These are a few of "our" favorite things...

With so many family and friends coming to visit us and/or the city of Chicago this summer, I thought I would take time to list our favorite places to take our guests when they are here. We seem to have a routine in the summer!

First, the food. Now dinner spots could be a whole new blog entry as Chicago is home to many wonderful restaurants so we will stick with the lighter fare.

•  Breakfast - Lou Mitchell's Restaurant & Bakery - Old fashioned diner (since 1923!) with gruff waitresses, milk duds while you wait for a table and ice cream at the end of every meal! How can you go wrong?
• Lunch/Snack - World Famous Billy Goat Tavern & Grill  (MI Ave location!)- Look up "dive bar" and you will find a picture of this place. Located under Michigan Avenue, this is the tavern that inspired the famous Saturday Night Live skit with Bill Murray and John Belushi. A must visit for any SNL fan. Just make sure you know what you want when it is time to order, those cooks won't wait around for a decision!
• Snack - Garrett Popcorn Shops - A Chicago tradition since 1949, some of the best caramel, cheese and air popped popcorn I've ever tasted! People line up for this stuff, it's that good! Make sure you try the "Chicago Mix" of  cheese and caramel, delicious! It's making my mouth water just thinking about it! 

Okay, now that we've stuffed you, what should we do?

• Water Tours - We have found that this is one of the best ways to see the city and learn more about the history of the wonderful buildings surrounding you. There are several tours operators in the city but our favorite has been the Shoreline Sightseeing tours. They seem to offer a mix of serious and silly on their tours and have a bar! Their are tours along the Chicago river, tours out to Lake Michigan and fireworks cruises.
• Navy Pier - From the Navy Pier website: "Historic Navy Pier® is Chicago's lakefront playground. And it's the Midwest's #1 tourist and leisure destination, attracting more than 8.6 million visitors a year." If you can't find something to do on Navy Pier, you aren't looking hard enough. With a giant Ferris Wheel, Imax theater, spectacular views of the skyline, several restaurants and plenty of "boardwalk" food booth; there is plenty to entertain. We enjoy hanging out in the beer garden at the end of the pier listening to live music, sipping cocktails and waiting for a spectacular fireworks show on summer evenings.  
• Zoos -  Like we could have a list of things to do without mentioning the zoo? Chicago is home to two incredible zoos, Brookfield Zoo and Lincoln Park Zoo.Lincoln Park Zoo is located in downtown Chicago and is totally free. Definitely a big perk! This is a beautiful zoo with very modern facilities for their animals. The Brookfield Zoo is located in Brookfield, IL. Also a great zoo (we are members) that has 216 acres o9f exhibit space. Lions, tigers, bears, giraffes, seals, monkeys, etc, etc, etc. If you can think of it, it is most likely there. Keep reading this blog and you will hear a lot about this zoo! 
• Museums – Many to choose from but Joanna’s favorite is the Art Institute of Chicago. Bill’s favorite? The Museum of Science and Industry, but this may only be because they had a Harry Potter exhibit there last year! Check out the websites of both to find out the latest events.

Obviously, there is much more to do in the city and suburbs of Chicago then what's listed here and we are still enjoying discovering new things every time we get the chance. And as we learn of more, we will share them with you here!

Hearts, flowers and monkeys

 

Brookfield Zoo - Brookfield, IL

Length of visit: February 14, Sunday

Hotel: Our house! The zoo is 45 minutes away from Elgin.

Cost: Free for the month of February!

Transportation: Car

Purpose: The giraffes missed me, I was sure of it.

Bill and I spent our Valentine's Day this year hanging out at the zoo. It was appropriate because we were engaged at this zoo on December 15, 2008. But the date wasn't really what made us decide to go to the zoo that day. It was more because the Brookfield Zoo was free on the weekends for the month of February! That is a deal that we could not miss out on. Some of you may ask, isn't it too cold to go to the zoo in February? I think Bill and I would be the first to say that the best time to go to the zoo is when you think it is the worst time! We have gone pretty much every time of year and the visits during the winter months definitely seem to be some of the best visits we've had. There are less people so the animals are much more calm and relaxed. We've had some wonderful moments watching the animals with no one else around. But, that being said, we don't go when it is 2 degrees! This day it was a comfortable 35-40 degrees and the sun was shining. We had on our winter coats, gloves and a hat for me but with that and the sun beating on us, we were just fine. So, here are some photos from this visit. 

The gorillas were very active today. The little one was harassing anyone he could find!

 

 The seals put on quite a show swimming around just for the two of us.

The zoo had this fun Polar Bear sleigh leftover from Christmas at the zoo still set up so I had to give it a try!

 

The closest I'll ever get to hugging a polar bear.

 If you look closely, there is another penguin behind this one. They were, um, celebrating Valentine's Day too! 

 These two Black-Footed Cats were in two separate enclosures but could see each other through the glass. They were having a stare down when we got there. Very entertaining and so cute!

When we walked up to the Lion, we saw him standing off to the side like this and wondered what was going on...

 

Oh, that's what he is looking at! He was up close and personal with the guests today!

 

  

I thought this was cool with reflection of the little girl and the lion.

Of course we stopped to say hi to Hudson the Polar Bear who helped us get engaged! 

And a visit to the zoo would not be complete without a visit with Joanna's favorites, the giraffes! 

So there are some highlights from our trip to the zoo. I can't wait for our next zoo trip!

Up next, the Michigan Winter Beer Fest!

Happy Travels!

Joanna and Bill

O! It's Omaha!

Omaha, NE

Length of visit: Jan. 22, Friday - Jan. 24, Sunday

Hotel: Courtyard Marriott Omaha LaVista

Rate: $50/night thanks to name your own price on priceline.com

Transportation: By car

Purpose: Why not?

Bill and I decided to go for a quick road trip at the end of January to Omaha, NE. Both of us had driven through Omaha on various roadtrips but had never stopped to take a look around. In my research about Omaha I was surprised to learn that they have a very active restaurant community. A great place is you are a foodie! Omaha also has a very large zoo. Alas, it was too cold and rainy/snowy to go to the zoo that day but we will definitely be back.

Hotel

The Marriott we stayed in was only a year old and one of the nicest Marriott's we had been in. We've really lucked out using priceline.com's "Name Your Own Price" and usually get a room at Marriott's for $50 +/- depending on the location. The room was clean, modern and well appointed. The Marriott also offered free wifi which worked great for our purposes. While the pool area was a little small for such a large hotel, it was still a very nice heated pool and of course great hot tub! We did not use it but there was also a gym that had your typical machines.

Restaurants
We normally try to find small unique local establishments for breakfast but for our purposes for this trip, the quick and already known worked best. So Saturday morning we had some delicious bagel omelet sandwiches from Bruegger's and on Sunday before we headed out of town we stopped at my favorite, Perkins. (Which does counts as a "special restaurant" since we don't have any near us here in Elgin!)

For lunch on Saturday, we were curious if you could get well prepared, fresh sushi in the middle of America's heartland with no large bodies of water in sight! Well, the answer is yes! (Since finally giving sushi a try, Bill has become as obsessed as I about eating sushi often. It is always on the list of options when trying to decide what to have for dinner. And I couldn't be happier!) There are several sushi restaurants in Omaha, believe it or not! After reading reviews of the sushi restaurants that Omaha had to offer, we decided on Sushi Japan. Sushi Japan was an older restaurant located in an odd spot, hidden at the end of a small mini-mall. When I saw that the sushi chefs were Mexican and Italian, I wasn't quite sure what we were going to end up with but was nicely surprised! We ordered 4 or 5 maki rolls and they were all delicious and expertly prepared! I took so long to actually write this that I do not remember what we actually ordered but I do remember Bill and I looking at one another and saying "This is really good!" Our normal orders usually consist of spicy tuna, eel and cucumber, yellow tail and scallions and then something unique to the restaurants menu.

For dinner Saturday night, we, of course, had to find some great Mexican food! Again, there were quite a few Mexican restaurants to choose from but we settled on Rivera's Mexican Restaurant. Again the restaurant was located in a strip mall but was a little easier to locate. We figured we made a good choice when we saw that the parking lot was packed! The restaurant is basically one room with very bad lighting and a bar along the front. Seriously, I thought I was hanging out in someones basement at first. But don't judge a book by it's cover, some of the best restaurants are not the flashy ones! There was a wait for a table so we sat at the bar and each had a margarita. Bill had the Supreme Margarita and I the Red Fire. Both were good but nothing special. This made us a a little nervous as we've found that good margaritas = great food! But by the time our names were called, the place was even more packed and very loud with a lot of happy eaters so we kept our fingers crossed. We were seated at a small table for two right in the middle of the small restaurant, you definitely get to know your neighbors but not to the point were it is uncomfortable. We started with an order of Spicy Cheese Dip and Chips which were delicious, good start! For dinner Bill had the Enchiladas Ranchera's and I had the Carne Asada tacos. Both were very flavorful, generous portions with an authentic taste. I especially enjoyed the cilantro in my tacos. You can never have enough cilantro in my opinion! Service was fast and friendly and the $5 off coupon from their website was nice too!


Activities
We mainly spent most of our time in Omaha driving around and checking out the area. Like I said before, there are definitely a lot of restaurants and also tons of shopping! I think we drove by 3 malls in a 20 mile radius. My overall impression of Omaha was that is a nice city with lots to do, see and eat! Along with the zoo, there is also the campus of University of Nebraska - Omaha, several museums and art galleries, state parks and more. The area we focused on checking out was a spot in downtown Omaha called the Old Market Arts and Entertainment district. This area consisted of several city blocks of restaurants (yes, even more!), bars, shops and galleries on cobble stoned streets in preserved historic buildings. I was in love with several of the eclectic shops full of unique gifts and oddities.




After dragging Bill into more than he cared to visit, we decided it was time to stop in to a local watering hole and have a beer. We choose Billy Frogg's Grill and Bar because, frankly, it just looked cool! We weren't disappointed. The inside had everything from stained glass to old stoplights hanging from the walls. Very eclectic and just what you would expect from this neighborhood. We each enjoyed our beers after a long day and had very friendly service. We found while we were in Omaha that everywhere we went, everyone was super friendly!

So that was our Omaha trip. I won't bore you with the details of actually driving there. It was a seven hour drive through farm, farm, wind farm, farm, farm, wind farm, farm. That pretty much sums it up. Although it was long and boring, it was also quite easy. Overall, we were very happy with our trip and found it very worthwhile. We will definitely be making it again in the future to visit that awesome looking zoo! I would highly recommend visiting the Old Market section of downtown if you ever find yourself in Omaha.

Up next, a Valentine's Day visit to the Brookfield Zoo!

Happy Travels!
Joanna and Bill

Welcome to Go and Tell!

If you know us, you know that we rarely sit still! We enjoy going on adventures that are usually a road trip away. We enjoy good food, great deals, fun entertainment and our favorite, fantastic zoos! It was suggested to us by many that we should start a blog detailing our fun! We plan on blogging about our trips big and small, far and away (with some every day life events thown in once in awhile) and hope that we don't bore you too much. Feel free to share with us your own travel stories, reviews, photos etc. and we will share on the blog with our readers. (Hi Mom!)

So away we go...and tell!

Happy Travels!
Joanna and Bill