One more time

Wednesday, June 25 Red Sox vs. Arizona Diamondbacks



We headed for Boston after breakfast and, thanks to the TomTom and past experience, did not make our usual unintended side trip to Cambridge and MIT. Our Sheraton is right near the Prudential Building in Copley Plaza, with a great view of the city from our 15th floor window. We walked over to the Common and had lunch at Cheers on Beacon St. After lunch we wandered around the park for awhile then headed back to the hotel for a quick dip before heading to Fenway. I had my new Red Sox shirt with Mike Lowell's name and #25 on the back (a Mother's Day gift from Brian :-) As everyone must know by now, some of us like to head to the ballpark way before game time to soak up the ambiance. Rodney and I were out on Yawkey Way and saw some sportscasters doing a pre game show. There, being mobbed by fans wanting their pictures taken with him, was Jerry Remy. Of course I had to join the fray and now am the proud owner of a picture of me and the Rem Dawg!!



Brian's high school friend Molly works at Fenway and we had a quick visit with her. Our friend Jim Perkins and his sister Marilyn sat next to us. The game was exciting with some great pitching and plays in the field. Boston was ahead 5-0 in the top of the 9th when all of a sudden (or so it seemed to me) the bases were loaded with Arizona players. They brought out the closer Jonathan Paplebon and the over 37,000 fans went wild. He finished off the last player in short order. Loads of fun.



After the game we walked back to the Prudential Center and had a late dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Brian had a double bar-b-q bacon cheeseburger, about the largest burger I've ever seen. Unfortunately we were too full to try any cheesecake!

Thursday after breakfast at Au Bon Pain we walked over to the North End. Such a fascinating area with the old, old streets, buildings and multitudes of Italian shops and restaurants. We wandered through a jam packed Quincy Market then headed back to the hotel, stopping for lunch at a street vendor stand for dogs and sausage. A few blocks from the hotel we ran into one of Allison's best friends from Rutland, Jackie Carvey. What a small world!! Jackie lives in Somerville now and is a music teacher in a local high school. A nice treat to see her.



A few things we noticed in Boston: 1). We saw Starbucks restaurants BY THE DOZEN!! Why?? 2). in our 25 hour stay in Boston we saw seven people in walking casts. Is there a special on bunionectomies going on? A foot fracturer on the loose?

We sure enjoyed our brief visit in Boston. Now I guess our summer of baseball really is over. Hmmm... but who knows??

Day 14- home

After breakfast at the Hampton Inn in Philadelphia Rodney and I walked over to the Reading Terminal Station. The place was much less crowded customer-wise but the vendors were bustling about setting out their foodstuffs and doing prep work. We picked up a few items to bring home.

We left for home around 11:30. The TomTom took us off the interstate (though we never lost faith) and through a few very pretty communities in the Princeton, N.J. area, before ushering us back on to the interstate. We listened to a very enjoyable Hercule Poirot book on tape narrated by the actors David Suchet and the guy who played his sidekick Hastings in the PBS series. The trip was uneventful except for our reminiscing about the last 14 days.



We were home before 6p.m. Tiber the dog was ecstatic to see us, (as we were to see him) and the cats were, well, cat-like in their greeting. Deb, our house sitter, had done a wonderful job keeping them happy and well fed while we were away.



I guess we'd like to end this blog with a few comments and thoughts:
A comment: There are way, way too many Starbucks restaurants! We saw dozens of them, several in each city we were in as well as in many of the service areas. Even little Niagara Falls had four Starbucks that we saw and probably many that we did not see! I have to wonder if, like the Cylons on Battlestar Galactica, THEY HAVE A PLAN.



A few factoids:
The trip was 2,215 miles and our gas mileage was 28.7 mpg by the way! Go CRV!!
Gas prices ranged from $3.83 to $4.39/gal
We paid $70 in tolls
We stayed in nine different hotels in eight cities
We walked 4-6 miles per day (thank you trusty pedometer) except for long travel days
We visited seven different major league baseball parks and exceeded our goal by visiting not one, but two, museums if you include the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!! (see blog title)
We saw 15 home runs including one walk off.

The blog was truly a group effort. Allison provided direction and advice from afar. She is a blogger extraordinaire (see her latest, http://allisoninrealworld.blogspot.com/). Brian was the blog techno whiz with pictures both from the cameras and from those he found on-line (e.g. some of the city skylines and Roy Orbison Y). He also was the grammar and spell check expert. Rodney helped with picture choosing and transfer as well as adding some of the text. Holly did the lion's share of the text with the verbal help of the men, some solicited and some not.

Many thanks for all the comments and e-mails. We enjoyed them greatly.

For those of you who have become addicted to our blog......fear not. We have become addicted to blogging.

Rodney will be doing a blog on how to finance your own ballpark tour.....Go Dow!
Holly will be blogging on dining on your ballpark tour...........Go Cholesterol!
and Brian will be blogging on how to survive 14 days with the parents....Go IPod!

Day 14- Philadelphia to home

We are home, safe, sound and tired!! Too tired to put many thoughts together at the moment, so we will do our final blog post tomorrow.

Day 13- Philadelphia

The last day of our trip :-( If you don't count our travel home day tomorrow, that is.

After breakfast Rodney and I went wandering around the city again. We checked out the subway for future reference then walked over to Logan Square, where the museum district is. There is a beautiful park with a gorgeous fountain, surrounded by several museums, all looking interesting and inviting. Nearby is the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, a tree lined wide avenue with a large park. We did not have time to explore there, I guess we'll have to come back here someday!!

We took the almost deserted subway over to Citizens Bank field. The city has placed the ballpark in an area with the football and basketball stadiums and several huge parking lots. After some places where the ballparks are right in the middle of the city it seemed strange. Evidently there was lots of controversy when the ballpark was built and this locale won out. The park is nicely designed with lots of neat features, and great seating. Brian and Rodney, along with all the other men who entered, were given Phillies caps for Father's day gifts. Lucky them!! Our seats were in the fourth row down along the third base side in the outfield area. We had a great view of the action. It was a very hot and very sunny day until about the 6th inning when some clouds rolled in. They were most welcome indeed!! We had some unique Philadelphia foods- the Schmitter, a sandwich of hot sliced beef, cheese, salami, cheese again, tomato slices, and a special sauce on a grilled kaiser roll- very yum; and Philadelphia water ice, which seems to be Italian ice. It sure tasted good on this hot day.

After the national anthem, two very large military helicopters flew over the field. I didn't quite catch the explanation for their presence. They were very neat. The game was exciting, lots of hits, 4 home runs. The Phillies won, 7-5. The subway going back was mobbed with happy fans.

We had dinner at an Italian restaurant, Maggiano's, about 3 blocks from our place. It was one of those noisy, crowded, friendly places. Great food. We reminisced about the trip, trying to remember details. We will need to consult our own blog to get things right!!

Tomorrow we'll be heading home after breakfast. I guess we'll put in one last post after we get home, maybe a photo from a service area!! How exciting.

Day 12 - Philadelphia

Saturday, May 31

After a last look at the Inner Harbor we headed off to Philadelphia. Shortly after leaving Baltimore we encountered a thunderstorm with heavy rain that lasted all the way to Philadelphia. This is the first significant rain we’ve seen.

Our Hampton Inn is in the downtown area right near the Pa. Convention Center. It is very nice and the staff are friendly and helpful. We walked over to the Reading Terminal Station for lunch. Think of Quincy Market quadrupled in size with several fish, meat, and produce markets intermingled with bakeries, food counters and restaurants and you have Reading. Oh yes, with craft and candy stores thrown in too. We were amazed at the place.

After the rain let up we walked over to the historic government district and went on tours of the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. Very powerful, walking on the same floors as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, etc. We then wandered around society hill and the historic waterfront and Washington Square districts. A wonderful area with cobblestone streets, brick sidewalks, very old brick townhouses, tree lined streets. There were several old churches and famous buildings with informational placards on them.

We had supper at Jim’s Steaks, a Philly cheesesteak place that we had read (and a nice Philadelphian we talked with while waiting in line confirmed) is the best place for cheesesteak sandwiches in town. We all agreed the food was super! The neighborhood was less than stellar, as Rodney said to Brian while he was taking a photo: “take the picture then let’s get the hell out of here.” Luckily a safer feeling area was just one block away. We meandered back to our place with tired legs and full bellies.

Tomorrow we are off to our last game, (boo hoo) Philadelphia Phillies vs. Florida Marlins, at Citizens Bank Park. Hmmm…. I wonder who put up a lot of $ to build this ball park?

Day 11- Baltimore

Friday, May 30

Our motel, the Sheraton, is about midway between the Inner Harbor and Camden Yards. What could be more perfect?

The weather in Baltimore was hot, sunny and breezy. We walked over to the Harbor area and had lunch at the Pot Belly Sandwich Shop. Rodney and I went on tours of a WWII submarine, the Torsk, and a Civil War battleship, the USS Constellation. Both very interesting, they both had fairly big roles in their respective wars. Brian went to the ESPN zone to play while we were touring.



Red Sox nation was well represented in Baltimore. We saw people in Red Sox clothes by the dozen, maybe even hundreds, at the hotel and harbor area. The town was just mobbed with Sox fans.

After a swim in our ridiculously tiny but refreshing pool we headed over to the ball park. Our seats were pretty far back on the first base side, but still afforded a great view of the action. And action there was!! The game was tied 2-2 at the end of nine and ended up going 13 innings! Finally the Orioles made a few errors that the Sox capitalized on in the 13th and the Sox ended up winning 5-2. It was a fun game. Manny Ramirez was one home run shy of 500 so every time he came up to bat the entire stadium went wild, cheering, taking pictures of every swing, etc. Unfortunately he was unable to get a home run in 5 at bats.



We got to see 7 Red Sox pitchers: Josh Beckett, Hadeki Okijima, Manny Delcarmen, Javier Lopez, Craig Hansen, Mike Timlin and the great and greatly entertaining closer Jonathan Papelbon. The game ended right before midnight and many people, including us (of course!) stayed until the last out.



Tomorrow we are off to our last venue, Philadelphia. Also one of our shortest legs, just over 2 hours- hopefully.

Day 10- Baltimore

Thursday, May 29

The road warriors were at it again! The trip from Cleveland to Baltimore took about 6.5 hours. Rodney is doing a magnificent job driving around in all these big cities, you would think he does it everyday. He has the excellent assistance of his navigators Brian and Tommy, our GPS tom tom. Occasionally Brian and Tommy disagree on a route; Brian is always right. We listened to some of Welcome to the Monkey House, a very bizarre collection of short stories by Kurt Vonnegut, and part of a very funny Dave Barry book. We still have a Hercule Poirot book to go.

After we settled in we went to the harbor to a crab restaurant called Bo Brooks that a friend said is her favorite place in Baltimore. We had steamed crabs. They were coated with Old Bay seasoning and other things and were spicy and delicious, although labor intensive. We decided the best way to eat them would be outside on a picnic table with plenty of iced tea or ice cold beer. It was lots of fun. First the waitress put a heavy paper tablecloth on our table, and placed on it a bucket with 2 mallets and a few dozen paper towels. Then she brought out the steamed crabs (8) and threw them on the paper. A messy but very yummy affair.

After dinner we went to a place called Cold Stone Creamery for dessert. Allison, this must be the same franchise you and C. go to in Ct. It was a wonderful ice cream parlor, each serving made to order. The ice cream was some of the best we have ever had.

For those who are following the blog, this is our 3rd posting this evening, so you will need to scroll down to see the last 2 days. We have been trying to keep up but some days we seem to run out of time.

Tomorrow we are planning to do some exploring of Baltimore before the evening game. We just found out Josh Beckett is pitching. I am so excited. I don't like him quite as much as I like Roy Orbison, but I am a big fan. Our road trip is sadly winding down!

Day 9- Cleveland

Wednesday, May 28

One thing I forgot to mention about our game at Wrigley: Just before the game, in celebration of Memorial Day, a bald eagle named Challenger was released and soared over the ballpark, coming to his trainer who was waiting on the pitcher’s mound. It was a beautiful and moving moment.

On to Cleveland: We headed over to Progressive field around 10:30 for a 12:05 start. Have I mentioned that some of us like to get to the ballparks an hour or two before each game to get a feel for the place, tour around the park, check out the food and other vendors, watch batting practice, etc? There was a school program on weather being held at the park with many thousands of children. Some stayed for the game afterwards. The park has been rated the best in the league and has many unique and interesting features. Our seats were behind home plate so we had a great view of the game. Another exciting game with two home runs and lots of hits and good plays. The White Sox won, 6-5. The crowd was pretty tame compared with our games in Chicago, maybe partly because it was a daytime game. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, however the temp was around 50 and there was a frigid wind from Lake Erie, so perhaps that kept the amount of alcohol consumption down. Usually we try to avoid the sun at the ballparks, but today we anxiously waited as it crept our way and by about 1:00 we were feeling much warmer.

After the game we rocked and rolled our way through the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Wow!!! What a place! The museum is housed in this gorgeous modern structure right on Lake Erie. There are 7 levels of exhibits. Some of us could easily have spent an entire day there. They covered music from the early blues, jazz, hip hop eras right up to the present. They had exhibits of everything from Jim Morrison's report cards and Cub Scout shirt to Janis Joplin’s Porsche and a Cadillac Elvis bought for his manager. Plus many outfits from different performers- Elvis’ spandex, rhinestone encrusted pantsuits, suits the Temptations wore, clothes different people wore at Woodstock, etc. We were speechless! There were kiosks all over to listen to different artist’s tunes and hear biographies about them. They have a film of all the Hall of Fame inductees with short video and still clips, and, of course, their music.

Brian was somewhat disturbed to discover I love Roy Orbison. We thought of Susie Noy when we saw the David Bowie exhibit. Nancy would swoon over all the Elvis stuff. Allison would love the Chuck Barry video. It is worth a trip to Cleveland just to go to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame and Museum if you have any interest in music.

We finished the evening with dinner at the Hard Rock Café, just to keep the mood alive! The hotel shuttle picked us up after dinner ( a nice service) and gave us a tour of the renovated areas in downtown Cleveland.

Cleveland is deserted at night (although it seemed quite safe) in contrast to Chicago which was always bustling. The shuttle driver said that people work in Cleveland but live predominantly in the burbs and that this was a typical level of activity for a weekday night.

Tomorrow we are off to Baltimore to see the Orioles and Red Sox. Go Sox!!

Day 8- Cleveland

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

After breakfast we started the long journey to Cleveland. I must say there is not a lot of scenery in the Midwest!! We finished Harry Potter, just excellent!

We arrived in Cleveland around 4 after losing an hour to the time change. Our hotel, the Embassy Suite, is right downtown. Our two rooms are easily four times the size of our little room in Chicago. We have a view of the lights of the ballpark from our window. After settling in, we walked around Cleveland a bit then had dinner at the Winking Lizard tavern, a place recommended by the bellhop. Wonderful food and over a hundred kinds of beer. It was right near the ballpark, must be hopping after games.





Now we are back at our place, doing laundry, watching, of course, baseball, the Dodgers vs. Cubs back in Chicago. We plan to go for a dip in the pool then turn in.

I guess I need a few fillers since this is such a short post. Hmm…. How about our favorite signs and comments so far:
1). A sign a panhandler in Chicago was holding: “I’ve made a few bad decisions in my life…”
2). A sign in a construction zone on the interstate: “$15,000 fine for killing a construction worker.”
3). Pitch from a panhandler here in Cleveland: “ I won’t lie,I need $1.25 for a Colt 45. Please!!”

Last comment: We cannot believe the cost of gasoline. Yikes!!! Holy Cow!!! Holy Toledo!!!! We saw a high (so far) of $4.39 just outside Chicago, but this afternoon it was $3.99 outside Cleveland. We are hopeful it will go down.

Tomorrow we are off to the noon Cleveland vs. White Sox game at Progressive Field, then hope to go to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

Day 7 - Chicago

Monday, May 26

Happy Birthday, Julie!!! The party photos were great!!

We forgot to mention that if you want to enlarge the photos just click the mouse on them. Also, we've added a new feature! If you hover your mouse over certain pictures, a caption will appear. (Thanks Allison!)

Today we woke up to a hot, sunny, breezy day. Perfect for a ball game.
Rodney and I walked over to Lake Michigan and the loop area after breakfast. We saw the Sears Tower (from a block or so away) and Millenium garden. Again, lots of great statues, fountains and architecture.

We took the subway over to Wrigley Field. What a hoot- the ballpark is in the middle, I mean the middle, of a neighborhood. Many of the surrounding homes have built bleachers on their roofs and sell tickets for people to watch the game. It is a very congested and somewhat frantic area.

Did I mention that the White Sox fans are enthusiastic? The Cubs fans are rabid!!! The place was full (over 41,000) and full of energy. The game was very exciting, we have been treated to great pitching, defense and offense at every game we’ve been to. The Cubs got two home runs and ended up winning 3-1. We are Dodgers fans and silently cheered for them, it may have been dangerous to do otherwise. Brian did wear his Dodgers shirt, brave guy!!
The subway back downtown was pretty busy and crazy.

We went to the original Pizzeria Uno for dinner. It is just two blocks from our place. Delicious Chicago style pizza and wings, entertaining waiter who was a rabid White Sox fan.

On to Cleveland!!

Day 6 - Chicago

Sunday, May 25

We woke up to a sunny, warm and breezy day. After breakfast we took the subway, then city bus to the Museum of Science and Industry. Most of the population of, and tourists from Chicago joined us there. I guess Sundays, and holiday week-ends, are their busiest times. The place is vast with many exhibits. many of them geared toward children and children at heart like us. There is a fabulous U-boat exhibit as well as all kinds of other exhibits. An amazing place, we came out awed and much more intelligent, partly from having lunch in the Brain food court!

We then took a city bus back to downtown and did some touring on foot. Beautiful statues, buildings, flowers and people, people everywhere. Such a vibrant place.

We went by subway again to the game. The weather cooperated and it was warm and breezy and clear all eve. U.S. Cellular field is fairly new, clean, spacious and we all liked it a lot.

The White Sox fans were a highly enthusiasic and excitable bunch and greatly amusing. Before the game, in celebration of Memorial Day, there was a parade around the field of current and former service men and women, most in their uniforms. The crowd of over 30,000 gave them a standing ovation. It was very touching. Before the game and after every home team home run there was a brief burst of fireworks. The first were in daylight and they were really neat!

The game was exciting, great pitching, fielding. The score was tied 2-2 and in the bottom of the ninth Carlos Quentin of the White Sox hit a home run to end the game. The crowd went wild!! It was loads of fun. I'm sure those of you baseball fans saw the game because it was the ESPN Sunday night game of the week!

The subway going back was crammed with deliriously happy fans.

Tomorrow it's off to Wrigley and the Cubs vs. Dodgers.