Midwest travel: Let art speak to you at Grand Art & Design Fest
Chicago
Design stars
Grand Art & Design Festival, Chicago's annual street festival that celebrates design, will have tents and courtyards filled with modern, vintage and handmade furniture as well as home accessories from lots of vendors. The festival showcases work by local artisans, jewelry designers and crafters exhibiting handmade goods, clothing and more. Get there in time for happy hour, hayrides, family activities, and live country and americana music programmed by Hideout, Chicago's well-known music venue. 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 26-27, at Grand and Damen avenues, Chicago. Suggested admission donation is $5. (312) 850-9390 or grandartdesign.com.
Livin' on the edge
In a couple of months you'll wish you had an outdoor art fair you could attend, so take advantage now with the Edgewater Fall Art Fair to see an impressive multicultural and multigenerational team of Chicago artists. Around 120 Chicago-based artists will offer original works in painting, photography, printing, illustration, pottery, mixed media and handmade jewelry. There also will be three stages of eclectic live music ranging from jazz and Latin rhythms to choir singing and Americana. Relax in the craft beer garden, and be sure to pack the little Picassos, too, for a children's music talent showcase and a pet parade. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 26-27, at 1030 to 1140 W. Granville, Chicago. Suggest admission donation of $5. edgewaterartists.com/edgewater-fall-art-fair.
Marvelous day for a moon dance
Just like Christmas and Thanksgiving in the West, the Moon Festival is one of the important traditional holidays for the Chinese. Families reunite, and when the full moon rises, they eat moon cakes, sing moon poems and watch the celestial orb in the sky. Get in on the celebration at Chicago's Chinatown Moon Festival and treat the kids to Dragon and Lion Dances, kung fu demos, traditional dances and instruments, games and raffles, lantern show, kids' activities and a dumpling-eating contest. Try a moon cake - a noodle-like dough stuffed with sweetmeats, bean paste, lotus seed paste, melon seed, nuts or duck egg yolks. Noon to 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26, at 2100 S. Wentworth Ave., Chicago. Free. moonfestchicago.com.
Midwest
Moo-sic to your ears
Do you know someone who sees a rump roast as a thing of beauty? Minocqua's 51st annual Beef-A-Rama is that guy's nirvana as beef is celebrated in all of its cuts. There's the Parade of Beef, Rump Roast Run, Beef-Eating Contest, Cow Pie Plop and storefront beef roast cook-off with more than 100 beef roasts followed by a famous beef sandwich sale. After you're sated with sirloin, explore the wares of artisans and crafters, shop specials, and listen to live bluegrass, country and folk music, or take the kids to do some activities. 8 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 25, and 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26, at Torpy Park in Minocqua, Wisconsin. Free. (800) 44-NORTH or beefarama.com.
How do you like them apples?
Take a bite of out of the 23rd annual Long Grove Apple Fest next weekend. Indulge in a profusion of apple-inspired treats available at village restaurants and food booths, including pies, doughnuts, caramel apples, hot apple cider, apple lattes and apple salsa. Kids can enjoy a strolling magician, balloon artists, face painters, and arts and crafts. Live music, tug of war, three-legged races, potato-sack races and an apple pie-eating contest round out the fun. 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Sept 25-26, and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 27, at Old McHenry and Robert Parker Coffin roads, Long Grove. $5 for adults; free for kids 12 and younger. (847) 634-0888 or visitlonggrove.com.
Over there
Midway Village Museum in Rockford becomes a blazing battlefront as it hosts the largest World War II re-enactment in the nation, including more than 1,200 uniformed re-enactors and more than 70 vintage tanks and other armored vehicles. World War II Days includes realistic battles; displays in historical buildings on the museum property; soldiers' base camps filled with period vehicles, tents and artifacts; skirmishes integrated in the historic village; woods encampments; and World War II memorabilia from vendors. Food and drinks from local restaurants will be available for purchase. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26, and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 27, at the Midway Village Museum, 6799 Guilford Road, Rockford, Illinois. Tickets, available online or at the gate, cost $14 for adults, $7 for children 3-17, and free for World War II veterans and museum members. (815) 397-9112 or midwayvillage.com.