Biking the Waterfall Glen Trail

One of my New Year resolutions was to schedule date night twice a month. My track record hasn't been perfect, but it's been fairly decent. We have two wonderful high school girls who have stepped in to fill the void left by another babysitter who moved on to college last year. This is make or break for us because we do not live close to family and I'm sooo glad we found them!

Now our date nights aren't typically adventurous or even very active (I cannot tell you how often we end up cruising around Barnes and Noble after dinner), but I was excited this weekend to try out my new bicycle and so we decided to find a local trail that would allow us to ride for an hour or so and be easy enough for a newbie like me.

Confession: I enjoy biking, but I'm a total weakling. Seriously. Any self-respecting third-grader could lap me within minutes.

We first did a bit of research and realized that there are two good options for riding locally. The first is to hop on to a section of the Illinois Prairie Path, an old railroad line that has been converted in to hiking and biking trails. The second option is to look into the many trails maintained by the DuPage Forest Preserve. My neighbor suggested Waterfall Glen, a trail maintained by the DuPage Forest Preserve, in Darien.

So we loaded up the bikes, left the kids to play and stuff themselves with frozen yogurt with our babysitter, and took off.

The trail entrance was very easy to find and parking was plentiful. Lots of other folks had the same idea we did so it was easy to follow them onto the crushed limestone path and get going.

It provided a good mix of hills and forest areas and two scenic views where bikers can stop and sit and take it all in.

All in all, we biked 9.5 miles and it took us around 1.5 hours. It was fantastic. I won't lie, it was hard for me to make it up a few of the hills, but people were zooming past me and I know this is a "me" issue, not a difficult path issue. It's been years since I went biking and my weakness shows. Mike loves to bike and rides to the train each day and will zoom around on his own occasionally on a Saturday morning. He's a lot stronger than me and definitely used to biking every day.

We both agreed that this would be fun to explore together, the paths around here and biking in general. Bikes are a serious investment so we want to make the most out of this purchase. Our kids are very wary bikers. Both still use training wheels and both still get very nervous riding in general. This will not be the summer of family biking. However, it could be the summer of date night biking.

Do you have any tips or tricks you want to share with us? I'm interested to hear from the experiences of others.

Chicago tourism

I had been on the fence about whether to take the kids into the city today. However, next week is vacation bible school and the following week I will be finalizing the details of Abe's birthday party. So I thought - why not?

One of summer list items is to take the kids up in the Willis (formerly Sears) tower. It's such a popular tourist thing and yet I've never been myself. So we packed a lunch (not that there aren't a million great places to eat, but  since the gluten free thing began it just seems easier) and caught the train into Chicago.

       Selfie at train station!

The Willis Tower is located at the corner of Jackson and Adams (enter on the Jackson street side). It's very straightforward. Tickets are too pricey, in my humble opinion. Adults $19, kids $12. But our wait was hardly anything which was lucky for such a gorgeous day.

The elevator takes you up to the 103rd floor. A video inside the elevator marks your progress up in comparison to other landmarks. Now you are as high as the pyramid of Giza, now as high as the Eiffel Tower, etc.

And then you arrive. You walk around and that's pretty much it. 

Well, except for the SkyLedge. 

Architects designed a plexiglass box or ledge that allows people to walk out into the "sky." Anna was not at all sure about this but when it was our turn, she shocked me by laying down in a superhero pose as if she was flying over the city!

That kid. 

All in all it was a simple , but fun outing. I'm so happy the kids are old enough to do this sort of thing. Summer is looking good.