Chicago with Children

0:15Hi, I'm Ryan Davis. And I'm Kiernan Schmidt. And this is Out of Office, a travel podcast. This you taking? Hey, Kiernan. Hello, Ryan. How are you doing? I'm doing pretty good.

0:28Kiernan:it's you know what i was thinking about this seat taken right yeah you know that's it's really for like buses and trains on a plane i guess you could playfully say it on a plane like if you're trying to flirt with the person next to you go this seat take and then kind of show your ticket that it it's your seat yeah oh it was annoying like uh i was on a plane recently there was all these empty seats and they wouldn't let us move because like the bounce of the plane i'm like i hate when they say stuff like that i'm like i'm like am i that big that if i'm in this empty row over here it's gonna I was on a flight recently where we were delayed taking off because there wasn't enough luggage underneath and they had to put ballast in.

1:06Kiernan:I was like, is this a ship? I didn't even know planes had ballast. And yeah, it was to counter the weight. There wasn't enough luggage? That's not a problem. Usually the problem is the opposite these days. No, I know. They're begging you. They're saying, we have no, this plane has one compartment for overhead. And they're always lying about that, too. they're usually you can usually get if you take the chance you can get your stuff in overhead and then once that happens they check you right there i was just watching the rehearsal season two on on hbo the nathan is that the one where he learns to fly planes yeah this is the one where it's like all about airline safety yeah yeah and in the most recent episode he uh built a theatrical reconstruction of sully's life so he could live it to understand why sully was such a good pilot pretty good it's pretty wild yeah i mean literally he's a he's a baby uh getting breastfed by a massive uh doll that's so my god i have i do not know uh nathan fielder's oeuvre but i am interested it sounds very compelling he's very in your world i think yeah yeah yeah and and now very much on my mind because of this like theranos movie that he did this three-hour documentary yeah That sounds incredible.

2:19Kiernan:The clips are insane. Definitely. Now, Ryan, today we are going back to Chicago. We have a first trip to Chicago in the archives, which we will link in the show notes. This is very much the companion. So we're not going to cover off all of Chicago. Today's focus is Chicago with kids. And this is a follow up. I've done a couple with kids episodes now. And this is because my kids and I just went there. Yeah, your kids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't take other people's kids, but this would be fine for other people's kids. Do we need to specify that in the title? No, no, no. I think people would get it.

2:53Yeah.

2:53Kiernan:Any kids. Chicago with any kids. And Ryan, before we dive into that, I do just want to do the Judy alert. Let your mom, you know, you don't keep in close touch with your mom. Talk to her once, twice every decade. And so Judy worries, worries where you are. You know, you always seem to be where drug cartels are active or there's earthquakes. earthquakes so uh where are you right now and are you safe yeah i we had a listener reach out and ask if i was safe uh in the in the bogota uh with the columbia earthquake yeah i was right i was i was probably one of the first people in touch with you when that happened i got a lot of texts that day it was like a bigger a bigger sms day than my birthday do you try to upsell them on some campaigns for people no but uh i you know bogota was was was largely undisturbed but i will put a link in the show notes if folks want to donate because there were some hard hit areas uh in in colombia um you know that are less uh less developed and and more more kind of uh i mean you know colombia is a big country so there are places just way out there um that that were affected so but yeah i am in bogota i am fine and uh you know i i'm kind of figuring out what our next uh little little trip is going to be yeah do you have any any in mind or anything you need people to weigh in on i mean there's a, you know, there's a couple of cities like Barrickia that I haven't been in, in Columbia that I'd like, I'd like to visit.

4:14Um, but next year, Kieran, and I was telling you this over, over text, I'm thinking about, uh, doing a big trip at the big trip to Japan. And that's, uh,

4:24Kiernan:you know, that you're going to need two, three weeks there. I know, I know what's an, it's an off cycle year. So I'll have the time and, uh, I'm, I'm, you know, finger, fingers crossed, so we can make that happen because it would be you know i want to do the tokyo and then and then sort of the high speed loop uh around to a couple other cities i mean the truth is you need like two weeks just for tokyo but uh you should i think you should go for like three months i think you should fully relocate there i would i would i would love to do that the time zone though is yeah that's the tough part you got a lot of uh american time zone clients there yeah um well Well, we're starting, listen, as we're diving in, because we're talking about some big trips, because we are also thinking about some bigger trips next year.

5:11Kiernan:We're talking about maybe Hawaii, which there are some great national parks there. You got to plan those quite early. And then I've teased, you know, we might, I'm trying to convince my mom that we should do an Ireland road trip. And I'm trying to convince Ryan to come back to the United States sometime so that he and I could do a national parks trip. I've got my eye on Theodore Roosevelt National Park, but it takes like three days to get there because there are no direct flights to Maduro. But we'll see what's on. This is the right time to be planning your 2027 adventures. Yeah, if there's anybody out there in Tokyo that's looking to give me a free week in the hotel for putting it on the internet.

5:56Kiernan:out of office pod at gmail.com and uh we'll both take that offer uh but ryan before we head out east i think it's important that we get to chicago with kids tell the cabin crew flight attendants prepare for takeoff please i was surprised you jumped into the cabin crew so hard ryan i didn't think you'd like going to chicago with kids um well i like chicago I've never been with kids, but, you know, I'm excited. I like to eat there. So excited. Do you know I'm actually going to lead with food? Usually we do food at the bottom of these city tours, but food with kids is really important. And God, Chicago is such a good food city.

6:36Are your kids picky eaters?

6:38Kiernan:No, they're not too bad. I mean, they each have like kind of red line stuff that they're not interested in. But overall, you can get food into them. That's good. That's good. And Chicago's not like, you know, some of the famous Chicago foods are not overly complex. No. So so right when we hit the ground on our first travel day, I wanted to go get the iconic Chicago hot dogs. Now, are you familiar with Chicago style hot dogs? I really do. I like Chicago style hot dogs. I'm a fan. And we were we were staying in the South Loop, which is near Grant Park, kind of an area that's easy to go north, south, east, west.

7:16Kiernan:It's very easy to get to all the major attractions. So I did some research and we ended up at a restaurant called Devil Dogs. And dogs is spelled D-A-W-G-S. But I don't think I can pronounce that correctly. Dogs. And these, they serve and specialize in Chicago-style hot dogs. And for anyone who doesn't know Chicago-style hot dogs, they're famously known as sort of dragged through the garden because they have a bunch of sort of unexpected vegetables present on them. So a real classic Chicago hot dog, it should be an all-beef frankfurter, which, come on, you really want that most of the time anyway, on a poppy seed bun.

7:58Kiernan:Now, I will say devil dogs did not have a poppy seed bun. You can, I have noticed some places will not do the poppy seed bun, but they'll sprinkle poppy seeds on it. From my research, I understand that's an acceptable alternative. With a classic yellow mustard, none of that Dijon stuff. This bright, like, neon green, hurts your eyes to stare directly at it, pickle relish. Chopped up white onions. Tomato slices. And we're talking, like, full tomato slices. Not, like, chopped up tomato. A dill pickle. What's called sport peppers, which are these little, like, pickled hot peppers. and then key, absolutely key, secret ingredient, celery salt.

8:44Ooh, celery salt.

8:46Kiernan:And these were killer. I like devil dogs. It's a chain that's around Chicago. So if you're looking for a good place to get a go-to Chicago hot dog, definitely recommend them. And I'll say, turned out to be a good way to get a bunch of vegetables in the kids. Yeah, if you put it in a hot dog, exactly. The other sort of trademark Chicago food is deep dish pizza. Have you had deep dish pizza? I have, yes, absolutely. So I've only had it once before. I've been to Chicago many times. I've been there in business. I've been there for tourism. And I have sought out deep dish pizza, I think, only one other time.

9:28Kiernan:And I went to like one of the great classic places to get it, which was called Giordano's, G-I-O-R-D-A-N-O-S. And that's sort of an old school, you know, red and white checkered tablecloth kind of place, very old timey, old pictures on the walls. And this time, Catherine and I opted for a place called Williams Inn, which they had a fire and then they rebuilt into the South Loop. So sort of in that tourist area in 2021. And you know I'm a pizza fan, right? You know that. I've done episodes on pizza. You've done whole episodes on something you call Connecticut pizza or something like that. Not just that.

10:12Kiernan:Connecticut is officially the pizza capital of the world, my friend. I mean, New Haven style pizza, the second to none. I've got to say now, having given it a try several times, I don't think I like Chicago deep dish pizza. You know, I thought I was going to get in trouble for being the only one to say that. Really? So you feel the same way? So much dough. Who wants that much dough? It's dough. And I found the dough is like buttery and kind of the crumb is like loose. It's like a pie dough or something. I don't know. I do feel like we're going to get angry. We shouldn't have put the email address up front.

10:54Kiernan:And then, you know, the sauces can, there's a big range of the sauces, but, you know, they have kind of a tomato puree and they're thicker because they've got to kind of stand up to this just enormous amount of cheese because it's essentially a casserole. And, you know, I'm happy I did it, but I have to say, I turned to Catherine while we were eating it and I said, I think this might be it for deep dish pizza. I'm just not convinced. There's such good food in Chicago. I just don't think I want to use up one of my meals on a deep dish. Yeah. And I've tried each time I went to Chicago when I was going there a lot for work, I would try a different, you know, one of these famous places.

11:38And Giordano's did end up being my favorite of the bunch. But I still it's Chicago pizza would be low on my list of pizza styles. Yeah.

11:48Kiernan:I'm not going to get into the many amazing sandwich shops in Chicago, but I got to say, their sandwich scene is second to none. Boston does not have very good sandwiches. I'm in the sandwich business in Boston. And when you go to Chicago, oh my God, it is just like great sandwiches everywhere. So if you have to get a deep dish pizza, I would say Williams Inn and Giordano's have good options, but it's just not really for me. yeah i i the italian beef sandwich is what i'm i'm i usually oh sure and that show has made that like the go-to oh right right yeah yeah that's that's uh that show takes place exactly so so grab a sandwich i i you know bogota has terrible sandwiches like is that so gosh what's so hard about good sandwiches oh there's a place called manhattan deli and let me tell you if if any deli Manhattan give you a sandwich like that, you would, you would, you know, storm out.

12:47Kiernan:Well, I, I, I, gosh, I, I didn't want to get into sandwiches, but I will say one place I would really recommend is called Sandoz street. That's it's Japanese style sandwiches. So it has that milk bread and that's in Chicago. I had that a year ago and man, that, that I've been thinking about that place ever since. So there's tons of great sandwiches. Maybe that could be a future episode sandwiches in Chicago. I've, I've tried a lot and I have a lot of strong opinions, but deep dish, I don't know. I'd skip it. Skip it. The final category of food, and this is very kid-friendly food, is donuts. There's a lot of really good, kind of classic, artisanal, old-fashioned style donut shops.

13:29Kiernan:What we did was one morning, we walked between two that are about 15 minutes apart. I like them both very much. One is called Fire Cakes and one is called Donut Vault. And Fire Cakes is a little more experimental. Like they have some like, you know, birthday cake kind of flavors. Whereas Donut Vault, it's like just the facts, man. It's glazed. It's simple frosted. And I just love old fashioned donuts. So what I do is I get one old fashioned and then I got a glazed pistachio. And my kids and I, we ate several different ones and we compared and contrasted. I thought it was more of a learning opportunity.

14:09Hopefully you're sharing the donuts. You're not each having a full.

14:12Kiernan:We each had about a donut or two. I had two. I think two donuts is okay. Yeah. These aren't monsters. Yeah. Yeah. No, we're not all injecting ourselves. Okay. Some of us have like real human appetites still. All right. So now to get to the attraction. So in previous episode, we've talked about the bean. We've talked about Buckingham fountain. Those are all within that huge Grant park. And so we don't have to cover those. We did visit and their hits with the kids as you would expect. Yeah. I mean, hard to go wrong with the, with the donut. But well, no, I was talking about the bean and Buckingham fountain.

14:58Kiernan:Did you stop listening? Sorry. Jesus Christ. You know, we're doing a show right now. Are you aware? Is this thing on? He's still talking about donuts, people. God almighty. What were you looking at? I'm just so curious what you were reading that you weren't listening anymore. Someone sent me a ping, even though I'm on Do Not Disturb. They clicked. They overrode it. Oh, I love the override function. I do that to my employees all the time. They've turned off notifications. I'm like, make it do that slam thing. Okay. So near the Bean and Buckingham Fountain, though, I didn't know this. There's a magnificent park called Maggie Daly Park, which is named for the former first lady, Mayor Richard Daly's wife.

15:44Kiernan:And it is an amazing I'm not like my kids love going to playgrounds. This playground is like something like nothing I've ever seen. It is broken up into all these little special areas. and it has a skating, a place for skating. They have a play garden, a climbing wall, these amazing huge slides and play structures. And the kids were just having a ball. So this is a definite place I would recommend. It even has like a trail system that goes in between the separate play structures. So there's like a forest and a lagoon and they call it a wave lawn, which is this like kind of turfy area that goes all up and down and you can roll on it and, you know, shove your sister on it.

16:27Kiernan:And it's great. So the kids had just a fantastic time here. And this is one of two magnificent playgrounds I'm going to cover on this episode. My one watch out here, Ryan, is that it's so busy on a beautiful day. You got to keep a really, really close eye on your kids because they can get in between these separate areas without you realizing they've left where you're watching. And I was like, there were a few moments where I had lost the kids and I was like really starting to sweat. Is this a place you need a ticket for? I'm looking at pictures that look like a theme park. No, it's a totally accurate thing to ask because it really looks like a place they could charge for.

17:08Kiernan:But no, it's just a beautiful public park. I couldn't recommend it more than Maggie Daly Park. Very cool. So if you're looking, you know, if you're doing your tourism and you want to see the Bean and Buckingham Palace and Millennium Park, take the kids here to let off some steam for half an hour and you stay right in the vicinity. You're right on the lake still. And one just interesting little fact that which is going to come into my last stop too is that Chicago is very proud to keep their lakefront public. So open, clear, and free of any buildings is like the standard that it's held to. And park advocates get very upset when that is threatened.

17:46Kiernan:And this park almost didn't come to be because there were plans to put a children's museum here. and people rose up and said no no no that like the the lake front is to be open clear and free and that's why it got translated into this playground absolutely the right decision that's uh that that's that's very cool um now the we did also hit up um and that i'm gonna leave the next playground until i'll just tease it here it's at the obama presidential center there's the second playground I'm going to talk about. But we're saving the presidential center for the last site we're going to see. We then went up to Lincoln Park Zoo.

18:27Kiernan:And similarly, what ties this together with the Daily Park is it's a free zoo, which I have to say, when I heard there was like a free public zoo, a part of me was just like, you know, is this going to be just like a few dogs in like a couple of boxes. I didn't think like this is going to be a grand zoo, but it turns out this is a grand zoo, Ryan. Yeah, apparently it's one of the handful of zoos that offer free admission. It's like what they're known for. Yeah, that's what I just said. Yeah, I know. Are you still getting pinged by that employee? No, I'm just saying that. I'm recording a podcast right now.

19:08This looks like a serious zoo. I see giraffes. Yeah.

19:12Kiernan:So it's the longest running free zoo. And it's well worth a visit. Like you said, there are drafts, there are bears, there's lion, there's a pygmy hippo, there's penguins, there's an amazing birdhouse and reptile house. All that kind of great stuff that you associate with great zoos are here. It's not humongous, but it is well worth a visit. You could certainly fill two or three hours there. and what was nice for us is we met friends who also had kids there and we were able to just kind of you know you didn't have to worry about being there all day because you had paid 45 dollars to get in you could go in see the best stuff and leave without feeling like you were short-changed and it looks like they've got a primate house i love i love a primate house you you've always been a big fan of primates but let's not get into your dating life um one little fact about the Lincoln Park Zoo that I love is that it was founded when the New York City Central Park gave Chicago a pair of two mute swans.

20:18Kiernan:And this was in 1868. And I guess back then that passed for an attraction and they thought, we're going to need a zoo for these mute New York swans. Mute New York, that's funny. So it's well worth it's well worth a visit. Lincoln Park, too, is a beautiful park. Good playgrounds there. Lots to walk around. They do have like a plant conservatory there. We didn't have time to get into there. It is on my list. There's another conservatory, the Garfield Conservatory that we recommended in the last episode. I still think that one is probably if you're only going to do one, it's a little more grand. But if you're already at the Lincoln Park Zoo, well worth going in there as well.

21:03Kiernan:Love it. On the topic of parks, Ryan, there's also I was talking to my my sister-in-law is a native of Chicago. And I was asking her, what's like an off the beaten path place we could bring the kids? And she pointed out that there is an elevated rail park, which you and I always like talking about. It's called the 606. the 606 and it's a it's a quite long former railroad park the kind of this this you know this kind of in vogue park structure that's been taking on especially once New York built the High Line it became all the rage everywhere and it has some cool art installations I'll say it's not quite the High Line in New York where there's art and special plants and really nicely curated plant areas all around and sort of landscape architecture.

21:57Kiernan:It's a little bit more of like a classic running biking path with some art sprinkled in. Good views of the neighborhoods around. We took the kids on it. It didn't really keep the kids' attention, I would say. But if we had had bikes, I think it would have been successful. So the 606, I would also recommend as a park destination. Cool. I hadn't heard that they had an elevated park. That's cool. I know. And you're somebody who knows Chicago well. So that's why I wanted to mention it. The 606, it's not, it doesn't seem to be, it's not exactly in like the tourist area. So I don't know that you would know it was there.

22:32Kiernan:And that's why I want people to explore it. And there were some cool art pieces. There was one I really liked. It was about a hundred cutouts of close-ups of different birds' eyes. And they were arranged in this cool formation. And it was like standing up against the park. And my kids and I were debating which color eyes and what kind of bird do we think it came from. And Charlie really likes birds. So that did hold our attention for a while. I'll put a link into that one in the show notes because I did like that one. That's cool. I love birds. Now, another great place to go with kids is museums.

23:09Kiernan:We spend a fair amount of time in museums. I've talked about the Field Museum in the last episode. Great natural history museum. To me, the highlight is definitely the dinosaurs. Sue is famously the Tyrannosaurus rex that they have there. 40 feet long, 13 feet tall. It's one of the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons ever found. and they've put it in this amazing display there. And to get to it, you have to walk through the display called Evolving Planet, which takes you through all the major eras and extinctions that have happened on planet Earth. And then you kind of come to the hall that's all about dinosaurs.

23:52Kiernan:And while everybody comes for Sue, they've just got an amazing collection of all the classics. You got Hadrosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops. I mean, all of the really great ones. So it's a dream world for kids who are interested in dinosaurs. Is Charlie a dinosaur guy? He likes dinosaurs well enough. The next museum, it captures him a little bit more. So we can jump right to that. Because if you want more on the Field Museum, we covered it more in the last episode. But certainly a pleaser with kids. So Field Museum should be in there. And of course, they have my favorite mold-o-rama machines.

24:28Kiernan:You know, those like where you can custom print those plastic toys. great$5 souvenir. We actually did not get one because I still had good moldoramas from my last visit to the Field Museum, though Charlie did want them. No, one museum I had saved for us to do as a family is the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry. And the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, it's kind of a classic science museum. It definitely tips more towards things for children, but there's plenty to visit as an adult too. If you're just there without kids, I would still recommend that you go. You probably only need about an hour and a half or two hours.