Monday has turned into a nice little tourist day after the Chicago Marathon.

In 2023 we took a boat architecture tour.

In 2024 we toured Wrigley Field.

And this year we spent the day after the marathon at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry because they had a Spider-Man exhibit.

What can I say - sometimes the targeted ads work.

I guess I text or talk about Spider-Man (and Chicago) enough that I started to get these ads on Instagram for the exhibit - it opened in May, so we’re talking at least five months ago.

Eventually I looked it up and saw that the exhibit would be running when we visited Chicago, so I threw it at Kevin as a suggestded activity.

I’ll be honest, though - I worried it was going to be one of those things that looks big on social media because of the way it is pictured and then you get there and everything is disappointingly tiny…like one room, everything jammed into a corner, and you’re like, “Whoops. I maybe shouldn’t have bothered.”

I am here to tell you this is not that.

It’s not exactly cheap - you pay admission to the museum, which is like $26 or so, and then an extra $22 for admission to the Spider-Man exhibit.

But it is worth it.

There are two exhibition halls dedicated to the exhibit - you start and walk through one and then you think you’re done but in fact you walk through the museum to a second one.

The first one takes you through Spider-Man’s origins and you learn about the original writers and illustrators, and then when you get to the second room you read about the 2000s versions. It also takes you through a history of Spider-Man toys and video games and movies and TV shows.

Scattered throughout the exhibit are costumes and props from the Spider-Man movies, too.

There’s even a spot dedicated to Spider-Man’s wedding. (Which I was at! It was at a Mets game in 1987 and somewhere I have the comic book they gave away to those in attendance. I think this was also the game where Mookie Wilson and Lenny Dykstra collided headfirst in the outfield. I’ll need to dig a little deeper into that game and make sure I’m not mixing memories.)

I loved this exhibit. I learned a lot about some of the history of one of my favorite characters…and to be honest, I like Spider-Man with just a very surface-level knowledge. I’m not a die-hard comics reader.

Kevin took a great picture with Spider-Man and then I got in there and tried to make it look like he was dropping in on me and I hit my head on his shoulder. Not my finest moment.

So I even learned a lot about the comics version - I had no idea the death of Gwen Stacy, which was in the Andrew Garfield movies, was part of the comics lore.

I would tell you to go see this exhibit when it travels to your town, but it looks like it’s just at the Griffin Museum in Chicago.

It runs through February.

I have no idea what happens after that.

So if you’re in Chicago before then and you have a little time on your hands I’d recommend making the trip. Tomorrow I’ll report about the museum as a whole.