Thursday (Immaculate Conception)

A play day for the Bishop and Brenda. Through a fortuitous combination of events, some tickets to the Chicago Lyric Opera came our way, which was too good an offer to pass up. So we hopped a 6:30 Amtrak departure in Springfield, which deposited us at Union Station in Chicago in time to walk the twelve or so blocks (with a Starbuck's stop en route) to the Frontera Grill at Clark and Illinois, where we had 11:30 lunch reservations (and a gift card from a wedding I presided over a year ago!). This is "creative Mexican" (google Chef Rick Bayless) and was phenomenally good. We were joined by our son and daughter-in-law, as well as our son-in-law and older granddaughter. Then we hoofed it back down to the opera house for a fine and enjoyable production of Mozart's The Magic Flute. After grabbing a bite in Union Station, we boarded the 7pm southbound departure and were back in our vehicle in Springfield just after 10:30. A full day.

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