Wheaton: Monkey Joe's

This train and its cars appear on the walls of the toddler zone

The twisting gears of a colorful train on the walls of the toddler area at Wheaton's Monkey Joe's give little ones something to enjoy while the bigger kids are bouncing around on the facilities many inflatables.  Other activities for the tiny tykes include many small toys to push around their very own corner, which is a safe distance away from the enthusiastic bouncing and inevitable running of older patrons. Slightly bigger, bolder youngsters have a bouncy place of their own just a few feet away. Of course, the bravest of all ages will want to try everything. So, bring them early before the biggest kids are out of school, done with their morning activities or out of their pajamas. Kids age 2 and under are half the price of their older siblings and friends! 
  

Coming down the slide on the little kids' inflatble

Wheaton: Lego Train Club Christmas Show

Wheaton, Illinois (Dec. 14, 2013) -- Any show put on by the Northern Illinois LEGO Train Club is a guaranteed good time, so making time for a trip to Cantigny this weekend to see their annual Christmas Train Show was a must do for our family. For this weekend, Cantigny's visitor center is entirely filled with Lego displays by club members, as well as vendors offering unique brick collections and accessories. As always, seeing the huge collection of Lego trains is just part of the fun. Make time to really look at the scenes and find the goofy humor and cultural references crammed into every inch of the layouts. (I'm not quite ready to let the kids watch Dr. Who, but seeing Daleks and Weeping Angels in Lego made me laugh. They thought the "Brick-Fil-A" restaurant was a sillier thing.) The only disappointment we had was not making time to step outside for the for the trackless train rides before they ended for the day. Oh, well, plenty to see inside. 

The show goes on for one more day: Sunday, Dec. 15 from 9 a.m. till 4 p.m. The trackless train rides are $1 and run until 3 p.m. Bring a new, unwrapped toy for Toys for Tots and parking your vehicle will be free! Otherwise parking is $5. The main event is is free. 

Addison library: LEGO train display

Image courtesy of Idea go
at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

To my mind, a pile of Lego bricks gives a child one of the best playthings possible. I also firmly believe that after that first build of the model pictured on the box, its perfectly okay for the direction booklet to get lost and the sets to get mixed together. Let the creative inspiration for the next structure (or garden or monster or...) come from everything around us.

The Addison Public Library will feature the work of one group of talented Lego enthusiasts this weekend with a display crafted by the Northern Illinois Lego Train Club. The layout will fill the library's meeting room from 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26 and 1 till 4:40 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 27. Addison library card holders can stop by ahead of time for free tickets. The rest of us are welcome to drop in. Library staff will allow people in the room as space allows. Tables in the children's area will provide Lego-building opportunities for youngsters.

If you go to this or any of the NILTC shows, give your group time to fully enjoy the display. These layouts always draw a crowd, so a little patience is always a good thing. Any waiting is worthwhile, though, because this club provides settings that are so much more than a train circling past some buildings. Club members create scenes with details full of humor and pop-culture references. Kids and adults love discovering unexpected characters or places as they take in the presentation.

The NILTC has crisply designed and easy-to-navigate website worth looking at to get a sense of the quality of its work, including videos introducing the group's activities. The site also gives a history of the club and answers common questions about what you'll see at their shows.

Coming up in December, the club will make a return appearance at Cantigny Park in Wheaton on December 14-15. Past shows have attracted more than 10,000. Plan now to bring a toy for Toys for Tots and your parking on the day of the event will be free!

The Addison Public Library is at 4 Friendship Plaza, Addison, IL. More information about this weekend's Lego train show is available in the library's current newsletter. 

More Wheaton (and Glen Ellen): Cosley Zoo and 2 Toots

We just can't get enough Wheaton this week. Earlier in the week we visited the DuPage County Historical Society for a peek at their model railroad. Wednesday night found us in the area again in need of dinner, so we stopped at the ever popular 2 Toots in nearby Glen Ellyn. Today, in an effort to prove to my daughter that kids can have other interests, we went to see the animals at Wheaton's Cosley Zoo. Turns out her favorite part there was the caboose. Just can't fight the train love.

A past meal at 2 Toots during Christmastime

 2 Toots is probably the favorite restaurant of most small railroad aficionados in the area. The concept is simple but well executed: food is delivered via model train. Guests can sit at the counter or at booths -- all seats are along the track. While waiting for the meal to come out of the kitchen and around the bend, there is plenty of railroad decor to study, a Thomas video to watch, and Metra trains passing just outside. It's impossible to have a conversation with kids at 2 Toots beyond, "Look at that!" but it's one of the few places that manages to keep busy bodies in their seats until the end of the meal. The joy of this place for Mom and Dad (and other grownups) is that the food isn't an afterthought. 2 Toots knows how to make a good meal. It's standard dinner fair, but very satisfactory.

Cosley Zoo's caboose 

Just a few miles away, Wheaton's Cosley Zoo offers a very manageable outing for families with preschoolers. It's a small zoo with a duck pond, farm animals and wildlife native to the area. Within the zoo's bright red caboose is an exhibit about Illinois' natural world. The gift shop, cafe and restrooms are located "across the tracks" in a what was once Wheaton's first train station. It's just a cute place to visit.

Lisle, or maybe Wheaton: Always have a Plan B

Do you remember that old jingle, "Phone first ..."? That tune popped into my head as the kids hopped out of the car at The Museums at Lisle Station Park and shouted, "Mom, there's a sign that says it's closed." Hmm. You know, a note taped to a window that briskly says, "Sorry for the inconvenience" doesn't really appease a car-load of kids, especially the one who had his heart set on seeing the model railroad layout on the inside of  the farmhouse. So, I can't report much about what Lisle has to offer our young train fans other than the small museum campus has this to tease when the doors are locked: an 1881 caboose and a depot from 1875. (The other structures are a farmhouse, tavern/inn and a blacksmith shop.) Nice, but not quite enough to call the afternoon a success, so on to Plan B. 

We moved up the road a bit to another model railroad display, this one at the DuPage County Historical Museum in downtown Wheaton. The majority of the museum's basement is given to an HO-gauge layout with over 2,000 feet of track and numerous small-scale recreations of local landmarks. Again, we weren't there on quite the right day. Selected Saturdays throughout the year members of the DuPage Society of Model Engineers run the trains for visitors. Alas, we arrived on a Tuesday afternoon. Thankfully, one train can be activated to run independently by the push of a button and there are plenty of scenery details to study from the large viewing windows. There's also a kid-sized train play table and displays on the history of railroads in DuPage County.

A train zips through it's miniature Wheaton landscape

Upstairs, exhibits detail local history, including a current exhibit on the Civil War. My kids liked the station allowing them to sniff the smells familiar to solders. (Conveniently, they had just been listening to the Magic Tree House book Civil War on Sunday on our ride to the museum. Can't beat audio books for keeping young travelers entertained!) Downtown Wheaton is a stop on the Union Pacific-West line, meaning it could be a destination on a Metra ride if you plan ahead. If not, enough Metra and UP trains zip through to give kids a look at the big engines they've just seen in miniature.

Getting back to Lisle, assuming the museums are open as scheduled on another summer afternoon, could also happen via Metra on the BNSF line. Or the family van, which is always more likely. Lesson of the day: when traveling with kids, always have a back up plan and plenty of in-car amusements!