Drive into the Chicago botanic Garden on Lake Cook Road in Glencoe but instead of trying to park in the lot closest to the Information entrance, turn left into Lot 6. That’s because the Garden, a 385-acre fun destination any time of year, has a new attraction worth exploring as of Sept. 10, 2016.
Youngsters climb, roll and explore a new nature play area at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Photo: Jodie Jacobs
Its new, three-plus acre area bears the lofty title of Regenstein Learning Campus, however, the grounds are a place to play and explore.
Youngsters roll down grassy mounds, wriggle through tree trunk tunnels and splash along a shallow, winding rivulet in the Nature Play Garden reminiscent of TV’s “Teletubby” landscape.
Other connected outside areas can be visited but are used for pre-school and older activities and for aquatic learning. Inside the Learning Campus building are preschool spaces, a room outfitted with microscopes and a kitchen for food demonstrations.
This is where some of the family drop-in activities will happen Saturdays and Sundays Sept. 17 through Oct. 23, 2016 and probably the family weekend classes that make gingerbread and coca in December.
The Chicago Botanic Garden is at 1000 Lake Cook Rd., Glencoe, IL 60022. For parking and other information call (847) 835-5440 and visit CBG.
Star Trek fans and crew members of the Starship Enterprise might not want to ask engineer “Scotty” to beam them back home until after they negotiate Richardson Farm’s new giant maze in Spring Grove, IL.
About 21 football fields in size, the maze’s trails cut out images of Captain Kirk, Spock, the Starship, planets, stars and a Star Trek 50 logo. They celebrate the popular series’ 50th anniversary.
“We key in on anniversaries,” said George Richardson. Add celebrations. Last year, the family paid tribute to the Chicago Blackhawk’s 2014-15 Stanley Cup win.
Begun in 2001, the maze has celebrated a wide range of subjects from its first feel-good family farm scene to military veterans and the Beatles.
With 11 miles of trails crisscrossing a 33-acre cornfield, the Richardson Maze is considered the largest in the world. Doing parts of it can take 10 minutes to about an 1½ hours depending on trail choice. It can be a good half-day of fall family fun.
Of course doing the maze during a full moon, maybe with help from flashlights is also fun or spooky. The maze stays open until midnight during full-moon nights Sept. 16-17 and Oct. 14-15 and stays up through October.
As if the maze weren’t enough of a draw for a fall day in the country, the farm also has a ton of family-friendly activities such as a 50 foot slide, train rides and a vintage carousel.
Formerly a pig farmer, Richardson explains the family’s maze craze as “much more fun than raising pigs.” He said, “I love having people come to see us and enjoy themselves here. This is so much better than pigs.”
The Richardson Farm is at 909 English Prairie Rd., Spring Grove, IL 60081 on US Highway 12, six miles west of Fox Lake and five miles east of Richmond. For other information visit Richmond Farm and Adventure Farm or call 815-675-9729.
Look up. If your sky is clear tonight and before dawn the next few nights you might see a shooting star. Except it won’t be a star it will be a meteorite. Now is when two meteor showers are putting on a show.
Delta Aquarid is going on now. It is not a major meteorite display but it overlaps the beginning of the Perseid shower.
The Perseids peak mid-August with about 100 meteorites per hour seen about Aug. 11-12 in 2016. Delta peaks this weekend with about 20 meteorites per hour.
Perseids seem to come from the Perseus constellation, thus their name. Actually they are debris from the Swift-Tuttle comet. Look for them in the northeastern sky of the northern hemisphere.
A good site to hear about Perseus is at NASA Science News even though the broadcast is from 2014 and includes that year’s august Super Moon, it is fun to watch and hear. NASA.gov also has more meteorite showers and info.
Tips: The best way to watch for meteorites is to find a spot away from city lights such as the banks of a lake or in a field or park. Early morning before dawn is usually just as good as late night. Be patient and bring a chair or blanket.
Getting high grades on my taste to go Try Test are freeze dried fruits from Fairfield, NJ’s Crispy Green.
There are lots of travel items out there now that make life easier, safer, more fun or are just useful to have so I’m going to start including them in Travel Smart With Jodie if it passes the Try Test.
First up that just got high grades on my taste to go Try Test are freeze dried fruits from Fairfield, NJ’s Crispy Green.
Found a fruit snack to go at the grocery store
I’m not always into healthy snacks but I like chips. So when passing bags of fruit chips at my grocery store ( I shop at Sunset Foods in Lake Forest), I picked up a bag of Crispy Green freeze dried banana chips. I found out that I could also have gotten them at The Fresh Market, Heinens or on Amazon.
Well, I like fruit but I don’t take a banana with me in the car or my tote bag.
Then I checked the calorie count. It was so low I picked up a few of the brand’s other fruits. For example I’m not a cantaloupe or tangerine eater and can’t do acidic fruits but I like banana, mango , apple and pear.
I loved that I could take them with me whether on a train downtown Chicago to cover a museum or theater opening or on the road or plane for a travel writing trip. Also I liked that there are different fruits so it doesn’t get boring.
Just put banana in my Le Sac travel bag, cause heading down to Chicago to cover to art exhibits.
Spring crane migration on the Platte River is worth early morning rises before the sun
Spring crane migration on the Central Platte River
Imagine watching an orange glow back-lighting thousand of cranes as the sun rises on the Nebraska’s Central Platte River.
With more daylight you realize that what looked like merely like sandbar and small, flat, isle protrusions really were clusters of sleeping Sandhill Cranes. You start capturing the scene with camera and smart phone sans flash so you don’t disturb the birds.
A few cranes fly off to corn fields on either side of the river. Then, without warning that you can catch, they all rise and fill the sky with black silhouettes and loud cries.
Early morning
The scene is your reward for leaving your warm bed before 5 a.m. so that you can get to the National Audubon Society’s Rowe Sanctuary in Gibbon in time to walk to a blind before sunrise.
It is now March 21 when the Sandhill Crane migration is at its peak on the Platte so space at the Rowe Sanctuary’s blinds had to be reserved a couple of months ahead. The cranes stop here on their way from Mexico, Texas and New Mexico to Alaska because the river offers them protection from predatory land animals and the food supply will help them bulk up for the long flight to Alaska and northern Canada.
To take advantage of being here you return to the blind before sunset, ready to capture the next decent of cranes who will nestle down there for the night. Against the gorgeous red sunset the scene looks like a painting.
Sun setting over the Platte
Volunteers have come here from as far as California and as close as Lincoln, NE to help as guides. And you do need help to follow the Rowe Sanctuary’s paths in the early morning darkness and post sunset night.
Rowe Sanctuary is near Kearney, a delightful town with plenty of places to stay, see and sup. BTW, if interested in volunteering, contact Rowe.
Audubon’s Rowe Sanctuary is a great place to learn about bird migrations through what is known as the Central Flyway.
Next morning is crane migration repeat. But this time the visit to a blind is at the Crane Trust Nature & Visitor Center in Wood River near Grand Island. Blinds and information at both Rowe and the Crane Trust are good. Grand Island is also a good stopping point for lodging and sights.
More about what to do during the day at each area comes next in Nebraska sights and stops when traveling Interstate 80. Photos by Jodie Jacobs (c)
Take a snow day to get away from political campaigns and shrug off Super Bowl 50 hype.
Lake Geneva, WI annual hosts the US Snow Sculpting Competition the first week in February. Teams from across the country that already won their local championships are now competing for national recognition.
And it doesn’t matter what Mother Nature has in store. Snow blocks are made at the Grand Geneva Resort because it needs the machines for its ski slopes.
The blocks are dropped off in the park near the Riviera on Geneva Lake (no typo, the lake really is a reverse of the town name).
Teams start carving their snow blocks this week to be ready for the judging this Saturday, Feb. 6, 2016. There are professional judges but visitors also get to vote for the “People’s Choice Award.”
You really have to see the snow sculptures to believe how incredible they look and the skill it takes to make them.
But snow sculpting isn’t all that is happening at this vacation town this weekend. The competition is part of Winterfest which includes helicopter rides, ice skating on a nearby lake, skiing and a slew of other activities at the Grand Geneva Resort plus open houses at several stores and galleries in town.
Parking is free for the week but there also is a shuttle bus from the nearby Home Depot.
Lake Geneva is a charming town about an hour’s drive northwest of Chicago just over the Wisconsin border. However, there is enough to see and do to it make it an overnight getaway. Check Visit Lake Geneva for accommodations and full list of activities.
Amazing what can be found when cleaning one’s desk. Sitting in a pile of I-will get-to-this-tomorrow items was photographer Tom Carter’s astonishing book “China – A Portrait of a People.”
Published in Hong Kong by Blacksmith Books in 2008 and re-released in 2012, “China” is way more than a coffee-table book. Photographed while backpacking over two years, it captures people, landscapes and structures in the country’s 33 provinces.
It is not a book to peruse in one sitting. Composed of 800 color photographs across 638 pages, it is an honest reveal of life in cities, back roads, desert climes and subtropical jungles.
The book is available from Amazon. To see and hear Carter, check out this video. It starts with him in a classroom where he was teaching English. From it you understand he has a sense of humor and appreciates the importance of the individual.
The Broad is a don’t miss experience no matter what style or period of art peaks your interest
The Broad experience begins in an unusual lobby
What do you try to visit when you travel?
Certainly scenic views are high on my list as well as most travelers’. But next to nature’s wonders I seek out art museums. So luckily our California daughter picked up tickets for The Broad, a new museum downtown LA where visitors may wait in line for hours for a ticket if not reserved in advance.
And yes, it is worth the wait if need be. But if going to LA, reserve tickets ahead of time. Admission is free but the museum just opened in September 2015 so is still on everyone’s to-do list.
BTW, the building and art collection is a gift of Eli and Edythe Broad (pronounced Brode with a long o) to the public, thus the free admission. However, special exhibits and programs will have fees. Check programs.
Much of the free museum collection is on the first and second floor. The third floor will have special installations.
So why all the excitement? First, the building, itself, is an architectural attraction. Described as a “veil and vault” construction, it was designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro with Gensler for about $140 million. Indeed, as visitors descend from the second floor they can peer through a window into the vault that holds more art works. The veil is the building’s honeycombed-style roof and sides.
Another $200 million has been put in trust by the Broads to cover maintenance, operating expenses and acquisitions. The “docents” there will tell you they really are paid staff with art backgrounds and not volunteers.
Peek through a window to see the vault
Secondly, the collection is an art history lesson of some of the best examples of works from the 1950s to now. Not all pieces in the 2,000 work collection are up at one time. To see some of the collection and its artists on line click here.
Among them are works by Henry Moore, Ed Ruscha, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons and Cy Twombly. Chicagoans who have recently seen the “New Contemporary” exhibit recently donated to the Art Institute of Chicago will recognize editions of some of the same and similar pieces.
If you go, stop in a darkened room to see “The Visitors,” a video installation by Ragnar Kjartansson that shows eight musicians in different places and on different screens but all playing the same music.
The other must-do stop is “Infinity.” To go in to it you have to sign in at a registration screen in the lobby because only one person is allowed entry at a time so entrance is a time slot.
A Roy Lichtenstein sculpture is set off by the honeycomb's reflected light
The Broad is a don’t miss experience no matter what style or period of art peaks your interest. For more information visit The Broad.
Museum gift shops are a treasure trove of unique, artistic items.
First, toss away the idea that museums visits are just for occasional drop-ins to see current exhibits. Their gift shops are a treasure trove of unique, artistic items.
Secondly, think two-for-one when shopping at a museum store. You are getting a special item and a portion of the price goes to the museum so you are helping a not-for profit place you enjoy visiting.
Third, you can go in person to spend some fun hours browsing or shop at the museum store online.
Here are three museums with fun and fascinating gifts for the holidays.
Find artistic gifts at the Art Institute of Chicago
It’s fun to walk through the main store in the original building to see cases of jewelry, shelves of ties, stationery, cards and books and displays of pottery and art glass. But don’t forget the shop in the Modern Wing for its home decorative items. Many of the items are online so you can go to art institute shop and call 1-855-301-9612. If you go in person be sure to stop downstairs to see how some of the Thorne Rooms are decorated for the holidays.
The museum is always worth a visit to see dinosaurs, American Indian artifacts and wander inside an Egyptian pyramid tomb. But for the holidays also go to lose yourself in The Field Museum’s huge shop where you roam among large stuffed animals, exotic art items, out-of-the-ordinary jewelry and clothing and fun t-shirts. Best plan is to visit in person but when time doesn’t allow go to fieldstore.
Go to see the museum’s Grand Tree in the Rotunda and the 50 smaller trees that for years are a holiday tradition because they are decorated by Chicago’s ethnic communities. While there go through the museum’s Mirror Maze and visit the robots currently moving around a special exhibit area. However, the museum store is also a good place to find a great gift for your budding scientist or an historic photo for someone’s wall from the photography store.
You can hike, bike, kayak and canoe. To say bird watch would be an understatement. Thousands of ducks and Canada geese land here each fall.
Pair of cranes photographed in Wisconsin
You can capture two fall happenings at one time by traveling over to Horicon Marsh in Eastern Wisconsin. Horicon is a 33,000 acre (right, count the zeros) of wildlife, freshwater plants and a fall bird migration stop just south of Fond du Lac and about 1.5 hours north of either Madison or Milwaukee. Its bordering trees make photos here picture perfect.
Divided by two government entities, the north two thirds is operated by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service as the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge. The southern third is managed by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources as the Horicon Marsh State Wildlife Area.
You can hike, bike, kayak and canoe. To say bird watch would be an understatement. Thousands of ducks and Canada geese land here each fall.
The marsh is the largest redhead duck nesting place east of the Mississippi and sees the largest migrating flock of Canada geese. Mid-September is fine but to capture nearly 200,000 geese in your lens go in mid-October. As with TV that ads say, “wait, there is more,” you are likely to see some of the marsh’s 300 bird species including cranes and pelicans.
Among the largest freshwater marshes in the United States, Horicon is filled with muskrats, fish, frogs and red fox. Check events at the HoriconMarsh.org site for hikes.
There will be a guided hike and bird watch event Oct. 3 from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Also a sunset crane watch is at the Palmatory Overlook, 1210 N. Palmatory St., Oct.17 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.
A stay at the Honeybee B&B turns a Horicon visit into a vacation
A good intro to the marsh is the Emporium, a new interactive center that is fun for kids and adults.
Turn the trip into a vacation by staying nearby at the Honeybee Inn. The breakfasts are great, the rooms comfy and innkeepers/owners Barb and Fred Ruka are knowledgeable about the marsh and other area sights.
The Horicon National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center is on the east side of Horicon Marsh, 3.5 miles south of State Highway 49 on County Road Z at W4279 Headquarters Road, Mayville, WI 53050, 920-387-2658. The Wildlife Center is at N7725 HIGHWAY 28, Horicon, WI 53032, 920-387-7890.
