I decided to take a drive down to "The Cell" this morning. I'm going to the game tonight, but today the White Sox are holding their First Annual Go Kart Grand Prix and I wanted to see what was going on.

They took over Parking Lot B. All of the teams that bought into the event had hospitality tents along Shields Avenue. The pit area was pretty big and the track was the parking lot, with the track outlined in chalk (or lime or something like that) and stacked tires. There were other vendors there, like Route 66 Raceway, Volo Auto Museum, and other companies like that.

I was hoping to that it was going to be cool. It was, but it was totally disappointing. I think it was very poorly attended. It looked like everybody that was there were either participants, sponsors, or family members of either. The weren't any real announcements to keep everybody informed about what was going on. I saw two races - basically one and hour. I never saw a celebrity race that was supposed to happen at 1pm (when I think the final race actually took off).

The last race was pretty good. As the laps ticked off, the drivers were getting a better feel for the karts and the track and they started driving more aggressively. I camped out on Turn One and after the initial laps, there were a lot of guys taking the turn wide, some taking out a series of orange cones, some spinning out, hitting tires, clipping each other. The races ran about 15 minutes - I have no idea how many laps there were. I guess that's part of my disappointment - I had no idea what the hell was going on.

Disappointing.

Well, at about 1:30, I realized that I probably couldn't drive home and then drive all the way back into the city to pickup Barry and go to tonight's game. I decided to drive to the planetarium. I wasn't going to go in, it was just this absolutely gorgeous day and I felt like enjoying it, maybe taking pictures of the skyline.

(NOTE TO ANYONE COMING TO CHICAGO - If you want the ABSOLUTE BEST photograph of the Chicago skyline along the lake front YOU MUST go to the Adler Planetarium and take the shots from there DAY OR NIGHT. THAT is the place to be.)

I was floored at how many bridal parties were showing up with their photographers down by the planetarium, just to get that perfect shot of the bridal party and the skyline. It was a constant stream of limousines and rental shuttle buses dropping off and picking up brides, grooms, bridesmaids, groomsmen... and others, too, that were dressed-up in other ethnic garbs so I couldn't tell what they were celebrating because they didn't necessarily looked like wedding dress.

I actually did go inside the planetarium - into the café to have a snack and drink and watch all of the sailboats on the lake. When I came out, in front of the planetarium was a group of people with bicycle helmets on... and a whole bunch of Segways! It was the City Segways Tours group getting training on how to ride/drive a Segway by the tour leader. I heard about this last year and it's great seeing that they actually are still doing tours! I stood around watching for quite a while. Though - in concept - they are easy to maneuver, it does take time to get used to balancing on the platform and trusting the unit not to throw you off when you lean to make it go.

Eventually, about 3:30, I headed back to the parking lot to get heading north on Lake Shore Drive to go pick up Barry for the game tonight. It took an hour just to get to the Belmont exit. The Fullerton and Belmont exits were backed-up and stopped on the drive, not to mention that the car 2 cars ahead of me in line waiting to get off at Belmont erupts in white smoke and steam as he blows a hose. The other oddity on the trip north was the area on the lake that's just north of the treatment plant and south of the break walls south of Oak Street beach. It looked like it was wall-to-wall boats, that looked like they were parked or even lashed together, and all you can see is flesh - people in bathing suits everywhere,. It looked like one big community party. Really odd.

At any rate, it took a long time to get to Barry's. But - I've got to tell you - it was the best day to be out in that gorgeous weather and just enjoying the sights of this wonderful town.