NABA 2023 Schaumburg , IL
Guests enjoying the cabin like feel of the Northern Lights Display courtesy of the Conetop Muesum
Our NABA trip for 2023 started off with Bullock ’ s coming down to spend the night with us on Tuesday evening . We looked at a possible construction project that we wanted some advice from Dave on . Then we went out for a nice supper and got a good night ’ s sleep before we got up early on Wednesday and ventured off to Schaumburg , Illinois . We started off with a morning pit stop at the Kwik Star in Fort Dodge for breakfast and a bathroom break . We got on Highway 20 and rolled on over to Dubuque . We pulled into Dubuque and the first thing we did was go to the Fennelon Elevator . They had never been on it and it ’ s cool . It takes you from the bottom of the hill in downtown Dubuque up to the top where you get a nice view up and down the Mississippi River Valley . You can see Wisconsin and Illinois . The ride itself is a little bit creepy because it ’ s very steep and you ’ re in a little trolley car but it ’ s a must experience thing when you ’ re in Dubuque . Next , we went to the Copper Kettle for lunch . The food there is very good . The atmosphere is good as well with some old Dubuque memorabilia , and the old Dubuque brewing and malting brewery , which is an impressive structure is right across the street . After lunch , we decided to hit a couple more places in Dubuque before we headed off to Chicago land . First stop was the famous Paul ’ s Tavern .
This is a cool little spot with a bunch of stuffed animal mounts behind glass . It ’ s just an old-fashioned dive bar . And they ’ ve got this old cast iron gas fired hamburger cooker . Big Bird saw that and had to have a burger on the way back more about that later . We enjoyed a beer at Paul ’ s and then we went over to the Star brewery . There ’ s a very nice winery there called Stone Cliff . They have a tap room with Dubuque Star beers on tap . The beer is made up the river in Potosi . We had a beer there and then it was time to get rolling towards Schomburg . We arrived around 530 . Our GPS took us to one of the Hyatt hotels , but it was the wrong one but fortunately the other one was only about two blocks away . Getting everybody ’ s luggage into the hotel room is always a chore , especially when you have the kids along and Judy is always bringing food and things for special occasions and coolers with beer etc . So that took a little while to do , but we got settled in and started prowling the hallways doing room to room trading . We picked up our registration badges at the NABA hospitality room . And we had to check out the awesome Cone Top Museum Northern Lights room , more on that soon . We drank some beers and got acquainted with some people and let everybody know we were there . Around 1030 we headed off to bed .
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