Indoor Play: Kohl Children's Museum in Glenview

Before you read this post, I have an important question to ask you: How far will you drive to reach a fun, indoor play place?

A. No more than 15 miles.

B. An hour, give or take a few minutes.

C. On a bitterly cold, gray day in January, I'll drive to the ends of the earth -- if the spot is engaging, educational and guarantees that my child will be so worn out he'll sleep through the night.

If you answered "b" or "c," then by all means read on. Otherwise, make sure to check out the Go West Indoor Play Guide for options closer to home!

The Kohl Children's Museum is located in a commercial and residential development on the site of a former naval air station in Glenview. Photos by Tara Burghart.

Name: Kohl Children's Museum

Location: 2100 Patriot Boulevard in Glenview. Phone: 847-832-6600.

Hours: On Mondays from 9:30 a.m. to noon, on Tuesdays through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., on Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. (Check website for longer summer hours.) If you're worried about the museum being crowded, here are the recommended best times for a quieter visit. It closes for all major holidays and for a "clean-up week" in September.

Amenities: The museum offers lockers that can be used for a quarter. There are two semi-private areas for nursing mothers. There are a number of restrooms, including two family restrooms with changing tables. Diapers can be purchased for $1. Strollers are allowed in the museum, but there is stroller parking, too. There are three soft play areas specifically for infants, located so that parents can keep an eye on babies as well as older children in nearby adjacent play areas.

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Indoor Play: Hickory Knolls Discovery Center in St. Charles

Are you ready for the gray, chilly days that lay ahead? We’ll try to help you through them with our Indoor Play Guide. Here’s a new addition to the list; it just opened last spring, and it's free!

The wigwam and canoe at the Hickory Knolls Discovery Center. Photo by Tara Burghart.Name: Hickory Knolls Discovery Center, a 10,500-square-foot building on the west side of St. Charles designed to showcase the natural treasures in the Fox Valley.

Location: 3795 Campton Hills Road in St. Charles in James O. Breen Community Park, the same park that is home to Otter Cove Aquatic Park. The easiest entrance to Hickory Knolls is on the south side of Campton Hills Road, just west of Peck Road. The center’s phone number is 630-513-4399.

Hours: Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Thursdays. Open noon to 4 p.m. on Sundays.

Amenities: Live animal displays, indoor turtle pond, a giant rabbit, a teepee, canoe, coloring station and a large room that can be rented for special events (and is good for letting energetic kids blow off steam!) The restrooms have a diaper-changing station. While there is no nursing area, it would be easy to find a semi-private place to breastfeed. The St. Charles Park District offers a number of programs at Hickory Knolls, too, but they do require advance registration. Check the current park district catalogue for events; here's a link to programs scheduled at Hickory Knolls during the winter of 2011-2012.

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Easy Outing: Santa’s Village AZoosment Park in East Dundee

I’m not a Chicago native, so I don’t have fond memories of going to Santa’s Village or Kiddieland when I was younger. But Go West readers were so excited about our giveaway for four family passes to Santa’s Village AZoosment Park this spring, I knew I had to check it out myself.

Name: Santa’s Village AZoosment Park

The Balloon Race at Santa's Village. Photo by Tara Burghart.Location: 601 Dundee Avenue in East Dundee, near the intersection of Route 25 and Route 72. You park in a grassy lot outside the park. Parking is free.

Hours: Fridays from 10 a.m to 6 p.m and Saturdays, Sunday and holidays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. The park will close for the season on Oct. 30, 2011 and reopen in spring 2012. Click herefor a list of special upcoming events, including a Harvest Festival.

Amenities: Carnival rides for smaller children; a petting zoo; a walk-through aviary; pony rides; horse sleigh ride; exotic animal show, etc. There is a picnic pavilion (you can bring your own food) and picnic tables throughout the park. Concessions are available at several locations. There is a changing table in at least one restroom facility. I didn’t see any space dedicated to breastfeeding mothers. But nursing mothers could find a quiet place to rest under the picnic pavilion, which was empty during out visit except around lunchtime.

Price: $16.50 per person (adults and children 3 years and up.) $13.50 for seniors (65 and up.) Children 2 and under are free. Active military members with a valid ID are free with one paid child’s general admission.

Good for: Toddlers through age 7 or 8. (Note: The park says it’s aimed at children ages 2-12, but I think children on the older end of that recommended range would be bored quickly, at least in the park’s current incarnation.)

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Easy Outing: Fox River Trolley Museum in South Elgin

When my husband, daughter and I turned into the parking lot for the Fox River Trolley Museum, I was skeptical. It looked like a graveyard for unwanted, rusted-out train cars. But our visit was one of the most fun, unique family outings we’ve had in a while. Read on to find out why.

Name: Fox River Trolley Museum in South Elgin, an outdoor museum devoted to electric trolley cars and featuring a 4-mile round trip along the Fox River.

Location: Along Route 31 in South Elgin, on the west side of the Fox River. The address is 361 South LaFox Street, three blocks south of State Street in South Elgin. The museum is on the east side of the road and is marked by flags.

This trolley was built in 1924 for what would become the Chicago Rapid Transit Co. Photos by Tara Burghart.Hours: On Sundays from Mother’s Day through the first Sunday in November, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. On Saturdays from the last Saturday in June through Labor Day, from 11 a.m to 5 p.m. (The last trolley leaves about a half-hour before the museum closes.) Also open on Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day. See the “Special Events” section below for info on holiday-themed events in October and December. Check the museum visitor's guide for more details, too.

Amenities: The museum has a number of shaded picnic tables and a vending machine that sells cold soda. In the ticket office, there are a few candy treats available for purchase, as well as souvenirs. There is no running water at the site. There are two portable restrooms. The museum says that County Park, a few hundred yards northeast of the museum grounds, features restrooms with running water, but I was unable to check those out in person. The trolley trip makes a stop at the Jon J. Duerr Forest Preserve, which features covered shelters with fire places and grills, as well as dry restrooms. Basically, don't forget your hand sanitizer.

Price: I suppose you could wander around the museum grounds for free, but the real highlight is the 4-mile round trip on a trolley along the banks of the Fox River. One ride for an adult on the trolley is $4. Seniors are $3. Children ages 3 through 11 are $2. Children 2 and under are free. If you’d like to ride the trolley twice, you can add just $1 to your ticket, but that decision has to be made when you make your initial purchase.

Good For: All ages. Most of the trolleys require you to climb a few stairs to reach the car, and there are some gaps between stairs and the platform. These are very old cars, in various stages of renovation (or disrepair!) So a 1:1 adult to child ratio with small children, or extremely curious ones, would be ideal.

Our Experience: I’ve driven by the Fox River Trolley Museum a number of times, and even though we aren’t particularly train buffs, we had an awesome time this past weekend during our 90 minutes at the museum.

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Easy Outing: Randall Oaks Barnyard Zoo in West Dundee

One of my favorite childhood books is “Charlotte’s Web.” I think I might have found Wilbur’s barnyard home in West Dundee.

The backside of the barn. Photos by Tara Burghart.I’m kidding, of course. But the Randall Oaks Barnyard Zoo is much how I picture the primary setting in “Charlotte’s Web.” There’s a charming red and white wooden barn. The barnyard houses goats, sheep and horses. A massive pig lives in a stall inside the barn – and I’m sure there are a few spiders as well!

The barnyard zoo is located in Randall Oaks Park, which is just a lovely, 140-acre park located on, you guessed it, Randall Road about 2 1/2 miles north of I-90. Just outside the entrance to the zoo is a playground perfect for toddlers, a sand area, a large picnic shelter and plenty of shade. A playground for older children is a bit of a ways off, but truly the zoo is aimed at the younger set.

I’ve taken my daughter to Randall Oaks a few times, but at 2 1/2, she’s now the perfect age for it. So we met some friends there last week on a sunny, cool day. We let the kids play for a while on the playground before heading into the zoo, which like the park is part of the Dundee Township Park District.

Non-residents pay $3.25 per person to visit the zoo. Children under 2 are free. When you pay your entrance fee, you can buy a small paper bag of feed for $1 and then refill it as necessary for a quarter at machines along the way. Trust me, your kid will want a bag of feed.

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Easy Outing: Buffalo in Batavia!

When my husband went on a vacation to Colorado about four years ago, I was so excited to get to see a herd of buffalo that live in a Denver city park. Little did I know there is a herd living just a few miles from my home!

Photo by Michael Kappel on Flickr. Taken at Fermilab in April 2011.The buffalo roam a large pasture at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the physics laboratory in Batavia that is part of the U.S. Department of Energy. I just heard about them last month from Tracy Richter – one of our valued contributors here at GWYM. Yesterday turned out to be a perfect day for my daughter and me to check them out when I was eager to find something free and low-key we could do to get us outdoors in the sunshine.

But first .. what are buffalo (or more correctly, bison) doing in Batavia? According to Fermilab’s website, the lab’s first director bought a male bison and four females to Fermilab in 1969 to help “recognize and strengthen Fermilab’s connection” to its “prairie heritage.” A couple of years later, the Illinois Department of Conservation gave the lab 21 more bison – the descendants of those first animals are what you’ll see at Fermilab now.

Having passed Fermilab countless times and seen some security measures and signs from the road, I wasn’t sure how hard it would be to get on the campus. But it was actually very easy. Fermilab's grounds are open to the public every day from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. (from mid-October to mid-April) and from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. the rest of the year. Here’s a map detailing the areas that are open to the public, and you can click here to check the current status of the access to Fermilab – to make sure it hasn’t become more stringent since my visit.

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A Go West Sneak Peek: Otter Cove Aquatic Facility in St. Charles

Once Otter Cove opens at the end of May 2011, it will be an easy (and fun!) outing indeed. So I'm including it in this "Easy Outing" section.

I need to go shopping this weekend to buy my daughter some more swimsuits. Once she sees Otter Cove Aquatic Park in St. Charles, I’m sure we’ll be returning again. And again. And again.

This slide empties into the activity pool. Photos by Tara Burghart.I was so lucky to get a guided tour of the not-quite-finished aquatic facility this week, and today I get to give readers of Go West Young Mom a sneak peek! If you grew up like me, thinking that a Slip  ‘n’ Slide in your front yard was about as good as summer could get, I think you’ll be amazed by Otter Cove.

The 9-acre Otter Cove Aquatic Park is located at the intersection of Peck Road and Campton Hills Road on the west side of St. Charles. It is scheduled to open May 28, with a grand opening scheduled for June 4 featuring games, prizes and catered food.

The aquatic park is part of the St. Charles Park District and was made possible by the passing of a refendum in 2008. It is located right next to theOttter Cove Splash Park, which I’m sure many of you are familiar with. Depending on what kind of pass you buy or daily rate you choose, you will be able to use just the splash park -– or travel between both the aquatic park and the splash park. (A park district staffer will man a gate between the two complexes and check wristbands.)

The drop slides empty into a portion of the lap pool that's 12 feet deep.Otter Cove Aquatic Park was actually supposed to open in the summer of 2010, but late approval of several permits delayed its opening by an entire year.

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