We decided that Amy, Joel and Carolyn would stay back while Scott and I made the trek into downtown. We left around 9:30 and took the blue line to Grand, and the #65 Grand over to Michigan Avenue. So…. apparently Chicago has double-decker streets. I did not know that, and being the road-geek that I am, I would have expected to know that. A brief history on that – there are many double-decker (and a few triple-decker) streets in downtown Chicago. We sort of have one on the Brent Spence bridge here in Cincinnati, but here, southbound traffic goes on the top, and northbound on the bottom. In the streets in Chicago, the bottom layer is 2-way and the top layer is 2-way too. It’s quite odd. Apparently, in the 1850s the folks of Chicago decided that their streets were always muddy and such, so they raised them 5-7 feet above where they were to allow for proper sewers and drainage. The first double-decker street was Michigan Avenue in the 1910s. If you’re interested in more info, follow the link above…
Anyway, we wandered around downtown for awhile looking at the double-deckerness of it all, and then made a foray into the Lego Store. I wasn’t really impressed. I mean, they did have some pretty cool things, like a life-sized Darth Vader made out of Legos, but (at least my impression was that) it had a huge area for kids to play and experiment, and that just wasn’t the case. It had some small areas, but nothing too exciting. Scott did enjoy playing with some Thomas the Tank Engine trainset / lego pieces, but we didn’t do a whole lot there. We ate lunch at the mall-type area there, and then since we had some time to kill, took a tour on the “El” in the Loop. We did a circuit and then got on the Red Line going north to Wrigley Field. The train was VERY crowded – standing room only. I had to pull the old line of telling Scott “Sorry Scott there’s no room for you to sit; all the seats are taken.” A college kid heard me and offered her seat, but she was too far away for us to get to it. Eventually some folks got off and we got to sit.
Wrigley Field was cool. We almost missed the first part of the game because we got there a bit late, and the line for Will Call was long. I was a bit afraid that something was going to go wrong, but it didn’t, and we made it just in time. We had seats behind first base on the main level, underneath the upper deck (i.e. in the shade). Really good seats. Cubs spanked the Pirates, 5-1. Mark Prior threw a 2-hitter. There was some good excitement – 2 good plays at the plate, both outs (Neifi Perez trying to score from first on a double, and Derrek Lee trying to score from third on a wild pitch). Overall, Scott seemed pretty bored, but he was a trooper, and I have to say it was a very neat experience taking my son to a ballgame.
Bus from Wrigley was very crowded as well. Pulled the same trick and got us a seat. Scott fell asleep in my arms and slept most of the way. I was quite nervous about missing the Blue Line stop, but shouldn’t have been. We were up in the front, and as I was walking down to the train level, I saw a train coming in, so I busted in there (carrying a sleeping Scott) and we just made it on.
We decided to go out to eat, and so we stopped by Lou Malnati’s pizza, which is a big local chain. There was one right by our hotel, which we found to our dismay was just a carryout / delivery one. So we decided to just order one and I drove back and picked it up 30 minutes later. Kids didn’t seem to like it, but I thought it was good.