Saturday, July 21st 2007
Day off in Chicago!

We woke up camping out in a truck plaza outside of Chicago. Jeremy, our driver had driven us in pretty close, but we didn’t want to go any further until we were sure we could park in downtown Chicago. We were planning on going the “Field Museum” today. After some coffee and some egg Mc muffins, we made our way closer into downtown Chicago.
We got to have special visitors passes to the museum thanks to a close friend of ours Ron Onesti. Thank you so much, Ron!
We found parking without a hitch, and we were immediately on our way to the museum to go see as much as we could see before it closed at 5pm.
We got to see all kinds of Native American exhibits, animal exhibits and the most intact, well-preserved tyrannosaurus rex in the world ever found (her name is ‘Sue’).
They had an exhibit about life on Earth starting from the “Precambrian” period (45 billion-543 million years ago) with prokaryotes and bacteria to present day earth and all of the life that had come and gone through various stages of global extinction. It also showed how the continents had shifted and moved. We had just enough time after that to see ancient Egypt and visit the gift shops.
We were not finished with Chicago yet. We were ready to go find some food somewhere with a cool atmosphere. Thanks to Eric’s web surfing, we stumbled across a place called “Al Capone’s Hideaway and Steakhouse.” It was literally Al Capone’s hideaway back in the 20’s, and because of that, boy we had quite a trip getting there! This place was out in the sticks, which brings me to share a little bit of history behind this place.
No one ever knew that Al Capone’s hideaway was off the beating path or even close to it. But for 75 years, the hidden spot along the east bank of the Fox River in an unincorporated area north of St. Charles had been a popular restaurant and watering hole. The characters who’d visited here and the activities that occurred here back in the 20’s are what makes this place so unique. There were many wild and daring times here, and the owners acutally manufactured their own liquor here during prohibition times and played host to many shadowy figures such as Al Capone and George “Bugs” Moran. “Bathtub gin” was made here (and then mixed with beer) and when a raid ensued, they would pump the beer through cold copper lines into the henhouse. The crazy thing is that this underground system had not been discovered until the 60’s, when a renovation took place!
A lot of speak-easies and roadhouses had this system back in those days. They had done a really good job with preserving this house, and keeping “the vibe.” There were a lot of original pictures hanging on the walls of gangsters who frequented there. The place had two levels (that we knew of): the downstairs being a full bar and the upstairs being a dining area. The front door to the dining area still had a small slit of an opening for back in the day when they used to demand a “password” before allowing entrance.
They had several violin cases hanging about the place that featured Tommy guns inside of them!
They also had a strolling Dixieland group, and we found out that they’d be coming upstairs to the dining area to play.
After ordering some drinks downstairs, we went back upstairs and got our table. The place was busy and buzzing with activity.
Once again, that cool feeling hit me as we sat there waiting to order. How lucky we are to be here hanging out, being on the road and getting to experience these cool things! We toasted to that and not long after dinner was on its way.
Dinner was really good, and the band of guys had come upstairs to play for the dinner crowd.
I noticed that as we “relaxed” and hung out, that we started to drum more and more on the table along with the guys playing. At first, we weren’t really sure how they were taking this enthusiastic activity from us, we’re musicians and you can only sit so long before you have to start taking part in the musical flow of a situation when given. I’m sure that we were one of the more rowdy crowds that they’d had (except for back in the 20’s). We were calling off requests from “Sweet Georgia Brown” to “It Don’t Mean A Thing If You Ain’t Got That Swing.” And they would play our requests! As the night went on and the spirits flew, we ended up jamming with them! It started with Becky jumping up on an old upright piano they had and hammering along with them on the tunes. I wasn’t far behind as the floodgates had opened and Eric was off to get my fiddle. It turned into one heck of a jam! We had a blast with these guys and they were so sweet to allow us to sit in and play. The owner of the restaurant gave us a huge Tommy gun bottle of their Vodka and some stogies. We also picked up some hats, shirts and mugs on the way out. Thank you “Al Capone’s Steakhouse and Hideaway” for having us! We strongly suggest to anyone who visits Chicago, if they’re in the mood for a visit to the days of the Mob and for some great food and entertainment, to go see and hang at this place! You will not be disappointed.