Smart Travel: Family weekends bring generations together

Businesspeople often have to struggle to arrange quality time with their families. Here's a suggestion for a family weekend that will help cement your relationships with your children and grandchildren and your spouse.

We recently enjoyed such a time with three of our grandchildren, Robert, 16, Michael, 14, and Jessica, 12, in Chicago, a tourist-friendly city with many attractions kids would en-joy. We would suggest a city that's close enough you can drive or use your frequent flyer miles on a plane.

Our flight from Springfield through St. Louis and on to Chicago was a treat in itself for the teenagers even though they had flown before. We stayed at the Embassy Suites on State Street on the Loop.

We recommend all-suite hotels for this type of trip because they offer roomy accommodations, full breakfast is included so you don't have to hunt for breakfast each morning, and they are comfortable with children as guests. They had a pool, too very important so the grandkids could swim and relax after a hard day of touring various attractions. A cocktail hour in the atrium served to refresh tired adults.

Before the trip we suggested that the kids go online, study Chicago and choose the museums, restaurants and other places they would like to visit.

We visited the Sears Tower and the Field Museum of Natural History; the kids particularly liked the Egyptian galleries. The Shedd Aquarium was a favorite, too. There were great dolphin and whale shows in the water auditorium. On the same campus was the planetarium, we skipped this in favor of the Museum of Science and Industry.

We spent part of an afternoon at the Navy Pier, which has everything from shops to Ferris wheels. And they wanted to see the Water Tower and the Magnificent Mile for some shopping which included stops at Marshall Field, The Nike Store and the American Girl doll store, as well as lots of window shopping. Ask your travel agent if a city pass is available at your destination, they often allow admission to all the major attractions.

Eating out was fun for all. They had selected the Rainfor-est Caf, resplendent with fake foliage, gorillas and thunderstorms. The other two evenings we sampled ethnic fare, one night in a Greek taverna and another in a nearby and excellent Italian restaurant. In the latter, the elderly waiter looked like Disney's version of Gepetto, Pinocchio's father, and in his heavy Italian accent he bantered with the youngsters and won them over completely.

(Linda and Dr. Don Over-end are principals in The Travel Group, a full-service travel agency formed by the merger of Ozark World Tra-vel, Consulting Travel and Thomas Travel.)