DeBaker Diaries: Daley Plaza or Bust

As often happens I had a great idea to do something fun last night that turned into a mess that may or may not have been avoidable. My girlfriend Caroline and her husband have a band called Mazes and they were scheduled to play a concert at Daley Plaza at The Wurst Festival of Chicago.

The weather looked questionable but my trusty phone and weather.com promised that the clouds were going to clear up and the sun would come out and by show time at 5:00 we would have mostly sunny skies and 83 degrees (0-10% chance of rain).

I picked Layla up early from school and we headed to Wilmette, just east of us, where the purple line of the CTA ends. We caught the express train to the loop and were on our way!

The weather looked worse and worse as our train neared the city, but I figured we were committed now and there was no turning back. We arrived slightly late, in a steady rain, to find the power had quit on the band who had managed to get only 3 songs into their set.

We met up with some other soggy friends and had a brief rendezvous during which the kids splashed in the puddles and got completely wet while us parents kept yelling to come out of the rain.

Ah well, we made the best of it: Layla and I had dinner at Monk's Pub, well known for their burgers and beer. It is also a place where you get a basket of peanuts on every table and throwing the shells on the floor is encouraged, to the delight of my daughter.

We missed the last express train back to Wilmette, so it was a slow and long trip back home stuffed into very crowded trains with the rest of humanity trying to get home in what turned out to be a terrible thunderstorm. All in all it was a good adventure after which Layla told me that she would like to only take short train rides from now on.

Layla's first trip on the 'L' was a big hit. I tried to get a picture of her at the Sedgwick stop, my old stomping grounds: Carrie and I lived on Sedgwick about 5 blocks north of this stop.

We landed inside the Thompson Center and this got a big "WOW" from Layla.

Layla and Alice chased Emmet and each other around the plaza in front of the Thompson Center and the 'snow castle'. The latter being a sculpture officially named "Monument with Standing Beast", created by Jean DuBuffet (yes, I looked that up).