It's been a few days since I last shared my observations. We have put a lot of miles behind us, and the main portion of the trip is in our rear view mirror. As I write this after the longest day of our trip from Doug and Julie's house, before I drift off to sleep, a few observations.
- I've been to several games at Minute Maid Park. Heck, I remember it when it was Enron Field. Whatever happened to those nice boys that ran Enron anyway? It's a nice park, and the dome makes it livable. I have always said that Houston was the answer to the question "can 4 million people be wrong?" But the ball park is nice and right downtown.
- The Houston - Miami leg of the trip was a very long drive. At times, I felt like the toughest part was not the drive, but the ride. I had to remind myself that I am no longer a kid of 55 any more. It helps, on these long drives, that we have gotten along so well. The main thing was to always stick to the schedule as much as we could. And an all nighter got us to Miami in plenty of time for the game. The Marlin's stadium is the newest one in baseball, and it's got to be better than sharing the Dolphin's stadium. It's a bit garish for my tastes, but the locals seemed to like it okay.
- As the other 3 slept in on the morning of June 28th, I secretly slipped out and went for a quick drive to the Atlantic Ocean. I wanted to dip my toes in the surf off South Beach. I kept my eye open for Lebron, but I'm guessing he and I frequent different areas of South Beach. I got back before any of the others were stirring. The goal is to also dip my toes in the Pacific near San Diego.
- Crappiest stadium of the trip so far is the Trop in St Pete. Reminds me of a cheap Kingdome, which for those of you familiar with the late Seattle stadium, that's a world class insult. I know they need an indoor stadium in tropical St Petersburg, but yeesh, what a dump. I have read that there are plans to replace the Trop, and it can't come too soon. I was hoping for a fly ball off the cat walk, but no such luck.
- The drive up the east coast to Baltimore was uneventful, but it was a long drive indeed. I drew the short straw and got the early morning duties for the drive up to Fayetteville North Carolina before Mike took over for the balance of this leg. Camden Yards was a really cool park. It's the model that the new ones are built around, and it shows. Good crowd that knows their baseball. I grew up an Oriole fan, and Brooks Robinson was my boyhood hero.
- We dodged a bullet with the storms that blew through that part of the country shortly after the game. We got a bit of a break in that we missed the really heavy stuff. But we were on our way to Milwaukee. I always have disliked the Brewers. I hold Bud Selig personally responsible for screwing the city of Seattle when he stole the Pilots after their one and only year, and the ghost of Dewey Soriano will forever jinx the Brewers. They have never won a World Series, and they never will as long as Butthead Selig is above ground. Plus regardless of what the arbitrator said, Ryan Braun is a cheater who got away with it. Still, Miller Park was very nice.
- It was a short drive to Wrigley Field, and I posted the day at Wrigley and the drive into Pittsburgh earlier. We dodged another rain delay in Chicago, but they got the game in between the Cubbies and the Disastros. Then it was to Pittsburgh to watch the Buccos take their turn beating up on the Lastros.
- I used to live about 2 hours south of Atlanta, so I was anxious to see the city for the first time in about 30 years. It has changed quite a bit, but there was still a lot of traffic in Atlanta. I would have enjoyed exploring the city after so many years, but we were headed due west for the next two days. I got to drive into St Louis, and I chose to make a very brief side trip to O'Fallon Illinois, where we spent 3 years in the early 1980's. Steve was too young to remember much about O'Fallon, so I drove past our former home then on to downtown St Louis and beautiful new Busch Stadium, packed with red clad Cardinal fans. Again, no time to really enjoy seeing the area where we had lived in the past.
- The best thing you can say about the overnight drive from St Louis to Phoenix is that it went exactly as planned. Mike drove to Tulsa, Steve drove to Amarillo, Shawn drove to Albuquerque, and I drove the rest of the way to Phoenix. Glen Campbell was right - by the time I got to Phoenix, I was sleepy. But we made it safe and sound. It was cool to include the corner in Winslow Arizona on the trip. I remember it from seeing it years ago. We made good time into Phoenix and got to Doug & Julie's right about 5PM. Had time to take a break and then it was off to the game.
The long days are now behind us. We have a relatively short trip to San Diego tomorrow, a very short trip to Anaheim after the game in San Diego, and a medium sized trip to Oakland to be followed by the end of the journey in Federal Way sometime Monday morning. Still enjoying the adventure, but I am very tired.
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