Day 16: Baltimore Orioles 7, New York Yankees 5

Ok so you're probably wondering a what happened to day 15? Well, after we left James' and Kate's house we began to encounter poor weather and could see from the radar that the Cincinnati area was going to be hit hard. As it is we arrived at the Cubs Reds game a few hours beforehand with heavy rain and could see that there was going to be many hours of rain to still fall. So in light of the fact that we were going to be heading to Baltimore for the next day we decided to continue on. It did turn out that the game was delayed almost 2 hours and would have made it nearly impossible to finish the drive to Joe's apartment in DC.

So we managed a good night sleep, grabbed lunch in DC and headed up to Baltimore to watch the Yankees drive a poor performance against the O's. There was some excitement as Alex Rodriguez came up 4 times with a chance to hit his 500th homer. Unfortunately, he did not, much to the disappointment to us and many others. Our friend Steve met us at the game and is featured in today's lead picture.

The completion of the game was both exciting and sad as the game signified the conclusion of our quest.

Day 14 - St. Louis Cardinals 11, Chicago Cubs 1

Good family, good friends and good times. This blog is dedicated to those special hosts James and Kate who graciously accepted two smelly and weary travelers into their home for two days and allowed us a most wonderful reprieve from the road.

St. Louis proved to be a great time. We saw one of baseball's better rivalries in the Cubs Cardinals at the new Busch Stadium, which one of the nicest parks I've been too. Its always great going to a game where both teams have history and the fans enjoy heckling each other to no end. Although not as bad the Yanks Red Sox match up this was a great experience and highly recommend going to a game if you're ever in town.

The area near the stadium with the Landing and the Arch is very fun and the numerous bars and restaurants draw thousands of people from before and after the game and shows that baseball is best enjoyed when a park is centrally located within a neighborhood, unlike those in Oakland or KC where the nearest form of life is the interstate.

Yankees 7, Kansas City 1

Undoubtedly John Sterling was quoted as saying "an a-bomb for A-Rod!" as Alex connected in the 8th inning for his 35th homer of the year and his 499th of his career to cap off a great day for us at the Royals home, Kauffman Stadium.

We enjoyed our experienced at the park, although the fans were unlike any we've seen since our first game of this trip. Prior to the game fans were lined up outside the gates 2 hours beforehand and when they opened a foot race ensued for those vying for Yankees autographs and batting practice balls. Throughout the game the small market fans (although I'd guess at least 60% were wearing Yankee clothing) chanted various hateful or what they perceived as witty comments toward the Yanks. In the end, all fans were standing for a 9th inning at bat which saw Alex strikeout.

As for the actual stadium, the open air and outfield fountains give it a nice feel and as you can see from our pictures we had some great seats and really enjoyed the proximity to the team. I was able to engage Yankees relief pitcher, and fellow New Jersey resident, in a conversation about our trip, in which he found it amazing and wished us luck. The park is located several miles outside of the downtown and from what we could see was relatively small and nothing significant to catch the eye.

Next stop will be in the St. Louis area with Joe's relatives and enjoy a great rivalry with the Cubs Cardinals.

Argh! It figures, right?

So I was going through the blog settings in the administrator panel and found the option to allow *anyone* to leave a comment, not just registered Gmail users. I know that there are a few people that had wanted to leave comments here... so now that option is available to everyone. On the comment page where it asks you who you are, you should be able to select 'other' and type in your name.

Sorry everyone!!

Day 12 - San Diego Padres 5, Colorado Rockies 3

Colorado is an absolutely beautiful state. Lots of mountains, lots of green pastures leading up to the mountains. Just like out of a movie. I think that if I had to pick a place to retire right now, that might right up there on the list with Montana.... if I ever have a chance to get serious about skiing Colorado takes the cake.

I never really saw Denver has a place that would have a ton of traffic, but sure enough the traffic trying to get into Denver for the game. This was our first game that we missed the opportunity to catch batting practice, so that was a bit of a bummer. The stadium was quite nice, though.... it overlooks the rockies as a backdrop.

There is a row of purple seats that goes around the upper deck of the stadium that signifies an elevation of 1 mile above sea level. I thought that was really cool... and for the record we werenet gasping for breath... not even walking up the stairs to our seats.

Our buddy Steve from DC hooked us up with a guy he went to HS with back in Michigan that now lives in Aspen, Colorado. He Came out and met up with us for the game, which was really cool of him since he lives like 200 miles from Denver. Tim regaled us with stories about life in Aspen skiing and hiking up '14-ers' - the 50+ mountains in Colorado that are over 14,000 feet in elevation. He extended us an invite to come out to Aspen... if I ever find myself with time for vacation again I defninitely will have to take him up on the offer.

After we left Denver the terrain of Colorado got flat real quick... after 30 miles you could barely even tell we were near the mountains anymore. It really gets flat toward the end of the state and leads into Kansas, where we are now. Looks flatter than South Dakota was, except there is now tons of farmland instead of dirt and rocks. And just to head off some of the jokes we've already gotten, no we havent seen Dorothy or Toto.

Diamondbacks 4, Marlins 3

Chase field in Phoenix is a pretty nice stadium... its a shame they dont draw many fans anymore. Last night had an attendance of a little over 19,000, which didnt even fill the lower deck of the stadium. I managed to snag a foul ball during batting practice, bringing my total for the trip up to 4 and tying me with Matt.

It was a snooze-fest, as most National League games are. There wasnt a terrible amount of offense in the game, which is unfortunate for Dontrelle Willis. He's a great pitcher on not such a great team... maybe one day he'll make it up to a winning team.

Northern and eastern Arizona was beautiful... a lot of mountains and canyons, which was an interesting contrast to the desert we had been in that morning. Unfortunately we missed a lot of the cool scenery because it was dark, but we have deadlines to meet and Denver is calling our name.

First one bits the dust...

We had to trade in our car this morning in Yuma, Arizona because it needed an oil change. We are now driving a Hyundai Sonata, which is a bit of a step down from our G6 in terms of performance and appearance. But its a but roomier and comfortable inside, so its not all that bad.

Just in case you might've thought otherwise, southern California and Arizona really are desert wasteland. It was 105 when we dropped off our car in Yuma at 11am and we no longer have a thermometer to keep tabs on the temperature.

This past weekend really was awesome. I don't think Matt and I can thank Jeff enough for the hospitality he showed us this weekend. He gave us a first-class experience at the Padres game and Im pretty sure that itll be the most enjoyable game we'll have attended on this trip.

Right now Matt and I are pulling into Phoenix to watch the Marlins-Diamondbacks game. Its currently 106 and there are a few storms in the area. Fortunately the stadium has a retractable roof so the the game should be dry and a decent temperature.

Day 10 - Phillies 9, San Diego 0

What a terrific day today was. Our good buddy Jeff works in the Padres control room and hooked us up with some pretty fine seats. He also got us on the stadium scoreboard, which was totally awesome of him. He gave us a tour of the control room after the game and we had a chance to see Tony Gwynn.

San Diego is absolutely an awesome city. Matt and I had both been here before, but we're still in awe of the city and how friendly everyone is here. The weather is nearly perfect -- everyone was complaining it was too hot because it got up to nearly 80 today. Theres a great nightlife here, which we are about to partake in. We will be leaving in the morning for Phoenix and a grueling 2-day, 2000 mile part of our trip.

Day 9: Dodgers 8, Mets 6

I have to say that out of all the cities that are on our itinerary, I was looking forward to Los Angeles the most. I've heard so many things about it from both friends and on TV and I'd never been there, so naturally there was a bit of excitement when we pulled into the city in the morning. There was a bit of disappointment when we hit a ton of traffic entering the city and ran low on time trying to do some sight-seeing because we've been getting to games 2 hours before gametime so that we can watch batting practice. We didnt get to see Hollywood like we'd wanted, but we did drive through Beverly Hills and the Palisades and saw some really nice houses.

Dodgers Stadium was probably the worst stadium experience I've ever had. Nobody ever told us when we purchased our Top Deck tickets that we wouldnt be permitted to leave our deck of the stadium. Each level has its own entrance and once you're in you're stuck there. So we were there for 2 hours in the sun doing absolutely nothing because they wouldnt let us leave and theres nothing to do in the top deck area.

The fans in LA were absolutely boring. Nobody was enthusiastic about the game, nobody cared to talk to us, and it seemed the only thing they were interested in was making sure they kept the beach balls in the stands going.

Day 8: Orioles 6, Athletics 1

We spent the first part of our day today in San Francisco, which is one of the parts of the trip we were looking forward to very much. We spent the first few hours of the day in Golden Gate Park, which is an awesome park for hiking and bike riding. Fortunately for us there are also some nice fields for us to toss around the frisbee, which is something we've done in every state on the trip so far. While we were there we also had the fortune of running into a local guy named Howie, who is probably the coolest person we've met on the trip. He gave us some great tips on spots to take pictures and where to eat, and he also gave us a pretty cool physics lesson on how the San Francisco fog is formed.

After the game, we headed over to Oakland for the baseball game. Despite the fact that they're so close, the 2 cities are polar opposites. San Francisco is very well kept and the people there are friendly. Oakland, on the other hand, is pretty run down and the people there are loud and obnoxious. Sometimes thats not necessarily a bad thing, especially for sports fans, but it was a bit too much in this case.

Matt caught two homerun balls during batting practice, bringing his total up to 4 for the trip. The game itself was quite exciting... Eric Bedard of the Orioles had 11 strikeouts and a no-hitter going in the 6th before it was broken up by a Mark Ellis homerun, bringing our homerun total for the trip to 15.

Day 7 - Travel Day 2

For those out there hanging on to every word of our trips adventures and also those that called worried when we didn't post yesterday, our apologies. Between being extremely tired and having minimal internet signal our ability to post yesterday was slightly delayed.

As for the travel day, we traveled through Salt Lake City and through the Nevada desert. We stopped in Reno for a short period of gambling and some dinner, out opinion of Reno is that its a less appealing version of Atlantic City.

One of the fun parts of the day was watching the car's temperature readings as it climbed to 103 and all the way down to 59 at night!

Day 6 - Travel Day

Today we awoke with the sun and were on the road by 6:15am, leaving Minnesota.
We managed to drive through the morning and around 11:30am we stopped in Murdo, South Dakota at a little roadside dinner called GTO Diner. After eating heartily we resumed our trek completing South Dakota without getting a chance to visit Mount Rushmore due to extreme weather conditions in the area in the form of torential rain and hail the size of golf balls.
Our cover photo for todays blog is a picture taken using Joe's tripod stand in which we posed in front of Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Devil's tower is the hardend magma of a long extinct volcano which dominates the skyline.

I'm convinced outside of Siberia, Wyoming is the most barren area of life on the planet. Don't get me wrong the scenic pictures of the Rocky Mountains were amazing and the many interesting rock formations more then make up for the lack of anything else. However, after 5 to 6 hours it gets extremely taxing on the driver and even the passenger!

We are staying at Hill AFB located just north of Salt Lake City, Utah and our second day of travel should prove to be fairly enjoyable and will see us arriving in the San Francisco area by late afternoon.

Detroit Tigers 1, Twins 0

The Hubert H. Humphrey MetroDome, also known as, "The Homer Dome". Was anything but offensive in this stellar pitching duel between division rivals. I was able to catch my second batting practice home run ball of the trip, this time from Gary Sheffield of the Tigers.

The city of Minneapolis was nice and impressive in its humble appearance. The city appeared to be clean and we were able enter and exit the city with relative ease. The stadium itself was not a facility I'd recommend visiting unless a die hard stadium visitor or simply in the area and looking to spend 12 bucks (thats including parking). Its odd enough watching baseball inside but within a natural football field its nothing to write home (or in this blog about). So simply stated its an interesting place to see a game but definitely our least favorite of the trip this far.

Next game is Oakland, CA and likely to come are pictures of the upper midwest and some of the various sites it has to offer.

Mall of America

We made it into the twin cities around 330pm, giving us enough time to detour out to the Mall of America for some dinner. We met up with my friend Angela and her boyfriend for some sushi inside the mall. I need to say that despite the fact that we knew going in that the mall huge, but nothing ocmpares to actually walking around the place and seeing the atrium for yourself.

Day 5 - Green Bay

Lambeau Field, Home of the Green Bay Packers...Today's visit to Green Bay was interesting to say the least. The town wasn't what I expected and granted we may have only been in the downtown section where the majority of the area is industrial but I did not see the ever talked about "Main Street" small down U.S.A. I always hear about. We did see many many pickup trucks and guys wearing overalls and the like.

As for the stadium, it was wonderful. The tour was great and if we had more time we'd have done the Hall of Fame tour, however the field was being resodded and the locker rooms are off limits at this time of year.

Next stop Land of the 10,000 Lakes.

Milwaukee 4, Arizona 3

Another great game tonight. We saw 5 home runs, which is unbelievable for a park as big as Miller Park. With the 5, it brings our total to 14 for the trip - well ahead of the pace that we had both figured we'd be seeing. I had predicted 16 for the entire trip and Matt had predicted 24, but we're on pace to see 45.

We just made it into Green Bay and we're only a few blocks from Lambeu Field, home of the Green Bay Packers. We're going to take a stadium tour at 10 in the morning and head off to Minneapolis for the Twins game tomorrow night. Should be good times...

Day 4: Miller Park in Milwaukee, WI

We got to Milwaukee a few hours ago after a pretty short drive - its only 90 miles or so from Chicago. Since we had all this time on our hands, we decided to swing by the ballpark and get an early tour. The park is enormous and the retractable roof is currently closed because it was raining.

After the tour we decided to hang out at the TGI Fridays in left field, which is where I am right now. Its incredible watching the players start to come in and starting their stretching and warming up routines. We even watched one player playing catch with his son... I think thats what its all about right there.

Day 3 - Chicago 7, Houston 6

"Hey! Hey!" Cubbies Win!. Todays game was the best thus far. We saw 4 homers, including a huge 3 run blast by Derek Lee to cap a 6 run inning. Wrigley Field is the oldest field in the major leagues and seeing its vintage layout with iron and steel stands along with the ivy covered walls you could easily close your eyes and envision the 1920's baseball. Cubs fans are so loyal and so focused on their team its amazing. More then 2 hours prior to the game the lines formed around the main gates and stretched in all directions.

To our amazement when the game ended the majority of the fans remained in their seats and sang some secret post win song that apparently the other 41,000 people knew. Good times had by all in this classic afternoon Cubs game.

Day 3 - Notre Dame

Upon leaving Cleveland we encountered poor weather while heading toward South Bend, home of Notre Dame University. We decided to pull into a rest area where we waited out the rainfall and rested. After a 2 hour nap, we resumed our travels and headed toward the our destination. We stopped for the night only 15 minutes from the school.

We awoke to a beautiful day and was greeted by Notre Dame's infamous football stadium and golden dome. Despite being early Sunday morning the campus had a life of its own with various sports teams in session practicing.

All in all, the school lends itself to the tradition and prestige of its reputation as the immaculate campus and facilities rival all those this author has had an opportunity to experience.

Kansas City 6, Cleveland 5

From what I've seen, Cleveland is overrated. Unless there was some super-awesome part of the city that we just didnt visit. The area we were in was absolutely dead for most of the day until the game started. We checked out the House of Blues and a pretty cool Irish bar.

Jacobs Field is quite a nice stadium. Matt and I each caught a home run ball during batting practice. I didnt like the fact that the only part that was open during batting practice was the right-field bleachers. We werent able to get to balls in other parts of the stadium and we werent able to get down to get autographs from the players. It was still a nice experience... once again the fans werent really into the game, though. Maybe I'm just spoiled being a Yankee fan. *shrugs*

Anyways.... we just got into Indiana about 5 minutes ago. We're going to be visiting Notre Dame in the morning, and then off to Chicago. Go Cubs!

Just outside Cleveland...

We're just within the Cleveland city limits, a good 2 hours ahead of schedule. We made some good time last night, despite some heavy traffic leaving Philly and a good amount of fog. We spent the night at about the halfway point through Pennsylvania and got up and on the road at about 730 this morning.

Im looking forward to seeing Cleveland... Matt has already been there and has soem great things to say about the downtown area. Im hoping to take some good pictures down on the lakefront and get in a tour of Jacobs field before the game.

Go Indians!

Phillies 13, Cardinals 3

What a great experience that was. Having been to Veteran's Stadium several years ago, which was the predecessor to the Phillies current stadium, Citizens Bank Park, this was a great surprise. The neighborhood has been cleaned up quite a bit, the ballpark itself is absolutely beautiful and well laid out, and the staff there was extremely friendly. The Phillies have definitely set the bar on what I would like to see for the rest of the trip.

The one thing I wasnt too impressed with was the lack of enthusiasm by the Phillies fans. Except when they perked up to boo Pat Burrell or Scott Rolen, they didnt seem to be into the game at all. That says alot, considering that their team was absolutely whooping the hell out of the Cardinals.

I took some decent pictures of the stadium and the Philadelphia skyline, and just finished uploading them to my Flickr page... make sure you check them out. Im gonna sign off here... we're about halfway through Pennsylvania and I'm sure matt could use a break from driving. Next stop: Cleveland.

Day 1

Our trip officially kicked off at 4pm when we left Joe's family's house in Jackson and began heading off to Philadelphia to watch the 2006 World Series Champ St. Louis Cardinals vs. the Phillies at Citizen Bank Ballpark in what we are hoping will be the Phillies' franchises 10,000th loss! Our car on the journey is a red Pontiac G6. The weather at game time is around 85 degrees and slightly overcast.

States on our Itinerary

These are the states that are on our agenda:

Pennsylvania	Ohio
Indiana	Illinois
Wisconsin	Minnesota
South Dakota	Wyoming
Utah	Nevada
California	Arizona
New Mexico	Colorado
Kansas	Missouri
West Virginia	Maryland
Delaware	New Jersey

Our Itinerary

Just for reference for everyone, a map of our planned trip can be found here

And a rough outline of our itinerary:

Friday, 13 July: St. Louis Cardinals @ Philadelphia Phillies, 705pm
Saturday, 14 July: Kansas City Royals @ Cleveland Indians, 705pm
Sunday, 15 July: Houston Astros @ Chicago Cubs, 220pm
Monday, 16 July: Arizona Diamondbacks @ Milwaukee Brewers, 8pm
Tuesday, 17 July: Detroit Tigers @ Minnesota Twins, 8pm
Wednesday, 18 July: Travel
Thursday, 19 July: Travel
Friday, 20 July: Baltimore Orioles @ Oakland Athletics, 1005pm
Saturday, 21 July: NY Mets @ LA Dodgers, 4pm, San Diego
Sunday, 22 July: Philadelphia Phillies @ San Diego Padres, 4pm
Monday, 23 July: Florida Marlins @ Arizona Diamondbacks, 940pm
Tuesday, 24 July: San Diego Padres @ Colorado Rockies, 9pm
Wednesday, 25 July: NY Yankees @ Kansas City Royals, 8pm
Thursday, 26 July: Chicago Cubs @ St Louis Cardinals, 8pm
Friday, 27 July: Chicago Cubs @ Cincinnati Reds, 7pm
Saturday, 28 July: NY Yankees @ Baltimore Orioles, 7pm