Can You Tell Me How to Get Home from Sesame Street?

Sarah and I went to "Sesame Street Live: Elmo Makes Music" yesterday.  She loved seeing all of her friends and kept tabs on them all throughout the show, asking "Where's So-and-so?" if one of them wasn't included in a number.

Our trip home turned out to be an adventure, as a severe thunderstorm struck just as the show ended.  Fortunately, there was a covered walkway to the parking garage, so we didn't get drenched.  I decided to sit in the garage for a while and wait for the storm to pass, since I had a feeling the streets would be flooded.  After about 10 minutes, though, I wondered if things would only get worse, so we ventured out.   

Because the L* Crosse Center is near the river, I decided to head for higher ground as soon as possible (have you seen the news lately?).  The storm sewers were overflowing at all of the major intersections, causing foot-deep water.  As we approached one, I saw a guy pushing his stalled pickup and decided to detour to side streets.  We zigzagged our way east and eventually got back on the main street after the rain let up.  The traffic was still backed up, and it took us one-and-a-half hours to get home (usually a 30-minute trip).

It was a memorable day, and I had fun watching Sarah enjoy herself.  She's such a control freak that she tries to keep her excitement under wraps, but she loosened up during the second half of the show and was nodding her head and tapping her foot to the music.  Today, she kept going to her responsibility chart, pointing to Saturday and saying, "On Saturday, we go see Sesame Street."  I'm afraid she thinks it's going to be a weekly outing.

I asked the woman beside me to take a photo, and this is what we got. 
A little scary, but I couldn't really ask her to keep trying.

The initial reaction

After intermission...she's into it now.

Yes, she was probably the only child whose mother brought organic Annie's fruit snacks to the show.