Emergency Request - Good Ideas Need

We have outta town guests for the next five days (including 2 adults and 2 kids around 6 years old). These people have been in Chicago enough that the usual has been taken care of. The CQ and I are a bit stumped for ideas, especially because it is not so much "things" but things that take up great blocks of time.

Here's the short list so far:

Woodfield/Todai and perhaps a movie

Great America

Maxwell Street

Downtown/Millinium Park

I meant to post this sooner but I got distracted. Any help is appreciated.

Rob

Naperville has Ribfest starting tomorrow afternoon. They have a whole kids area too for the little ones. You can buy tickets at the Jewel in Naperville for $5, $2 off the regular price and there is entertainment all weekend.

http://www.ribfest.net

KevinT wrote:Naperville has Ribfest starting tomorrow afternoon. They have a whole kids area too for the little ones. You can buy tickets at the Jewel in Naperville for $5, $2 off the regular price and there is entertainment all weekend.

http://www.ribfest.net

Thanks. That's just the kinda things I need to hear.

There might be long lines, but the newlyr enovated submarine exhibit at the Musemu of Science and Industry is worth a visits. And most kids like the coal mine--even if they've seen it already.

Or maybe a vist to Pullman. See:

http://lthforum.com/bb/posting.php

Brookfield Zoo: Their new primate houses are state-of-the-art and you can often get quite close to the inhabitants. They also have some new park-like walks with a "Wolf Run," which is probably open by now.

Anyway, good for a long afternoon.

Have you ever made the trek to Union, IL for the railroad museum out there? Various trains you can actually ride, lots more in sheds to walk around. A lot of walking around. My boys love it, harder to say about girls. A bit of a food wasteland although there are a few choices. And there's an outlet mall nearby!

The whole summer, of course, is county fairs all over the state.

KevinT wrote:Naperville has Ribfest starting tomorrow afternoon. They have a whole kids area too for the little ones. You can buy tickets at the Jewel in Naperville for $5, $2 off the regular price and there is entertainment all weekend.

http://www.ribfest.net

Don't set your expectations very high on this event. I went out there a couple of years ago & was wholly unimpressed. We split up & got ribs from a number of different vendors & they ranged from completely inedible to barely OK.

Also it is incredibly inconvenient in that you have to park like 5 miles away and take a bus to the festival site itself.

The entertainment area was pretty good though, large grassy area & some shade along the sides. Guess it depends who is playing.

Millennium Park, on the other hand, is a great call - I spent some time over there when the Tip's Interns were in town & despite all the hype, it is VERY impressive.

I would try to go when there is a performance in the Pritzker Pavilion & set up a picnic on the grass. Security told me that you are allowed to bring in your own wine (but not beer for some reason). They sell both in tents at either side of the stage during performances.

Bring swimsuits / dry clothes / towels for the kids - they will definitely get soaked playing in Crown Fountain (which, by the way, is really cool - two 50 foot high glass block towers separated by a very shallow (1" deep) reflecting pool). They project a series of faces from inside the towers onto the glass. Every time I have been over there, it has been packed with dozens of squealing kids running around in the reflecting pool.

I also ate a couple of meals at The Park Grill & was very impressed by the food, but the service was spotty & it was pretty expensive. There is a more casual dining / bar area out in front of The Park Grill that would probably work better with a bunch of kids.

http://www.millenniumpark.org/

ChiNOLA wrote:[Don't set your expectations very high on this event. I went out there a couple of years ago & was wholly unimpressed.

This year, the Ribfest features Ted Nugent AND Blue Öyster Cult.

Dude, that is solid gold family entertainment.

E.M.

Erik M. wrote:This year, the Ribfest features Ted Nugent AND Blue Öyster Cult.

Dude, that is solid gold family entertainment.

E.M.

Don't laugh. I actually saw (or should I say suffered through) The Nuge opening up for ZZ Top (who were great) a couple of years ago. Not something I would go out of my way to see again. BOC, on the other hand....

VI,

If you feel like taking a suburban adventure with the kids, you could load up a picnic and take the train out to Ravinia on Saturday (11am). They have a kids concert with Justin Roberts that seems to be aimed at kids around 6 years old. And lawn seats are only 3 bucks.

www.ravinia.org

tp

Rob -

How about Fitzgeralds' Great American Music Festival in Berwyn?

I have been to this event many times & it is very kid friendly up until about 10 p.m. I'm planning on going a couple of times during the weekend.

As an added bonus, it is close to the La Quebrada in Cicero.

ChiNOLA wrote:

Erik M. wrote:This year, the Ribfest features Ted Nugent AND Blue Öyster Cult.

Dude, that is solid gold family entertainment.

E.M.

Don't laugh. I actually saw (or should I say suffered through) The Nuge opening up for ZZ Top (who were great) a couple of years ago. Not something I would go out of my way to see again. BOC, on the other hand....

Hey I like (nay love BOC). Well, not that I listen to them too much these days, but there was a time...And ChiNOLA, you'd get a kick outta this: I saw them in New Orleans, either Mardi Gras or Jazzfest, I forgot, but I saw them at Jimmy's.

Anyways, all of the suggestions are great. Keep 'em coming.

Rob

Vital Information wrote:And ChiNOLA, you'd get a kick outta this: I saw them in New Orleans, either Mardi Gras or Jazzfest, I forgot, but I saw them at Jimmy's.

Yikes. Jimmy's was a tiny place - bet it got pretty loud in there.

Your experience was probably a lot like the time I saw Molly Hatchet at Biddy Mulligan's (RIP Danny Joe Brown)....

Jane wrote:There might be long lines, but the newlyr enovated submarine exhibit at the Musemu of Science and Industry is worth a visits. And most kids like the coal mine--even if they've seen it already.

Or maybe a vist to Pullman. See:

http://lthforum.com/bb/posting.php

If you're going to the Science and Industry Museum, I'd recommend seeing the artfully displayed corpses BEFORE lunch. Also, unlike the old dayz, everything costs at the SIM: 5 bucks for the sub, 5 bucks for the coal mine, etc.

I dig Pullman a lot, but it's not exactly a destination (unless you're interested in the history of the place).

Hammond

The body worlds exhibit at MSI is quite good. I'd actually recommend going later in the day, late afternoon or something, as the crowds seem to be a lot smaller then. Body Worlds is also pretty expensive: admission to the museum + body worlds + the omnimax = $30 per adult or so.

And don't eat in the museum. Seriously. It's awful. You're in hyde park, so you don't have many alternatives anyway, but still. It's truly awful.

Oh, and if you do go to body worlds, go to the OmniMAX show ("The Human Body") also. Or just go to the OmniMAX show. It's really well done.

-ed

gleam wrote:The body worlds exhibit at MSI is quite good. I'd actually recommend going later in the day, late afternoon or something, as the crowds seem to be a lot smaller then. Body Worlds is also pretty expensive: admission to the museum + body worlds + the omnimax = $30 per adult or so.

The Wife liked Body Works a lot, and I think the technology behind the cavacade of cadavers is pretty cool, but I also felt the exhibit was, overall, creepy and kind of disrespectful to the Grim Reaper. Most people I've spoken to, though, really liked it, so I suspect I'm in the minority on this.

About the MSI price, if you went to stiffs on parade, the sub, the coal mine, the videogame exhibit, and got your picture taken, you'd easily drop over $50/person.

For what it's worth, I liked the Robot exhibit best: I still have a Mr. Machine and Robby.

Hammond

Check out http://www.hottix.org for plays offering half-price tickets on day of performance or http://www.chicagoplays.com and the Reader's listing for nearly everything that's playing in town.

Of what's playing in town now, I really recommend the Jacques Brel revue at No Exit Cafe in Rogers Park. You can pair it with dinner there, too; I haven't tried the food, but it's likely on par with The Heartland Cafe's (same owners).

That one might not be something for the kids, though. I note that Chicago Shakespeare's "The Princess and the Pea" is on the Hot Tix list, as is "Little Shop of Horrors."

David Hammond wrote:For what it's worth, I liked the Robot exhibit best: I still have a Mr. Machine and Robby.

I liked the robot exhibit a lot, too. Except that it kept breaking while we were there. The robot that danced to music, and the one that drew a face you inputted, were both great, too.

One of the best parts of body worlds was the two binders they had at the end with information on polls of visitors from other cities. They polled people who saw the exhibit in europe and asia on a whole range of issues: whether the exhibit would make them change their lifestyle, whether they thought it was disrespectful, etc. You were definitely in the minority in pretty much every country

Japan was the most likely to see it as disrespectful. Germany, I think, was least likely to. Beth might remember more details...

Rob,

how 'bout taking advantage of some of the great free community things that are going on in the summer?

here are a couple this weekend

Summerdance (today is the maxwell st klezmer band)
CSO concert outside

if you do bodyworks, you could take a look at the african caribbean festival of life nearby, look for monk parakeets, have some harold's at the point

Not sure this is within your timeframe, but a friend of mine is on the board of this teen theater project:

Saffron July 6 - 10, downtown.

edited to add others have noted this: here.

gleam wrote:You're in hyde park, so you don't have many alternatives anyway, but still.

Hey, Piccolo Mondo across the street, nothing wrong with that. That's my default escape to civilization after fighting museum crowds.

gleam wrote:You're in hyde park, so you don't have many alternatives anyway,....

If the kids are sort of precocious, you could sit in Jimmy's Woodlawn Tap on 55th and Woodlawn and have them count the Nobel laureates that pass by while the adults drink. Tell 'em they can't leave until they spot three. Well, it's what I'd do.

If the theater bug bites, you might want to see Mrs. JiLS in her current production, a re-mount of Lifeline's "A Long Way from Chicago" at Theater on the Lake. Kids of 6 and up (and adults) will have a good time. Shows are Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30, Sunday at 6:30.

One place that I really like for kids that age that isn't quite as visited as the other museums is the Museum of Immigration (or the Swedish Museum) in Amdersonville. It's on Clark on the same block as Ann Sather's, I believe. It's a really well-done, and fairly new, museum, highly interactive, where kids start on a farm in Sweden (which comes complete with a wooden cow they can actually "milk") then they can get on a ship to America and play on an American farm, with a lovely vegetable garden where they can plant and harvest their crops. Both farms have houses the kids can go in, and they're full of tools they can try to figure out the purpose of and treasures they can uncover in each drawer. It's a great place to bring a book or catch up with your friends, as the kids can be happily occupied for quite a while. And of course then there's all the great eating, as you well know, in Andersonville afterwards. You could take the group to IKEA and let the kids play in the drop-off place while you shop, if that's your cup of tea, though it might get crowded there this weekend. You could get the 99 cent breakfast at IKEA for everybody and then go to Joe's Crabshack for lunch -- only as entertainment for the kids, of course. As an Evanstonian, I'd also recommend the 4th parade here in Evanston if you're looking for something to do that day. It's a nice small-town experience for the kids, and useful as a way to introduce your group to Illinois politics, as all the pols usually show.

Rob:
Just read about the new children's zoo at Lincoln Park Zoo. Sounds like fun and of course it is free. As I mentioned to you Peggy Notebart is nearby and has a new maze exhibit for kids.
Have fun