Day 20: Nothing But Movies

Dad went to the Chicago suburbs today to get new tires on the car. Mik and I hung out at the apartment. We watched the first two Harry Potter movies. We then began watching Ducktales Volume One. Finally in the afternoon we were able to go see Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. I prefer going to the movies early, but 3:20pm was the earliest showing. I gave Mik the option of going to the regular or IMAX version since we are basically right between both theater options. He decided that it was not worth it unless it was actually being shown at a Museum IMAX like when we resaw the first one.

We both enjoyed the movie and are now back to watching Ducktales. Maybe, I can convince Mik to let me play some Rock Band guitar, which I got earlier this weekend to have a good Wii game to play at the apartment, when disc one is done. So far today, though, it has been nothing but movies for him. He has not even played his PSP, which is what he originally said he was going to do all day.

Accessibility Review: Busch Stadium

At Busch Stadium we easily found a handicap spot in the parking lot parking across the street from the centerfield entrance to Busch Stadium. Arriving early was definitely good for this game because while we did get a parking spot no trouble there definitely were already a good amount of crowds lining up to get in and it was still half an hour until the gates would open.

Getting around Busch Stadium is not too hard, as there is an elevator or two, but they seem quite far apart and you do a lot of walking sometimes the wrong direction you want to go to be able to use them. This works fine for us, but it does not much help those that need it because they cannot walk far. They do have some escalators, too, but they are not obvious to find and obviously not useful for the wheelchair. Lastly, there is ramps, but I recommend avoiding them if you are going from top to bottom or bottom to top, as it is a long way up and down and we wasted a lot of time on that and it Dad and I only made it back to our seats before the game started because we found the escalators to go up.

The handicap section is all wheelchair spots, so you get folding chairs for the rest of those in the group. There was no staff person in our section until almost game time, but it was easy to find the chair piles in each section to get them ourselves. The chairs were actually decent folding chairs even.

The line of sight from our seats in section 341 was pretty good, as we could see the whole field and the scoreboard. The only issue was that the bar got in the way if you did not get right up to it or at least that was the only way I could see the pitcher because I am short.

Overall it was a good accessible experience, however, I imagine it would have been a pain if Mik had come with Dad and I to explore the first level since it was so crowded with people. The store itself was pretty annoying since not only did people crowd it, but pretty much every path was barely big enough for the wheelchair to fit through.