosaur hall so I could take a bunch of HDR photos before those exhibits were flooded with other visitors. As usual she agreed to put up with my nonsense. We were given a map to follow, and we quickly ascended to the upper level of the museum, gained our bearings, found the right door, and wound our way through the huge Griffen Halls of the Evolving Planet exhibit, a 27,000 square foot space. We rushed past a lot of very interesting things that I hoped we would have time to return to later that day. We arrived in the dinosaur hall to find it completely empty of other museum visitors. Mission accomplished! There was only a technician servicing the Mold-O-Rama machine. I did end up getting some great images as I had hoped. This even though I was shooting without a tripod. I'll post some of those photos as well. Once finished with the dinosaur hall and it not yet being time for lunch, we decided to walk over to the other wing of the museum, passing thru the Stanley Field hall, a spectacular space with white marble walls, vaulted ceilings, and columns that run along its full length. It also contains two huge dinosaur specimens. The Maximo Titanosaur that must have shaken the ground when it walked and the Spinosaurus which is believed to have hunted underwater and is depicted in a swimming pose. There is so much to see in this enormous world-class museum. We have never been able to see everything in a single day. I am already looking forward to our next visit!

Stanley Field Hall

Maximo the Titanosaur

The Spinosaurus