State Capitol, Madison, WI – May 2012
Our favorites:
See: Henry Vilas Zoo
Do: New Glarus Brewing Co. – New Glarus, WI
Do: Kettle Moraine State Forest – Palmyra, WI (Stony Ridge, Stute Spring, and Bald Bluff Nature Trails)
Drink: Cocktails at Fresco (rooftop of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art)
Eat: Dinner – Sardine
The route to beer
Earlier this week we were debating whether or not to head out of town for Memorial Day. If you haven’t already guessed from the title of the post, all roads are leading to Wisconsin. Just where in Wisconsin we were going took a while to figure out. Our initial thought was to stay a couple nights in Door County, because we’ve been there before and had a great time. The only problem is that it’s nearly 5 hours of driving and we weren’t sure we wanted to be gone for two nights, so we started debating nearer options. Milwaukee is great, but we were just there last fall, and there’s a cool poster exhibit we’d like to see that doesn’t open until June 1, so we’ll save that for another weekend. Then the small town of New Glarus came to our attention, by both a friend and a recent magazine article. Pros, cons, driving distance, activities and cost were weighed in a lengthy, late-night iChat conference and New Glarus won out in the end. We’ll save our return trip to Door County for the fall.
If you’ve ever heard of New Glarus, it is probably for being the home of New Glarus Brewing Company. Any beer drinker who’s been to Wisconsin knows their most popular beer, Spotted Cow. What I didn’t know is that due to its well-maintained Swiss heritage, New Glarus was closen to be the future home of the Swiss Center of North America, beating out New York, Chicago and Toronto for the honor. Pretty impressive for a town of about 2,300. Sources tell me that traditions like yodeling and flag tossing are alive and well in New Glarus … fingers crossed! This weekend also happens to be their annual Music Festival. I was hoping for some polka, but I don’t see any on the schedule, hopefully someone in New Glarus can fire up an accordion for the occasion. After all that, we’ll drive the short distance to Madison for its nightlife and wider hotel selection. State parks are in the plans for Monday before returning to Chicago.
Awesome historical fact about New Glarus: In 1905 a proposal was presented to the people of New Glarus that limburger cheese be “declared legal tender for the payment of all debts and a medium of exchange throughout the district.”
It’s now strange to think that up until last summer’s Pacific Northwest trip, neither of us had a device for connecting to the internet while on the road. Now we travel armed with both an iPhone and an iPad. It has revolutionized the way we research and plan. In April, we booked the Hotel Angelino (thank you Hotwire) and looked up what those strange towers were just off I-15 in California (Ivanpah Solar Power Facility) from the freeway. Last summer a quick Google search told us why all those people were leaning over the bridge railing, turns out it was a lost whale and we should’ve stopped to see her. The iPad has also come in handy for pre-downloading national park newspapers and as a supplemental GPS device. There are thousands of apps out there for all your travel needs. Here are a few of our favorites and how they’ve helped us out. Give them a try:
National Geographic Park Maps – High resolution maps of the most popular parks. Has great detail of hiking trails, topography and points of interest.
Passport to the National Parks – Discussed by Nick in an earlier post here.
iExit – Shows you in real-time what services are coming up at the next Interstate highway interchanges. Came in handy when we needed to satisfy our In-N-Out burger craving.
Gas Buddy – Has a “Find Gas Near Me” feature that shows you gas stations near your current location and the current price/gallon.
BestParking – Displays parking rates for a selected time and duration. Saves a ton of money when you’re in unfamiliar territory with overpriced hotel parking. Also has a website. Using this, we spent $6 on two nights of parking in New Orleans when the hotel would have charged $50.
Hotels.com – We more often use Hotwire to get the lowest possible rate, but if you prefer to know the name of your hotel ahead of booking, hotels.com has a beautifully designed, and easy-to-use app.
OpenTable – Because we love to eat and we don’t love to wait for a table. Helped us find our favorite San Francisco restaurant last summer, L’ardoise.
Yelp and TripAdvisor – Both great apps for finding reviews of nearby food, activities and hotels.
Goby – Search engine for finding events, recreation, attractions, sports and food. You can search by area and time period.
Wi-Fi Finder – Shows you locations of free and paid wi-fi hotspots. Keeps you from having to use up your cellular data.
WordPress (of course) – For staying updated on the road.
Buckingham Fountain, Chicago IL – May 2010
Protest this!
Last weekend we entertained some parental types in Chicago. It reminded me how you can often forget some of the great activities that exist right under your nose, or in this case, over our heads. The Chicago Architecture Foundation is one of the best resources for learning about both the built environment and the history of our city. They offer many different types of tours: walking, bus and boat, in addition to special events and programs. Foundation docents are local volunteers with a passion for architecture, some are even architects or architecture students themselves. We were lucky enough to have a private tour with just our group of four assigned to one guide.
Our particular tour (Historic Downtown South) began at the foundation’s headquarters in the Santa Fe building on Michigan Avenue. It covered the southern Loop area and focused on the Neoclassic to Art Deco in the course of two hours. We got to see the lobbies of building we’d walked past, but had never seen inside. At the Marquette building at Dearborn and Adams, the facade is nice enough, but behind it is a gorgeous lobby with Tiffany glass mosaics, marble walls and elevator doors with bronze reliefs above honoring members of the Marquette and Joliet exploration party. At the art deco Bank of America building on South LaSalle, the original lobby arcade is still intact, with white marble walls and ornate, art deco stainless steel detailing. We also stopped by the Rookey, Monadnock Building, Art Institute of Chicago and Auditorium Building and also took a look at how the postmodern Harold Washington Library references surrounding structures and styles. Other walking tours cover different areas of the city and different time periods, allowing guests to select a tour to appeal to their preferred interests. Having previously taken a boat tour, I can say the walking tour gives a much more in-depth experience as you can see and touch architectural details rather than just pass by and observe a building from a distance.
If you need a quick getaway without going anywhere, always remember there are plenty of options right in your own backyard. Nothing screams “tourist” like walking around the Loop with a guide and an earpiece, but it was worth sacrificing a bit of local cred for the educational value.
Rookery Building details, Marquette Building lobby with mosaics, Chicago Board of Trade.
Falls Park on the Reedy, Greenville, SC – August 2009
Our favorites:
Do: Caesars Head & Table Rock State Parks (hiking)
See: BMW Zentrum Museum (Greer, SC)
Eat: Dinner – The Lazy Goat
Eat: Dinner – Sassafras Southern Bistro
When people ask me what my favorite National Park is, my brain nearly short circuits. A favorite? Just one? Not possible. That’s why I love the concept of the book, “10 Best of Everything in the National Parks” from National Geographic. It’s list after list of “Top Tens” throughout the National Park System. Being from the people of National Geographic, you know it’s going to be extensive.
You generally can’t conquer an entire National park in a single visit, most are just too large and have too many things to see and do. Sadly, Americans average only 4 hours in a National Park per stay. This book gives you a good idea of which activities will suit your interests in your allotted time frame. If you’re looking for a family-friendly hike, there’s a list for that, if you don’t want to be in the same zip code as a child, you can find that in here too. There’s something for everyone. Topics are covered by region, theme, season and occasion. Beautiful photos, insider tips and other travel resources mean you’ll want to take the book with you, but it’s rather large, so it’s best to make copies and take along only what you need.
What’s my favorite National Park? I don’t know, but here are my top ten from the past few years. Listed in the order I visited them: Badlands (SD), Channel Islands (CA), Mammoth Cave (KY), Acadia (ME), Lassen Volcanic (CA), Crater Lake (OR), Mount Rainier (WA), Grand Canyon (AZ), Bryce Canyon (UT), Zion (UT)
Mantenay-Montlin, Bresse, France – December 2010
Happy French Presidential Election Day!
Seattle to Chicago daydream route.
Update: Not just a fantasy anymore, we’re actually doing it.
Another update: We did it.
Sometimes the slightest thought can inspire an epic road trip. Innocent seeming quotes like “I’m visiting my sister in South Carolina this summer, want to come with?” or “I bet Maine is nice” have taken us on thousand-mile plus journeys. Our recent Southwestern road trip was roughly outlined between appetizer and entree at The Bento Box. Clearly it doesn’t take much to get us dreaming up a new adventure. So when I heard “If you want to go to Glacier National Park, we’re in,” I immediately went to Google Maps to see what that would involve. I guess it’s kind of an addiction, but everyone needs hobbies.
The attached map shows a bit of what goes into our first stage of planning. Select a destination, see how much time you have, and then trace a line that has varied points of interest and preferably takes you to places you’ve never been. This sample route would nicely fill in a blank spot in our map as we’ve never taken a path this far north and neither of us has been to Montana or North Dakota. It would involve a one-way flight to Seattle and then returning to Chicago via rental car. Since National Parks are a favorite of ours, we’ve included five. I also threw in a stop at Lake Itasca, Minnesota, because I couldn’t pass within a hundred miles of the source of the Mississippi River without making a detour. At more than 2,800 miles, this one would blow away our current road trip distance record and require at least a week and a half (more likely two weeks) to maintain an enjoyable pace. Alas, for now it’s just a thought as we have plenty of these fantasy maps up our sleeves.
Château Frontenac, Québec City – July, 2010
Our favorites:
Do: Musée de la Civilisation
See: Montmorency Falls
Eat: Dinner – Aux Anciens Canadiens (try the caribou meat pie!)
Stay: Hotel Clarendon (oldest historic hotel in Old Québec)
highkicktravel 
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