Mr & Mrs RiceTravel have the pleasure of three one-day trips to the Windy City coming up, taking advantage of the great Southwest fares out of PIT. We'll fly into / out of MDW and use public transit from there.

Most of the time is tightly scheduled with specific activities, but we have some gaps, particularly in the early mornings. We arrive at MDW at 8:00 AM.

Most activities or venues (Museums, tours, etc.) don't seem to begin before 10:00 or 10:30 AM. I figure we'll have at least an hour to fill, depending upon flight time and transit time to the selected venue.

So - my challenge to the Chicago-familiar - what to do between our arrival at MDW and when most things begin at 10 or 10:30? Our first trip is next Tuesday, when we expect to visit the Art Institute of Chicago at 10:30, before eating ourselves silly at Taste of Chicago........ The other two trips will be on Saturdays in July.

On one of the trips we'll visit Millenium Park during the morning "gap time" - but that actually fits better during one of the later trips......

Any other ideas for how to spend an hour (say 8:30AM - 9:30AM) in the Chicago area? I guess eating would be an option - some of our best travel memories center around food so feel free to contribute breakfast suggestions as well as other, non-eating suggetions...... The only consideration is that it must be accessible by public transit, preferably the L but bus is possible, too. Thanks!

This might not be early morning, but is too much fun to resist. Take a Segway tour. There are two outfits offering them, both downtown. Cost is $65-70 per person, and they train you how to ride the Segway then take you on a tour. The one we did was around Millenium Park, Grant Park and the Science Museum, and was complete fun.

We are now looking to do one in in Washington DC when we are there this August.

That's easy. Take a walk along Lake Michigan if it's a nice morning. There's allot of runners and walkers along Lake Michigan on the weekends.

If you're downtown by 830-ish grab a coffee and starbucks or Dunkin Donuts, walk around, and feel the city come to life during the morning rush. Its a really neat experience (and if you're not into that, head to the lake and walk around--absolutely beautiful in the morning, when its not too hot yet).

Depends on where you are staying. For breakfast, Clarke's on Belmont, Original Pancake House in various locations, or Ann Sathers on Belmont.

Ride the L out to Oak Park and take a self-guided walking tour of the neighborhood around Frank Lloyd Wright's home studio.

On a Saturday, hit one of the farmers markets that dot various neighborhoods. I miss being "semi-residential" in Chicago on the weekends. I loved getting up and going to the market around Dearborn/Division on Saturday mornings to browse the stalls and find yummy fruit for breakfast and veggies for lunch.

How coincidental that the replies all came in on the day of our first one-day trip!
Glad to hear of the recommendation for Ann Sather's on Belmont - in the end, that was our plan for that bit of extra morning time - but a flight delay took care of that, and we decided to hold that plan for a later trip. We instead took in the photography display in Millenium Park as we worked our way to the Art Institute. We took full advantage of Insititute's proximity to Taste of Chicago, and interspersed artwork (and air conditioning!!!) with eating and music - quite a nice combination! Our "Taste" bargain of the day was the sampler from ARYA BHAVAN in booth number 52: "Samosa (crisp patties with potatoes, peas, coriander and spices)" - very tasty, 3 tickets ($1.50). Also heard a fantastic sax player at "Taste" and enjoyed the "architecture of the 40's" exhibit at the Art Institute. By the way, Tuesdays are free there, so it's a great chance to hop in and see just a sampling of the exhibits and not feel compelled to see everything at once.

JHattery, thanks for the breakfast recommendations, if Ann Sather's doesn't work out we will try one of your other suggestions. It's a day trip (in and out of MDW) so no hotel location to complicate matters.

techgirl, thanks for the idea about Farmers' markets - our next trip is a Saturday, so that would be a good early-morning thought.

Wingman32 and travelnutz, just a walk around the city and/or lake will definitely be on our list - we did spend a bit of time across from Grant Park yesterday, and really enjoyed watching everyone play in the fountain at Millenium Park.

sonora I couldn't believe how many Segways we saw yesterday. Security, police and "regular people" were all using them. Perhaps some were on the tours that you mention - what fun, I'll have to check into that.

Thanks to all for the suggestions. Two more trips in the coming months, and we now should be able to fill those morning voids with something fun and memorable.

the http://www.chicagobotanic.org/ opens at 8am, but it's kind of a trek north. staying in chicago, I say wander around, walk by the lake

Lincoln Park Zoo is a great place.... and free too...