Posts Tagged ‘Illinois’
Can I Have Some Galena With My Wine? Part 3
This is my final installment of my Galena trip. Here are parts 1 and 2 to check out if you haven’t read them yet!
Day 2 started super early. As in, before the sun even got up (as you can see from the photo). We were all dragging some major butt, but we were not turning down this awesome opportunity — a hot air balloon ride. Now, I’m afraid of heights, and I did this! Galena On The Fly is a must do thing if you are in Galena. They do hot air balloon flight both at sunrise and sunset. The views you see are magnificent. 
It was like being on an airplane except without the security line! I found my ears popping quite often, and I was so glad I decided to chew gum. While up on the balloon, we were able to see Illinois, Iowa, and even Wisconsin! This is definitely something that needs to go on your bucket list if you’ve never done it.
One of the ladies didn’t go on the ride, but took this awesome video of us taking off:
Doesn’t that look like fun? After we got our feet back on the ground, we headed over to the Galena Log Cabin Getaway & Adventure Creek Alpaca Farms. I’ll be honest — I’ve never seen an alpaca up to this point. Needless to say, I never thought I’d be able to walk one either. This was definitely very cool and something I know my kids will love! I couldn’t believe how soft their fur (not sure what to call it) was, and I can understand why people make scarves, hats, sweaters, etc from it!
From here we went to the Chestnut Mountain Resort. We got to tour the facilities, see the ski hills (I’ve never been skiing in my life so I can’t comment on them), and see the alpine slide. We also ate lunch here and had one of the best view ever.
After we had our sad goodbyes, a bunch of us headed back into Galena and went shopping! OMG. They had everything you could ever want. Chocolate, T-shirts, toys, windchimes — I mean anything you could want they had. This sign on the right was in one of the shops we went in. I found it funny too. :)
That was my trip to Galena in a nutshell. I know it’s a lot to take in — trust me, I lived it! I think I’m actually going to do one last past with my thank yous and I’m hoping to include all of my reviews from Lisa Travels. That post may take a little bit, so please be patient! :)
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Can I Have Some Galena With My Wine? Part 1
For those who don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook (and if you don’t, why not?), I was invited by the CVB to go check out Galena. Galena, where? Galena, IL. I actually drove through here once a long, long, long time ago to go to a wedding. We didn’t stop. And now I am seriously kicking myself in the butt that we didn’t.
Going into this trip, I really had no idea what to expect. I went with 8 other bloggers — some I kinda knew, some I met for the first time. I didn’t even really know the people I carpooled with. However, after a 3 hour drive, it was like we were long lost friends. To be honest, the whole weekend felt that way. It was like we all had known each other for years. We met at the Convention and Visitors Bureau and that was the start of our great adventure!
The first place we walked (and we walked and walked and walked some more for the majority of the things we did. One of the girls went on google and mapped out our course. It was like 3 miles of walking. All up hill. 
Ok, it just felt like the majority of it was uphill.) was Grant’s Home. It’s a historical site. Back in the day, they (the Grants) were given this home after the civil war. I think they stayed in it about 18 months. It was very cool to see how people lived back in the day.
From there we checked out The Old Blacksmith Shop. This actually wasn’t on our stop list. However, a couple of the girls were looking through the windows, and we were invited in! We got a quick history about what they did there. The cool thing is that this Blacksmith Shop is still open! They do work for local residents besides showing us tourists what they do!
From here we went to get our super yummy lunch from Cannova’s. Delicious doesn’t describe how good this food really was! Here’s a little sneak preview of what we ate there:
That’s the end of part one. I’ll be adding on what else we did in Galena. I’ll also be reviewing each place in more detail over at Lisa’s Travels. Happy Reading!
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