Summer 2024: Day 28

I didn't sleep well last night -- this insomnia is really becoming annoying -- but I was determined to get out of my dad's house and do something today. With only a few days left of this trip and this the most likely day I could get downtown, I forced myself to board a train and head into the city.

I didn't bring big plans into my downtown excursion, I really just wanted some sort of Chicago experience. My big complaint about downtown is that most of the really cool things are so expensive. Skydeck at the Sears Tower (I will never call it the Willis Tower)? $40. Architecture tour by boat? $60. Even a peek at the gears that operate the Michigan Avenue bridge costs $5. 

But, I had heard good things about the American Writers Museum, which was relatively not expensive and sounded incredibly interesting. So that turned out to be my first destination. The museum was great -- inspiring in many ways. The featured exhibit was on game writing, and that should have interested me most, but it surprisingly average, I think because it was geared toward non-gamers (video games, RPGs, and board games) and not people in one of the three hobbies. But it wasn't bad, just average. 

I bought a poster at the museum of the history of video game controllers for Michael, which he will love but was a little bit of a pain to carry around downtown. So I didn't go overboard with my exploring the rest of the afternoon. I walked up to the Cubs shop on Michigan Avenue, then walked down to Buckingham Fountain and took some pictures. 

From there, I walked to the L, taking the train to Irving Park, where I met my coworker Isaac for dinner at Smoque, an excellent barbecue place Lori discovered years ago. The ribs were delicious, and then I walked back to the L to take it back to my dad's house. The bus from the Jefferson Park station was on time, and I had to walk in a little rain to complete the long day's journey. 

However, the journey wasn't quite over, as I enjoyed a second dinner of Lou Malnati's pizza that Dad got because my sister Megan had arrived in town. We watched some of the Olympic swim trials and walked over to get ice cream. The day finally wound down, and it was great.

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