Daddy's Day Weekend Wrapup

We are back, we had a pretty good weekend over all, our excursion to Indianapolis was well worth the trip.

We had great weather Saturday and Sunday, the three of us even got better tans (or more freckles in Michele's case), and we missed the bad thunderstorms that hit both Chicago and Indy. We got there at a decent time Saturday afternoon, and walked around part of downtown Indy for a little while. It was a good, relaxing time, but unfortunately Bella decided that she did not want to do any walking, so we had to carry her the majority of that time. Fun.

We rested back at the hotel for a little while before heading over to the venue. We saw one of the strangest things we have ever seen on tv while we were there, we saw a commercial for A CHAIN OF GUN STORES called, I believe, Dan's Guns. Sadly, I could not find a YouTube link to a video of this commercial, it was so bizarre that Michele and I were laughing about it for 10 minutes afterwards. It's pretty much one of those high quality commercials that you see when you are out in the middle of nowhere, and it's pretty much an old guy behind a counter covered with guns wearing an ill-fitting suit, and it ends with him saying something to the effect of "why do I love guns? Because of that sound they make!" Wow.

So we walked over to the venue, which was less than a mile from our hotel, and got in line for Death Cab For Cutie. Luckily Bella was in a very good and cooperative mood, so we didn't have to deal with any freakouts, and that lasted the entire night too. When we walked in, we were astonished to see that they actually hand out little folding chairs for all of the people sitting on the lawn there! That would never happen in Chicago, since most of the cities that let shows happen assume that the audience would end up flinging every one of those chairs at the stage, even for a band like Death Cab.

We picked a great spot, ate some fine cuisine (two of the greasiest pretzels we ever had (and how exactly do you make a pretzel greasy??), and a hamburger and fries) while watching the opening band, Rogue Wave. Bella was surprisingly mellow through their set and through part of Death Cab's set, since at that time normally at home she'd be running around our basement or upstairs doing the Hula Hoops on our Wii Fit.

Death Cab came on right on time at 8:30 and put on a fantastic set as always. They opened with "Bixby Canyon Bridge" from their great new album, Narrow Stairs, and jumped all around their career from that point on. One thing that was funny was that we were mostly surrounded by a bunch of 20 year olds (of course), so they were surprised to see Bella there and thought she was the cutest thing of course. Somehow, being the smartest and soon to be most music obsessed girl in the world, she started singing along to the chorus of "A Movie Script Ending" after only hearing the song once or twice before, and the girl next to us thought that was the cutest thing in the world.

What was funnier was that Bella got her second wind during their set, and was fascinated with the band' s drummer, partially thanks to the drumset that her Uncle Mark and Aunt Jenn got for her. Duing "Cath...," Bella started waving her arms to the beat and was pretending to play the beat herself. That continued for a few more songs during the set.

The show concluded right around 9:15 Chicago time, which has somehow become Bella's usual bedtime at home, with a fantastic version of one of my DCFC favorites, "Transatlanticism." Bella clapped a bunch at the end, and as we walked back to the hotel, we asked Bella if she liked it, and she definitely said yes. She of course fell asleep in record time after that.

The next morning we headed over to the Indianapolis Zoo, not far from the concert venue, and walked around for a little while. Bella was thrilled that she got to see more seals again like in Florida ("Pinky! Pinky! Pinky!"), but she again did not want to walk anywhere, and was being a bit of a pain for us, just in time for Father's Day.

Oh well, guess she was suffering her first concert hangover or something. It was a very good time, we somehow drove back right between a storm system that went south and north of us, so we got very lucky there.

The next show on Bella's concert itinerary: Feist at Ravinia July 11. Pictures of the trip to follow of course.