Today started with coffee at the Lake in the Hills Police Department with the detective sergeant (gun and all!) One of our day hosts (Jim) is the big chief there. He is a great guy who was one of only 1% of law enforecment officers who gets to do FBI training, and, who likes to drive his police issue car down the freeway in a hurry and commented to me, 'I see you don't mind the speed, I haven't seen you step on the imaginary brakes yet!'. I didn't know whether to laugh or be scared.
Our first stop for the day was a town called Woodstock. Thie town square here is where the movie 'Groundhog Day' starring Bill Murray was filmed.
We had 2 hours at the Challenger Technology Centre. This place is amazing! After the Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster in 1986, the familes of the fallen astronauts wanted to give something back and started these centres (about 4 of them in the USA?) to provide teamwork, maths, science and adventure education for school students. Here the students run a space shuttle simulated mission, with computers and equipment set up like mission control, with half of the class running this, while in the capsule room, the rest of the class are manning the space shuttle and communicating via computers and radio transmissions with ground control. Has to be seen to be believed - just and amazing opportunity. Lots of intersting memorabilia on the walls and great stories to go with them!
From here we wandered through Woodstock square and into the old McHenry County Courthouse - an impressive building with great histroy and a number of ghosts!
We started at the bottom (now an art gallery) walking in and out of the records vaults, before going to look around the 'cells' in ther basement (now a restaurant) where the prisoners certainly were prisoners - thick brick walls and small cells. The restaurant owner had keys for tha 'back stairs' and took us up to the top floor and the massive courtroom, where the law books still adorn the walls behind the judges desk and the ghost of a man tried and hung there roams. He was tried in McHenry because of mob connections in Chicago where his trial was not held because of the fear of the officials being corrupt - very Al Capone-ish!
The courthouse cloed in 1972 and on the backborad downstairs (now covered and protected ) are the last County election reult tallies, in which one Richard Nixon recieved the most votes in the County for President!
We had luch in a downtown 'grill' before heading to Lake in the Hills to the Chase Bank. (A short detour along the way had us stop at a Harley Davidson Dealership for a look around the showroom and a photo op sitting astride some great bikes!)
Banking is interesting. Mosat branches have drive through banking where you can get cash from ATMs(lined up like petrol bowsers) or make deposits via a teller from the window of your car!
Unlike our banks, who are getting stricter about who is let in depending on what they are wearing (hoodies, etc) this bank has open desks that the tellers work at (you can walk right around them - no long counters) and the staff meet you at the door, talking about your banking needs with you as you stroll through!
From here we went to a financial planners office, where he gave us a run-down on his work, how the current finanacial situation affects him, and what the future looks like for investing - really interesting given the current climate.
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