There and back again, at a crawl

Yesterday I had promised L. that we would go to the Adler Planetarium and take advantage of their free Wednesday night for Illinois residents policy. I even sprang for tickets to a  star show because I didn't have to pay an entrance fee. The budding astro-physicist was extremely excited. 

Our tickets were for entry after 4:00 pm and our show tickets were for 8:15. We left at around 3:20 figuring that even with bad traffic on 290 (the highway into the city from the western end) that we would be at the Adler by 5:00. That would give us plenty of time to wander before the show. I've done this particular trip numerous times and I have my timing down pretty well at this point. 

Until I didn't. You see, in the fall or on the weekend, I know to check the Soldier Field schedule because it can be impossible to get to the museums in sports or concert traffic. But a Wednesday not during football season? It never crossed my mind. (And there was certainly no alert on the Adler's website.) You see what's coming, don't you? If only I had we would have never left. 

But first I need to give the non-Chicagoans a brief tutorial so what I'm going to relate makes the remotest sense. (If you know the city, just skip to the next paragraph.) I live in the far western suburbs, so need to take the I88 interstate to get to the highway spur (290) that goes directly to the Loop. The Loop is the downtown area of Chicago, running along the lake front and somewhat bordered on north and west side by the Chicago River. On the east side, there is Lake Michigan and large city parks where large outdoor events are held throughout the summer. The museum campus juts out into the lake and this is where you find The Field Museum, The Shedd Aquarium, and at the end of a fairly long road, the Adler Planetarium. Immediately south of the museum campus and connected to it by various roads is Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears football team. American football, that is, for my international readers. Lake Shore Drive is the long road which runs between the lake and the city. You can only access the museum campus by car by Lake Shore Drive. It is approximately 2.5 miles from where the highway (290) ends at the western edge of the Loop and the planetarium. This is a key piece of information you will need to know to have the appropriate amount of sympathy. 

There were a series of clues along the way, but I couldn't put them altogether until it was far too late. The first clue was the really unusual amount of traffic on I88, especially on a Wednesday mid-afternoon. This is usually a fairly safe time to go, but yesterday it was like a Friday afternoon before a three-day weekend. It seemed odd and I had factored traffic into my time table, just not on that particular stretch. We then get on 290. Now, I have no illusions about traffic on this stretch of road. There is always traffic, you will always be on the brakes for a portion of it, even at 5:00 am. But the traffic we were in was a lot even for 290. I don't think I ever went above ten miles per hour, and often it was less. We were going to arrive a little later to the planetarium, but we'd still have plenty of time. 

At 5:00pm [elapsed time from home: 1 hour 40 minutes] we arrive in the Loop. Not great, because I can't think of anyone who enjoys driving through the city at that particular time of day, but what can you do? We crawl through the Loop. Actually, I think I could have physically crawled faster than we were going. It took multiple cycles through a light to cross an intersection and there is a light at every intersection. A half an hour later we arrive at Michigan Avenue, the north/south street which runs on the west side of the city's parks. On a usual day, I would cross this street, drive through the park to the other side and then it's a quick jump to Lake Shore Drive.

But Toto, this wasn't a usual day. This was in fact the eve of Lollapalooza, the city's major music festival. The festival for which they close all streets that cross the parks. You can't go under them or over them or through them, you can only go around them. So that is what we did along with about fifty thousand other cars. The traffic was so heavy that I couldn't make sense of it, but I was still willing to say it was just rush hour traffic with fewer of the usual streets available. It was a nice dream. 

We crawl down Michigan Avenue and get one block away from Roosevelt which, if I turned left, would (finally) take us to Lake Shore Drive. But at that last block, traffic comes to a standstill. It takes four cycles of the light for me to even cross the intersection to the last block. [Elapsed time from home: two hours and forty minutes. It's now 6:00.] It will take another forty minutes to get to Roosevelt where I discover WE CANNOT TURN LEFT BECAUSE THE POLICE (who are directing traffic) HAVE CLOSED OFF THE LEFT TURN LANE. No, I did not break down and cry, but I wanted to. 

So we head south. The trouble is Roosevelt is the last street for an extremely long time where you could get on Lake Shore Drive, so we had to wind our way around back to Roosevelt. It was at this point that I was making some horrible realizations. As well as the cars, there are immense amounts of people walking in the direction we want to go. They seem to be sporty types and the vast majority are wearing red jerseys. This could only mean one thing (cue music of Doom): there is some type of sporting event happening at Soldier Field. I hand L. my phone and have her look to see if she can figure out what is going on. It seems we had landed (albeit extremely slowly) in the middle of a truly enormous crowd of people heading to a Manchester United soccer match. 

At this point we're so close to the museum that it seems silly to turn around (as if we even could). So we carry on. There was some additional traffic issues but I'll spare you. I wish I could have spared us. At 7:45 we finally pull up to the parking lot next to the planetarium. We were so close we could taste it. And then I saw the sign: soccer game parking $57. This is nearly double the usual amount for this lot. We're already at the check-in time for the star show and it looks as though it's going to take another 30 minutes to actually get to a spot. I make the very hard call to go home. There is significant disappointment in the car. I felt horrible, but it just wasn't meant to be. 

We wound out way back to 290 (a slightly faster return trip) and head home. It took us less time to drive home, even with slow patches on 290 than it took to cross the Loop the first time. [Elapsed time from home: five hours and twenty minutes.] 

L. and I have plans to try again next Wednesday, but I'm going to double-check the Soldier Field schedule and we might try taking the train. I will probably check the Soldiers Field schedule before every trip into the city from now on.