Day 7 - NYC and Massachusetts
Ok we pick up the story after Josh and Jason go to sleep in the tent and Kyle and Gray go to sleep in the car. We will also be switching back to a timeline mode since I am actually writing this on the day that it happened.
6:16 AM - BOOM!!! Jason and Josh are woken up by a thunderclap and hear the rain approaching. In comes the wind, down comes one of the tents arms. So unlikely right? Anyway, the rain starts coming and the wind keeps blowing too fast, so Jason and I are stuck holding the tent up with our head while standing up in the center of the tent. Meanwhile, the tent has become saturated enough that the water has started to drip in. Finally, it gets to a point where there's no way we're going to be able to sleep in the tent.
6:39 AM - Break in the rain, Josh and Jason sprint to the car, climb into the front seat, and fall asleep.
10:00 AM - Our alarms to wake up go off. We wake up, change clothes, and get out all the stuff we need for the Mets game. Then we go check out the tent. Fortunately, it hadn't rained much more after Jason and I got in the car, so the air mattresses were only partially wet. We made good use of the 5 towels we had bought at Walmart, drying the entire interior of the tent and most of the outside too before folding it up and stuffing itinto the tent bag. After throwing all of the wet stuff into one of the dryers, we got everything else packed up and ready to go. We left around 11 AM.
12:15 PM - We arrive at Shea Stadium five minutes after game time. Coming in, we were expecting it to be an ugly stadium, but it wasn't as bad as we had expected. It did kind of have the feeling of one of the football bowl stadium in that the seats were placed as vertically as they safely could be. Check out Jason's stadium review on Kyle's blog (eastcoastbaseballroadtrip.blogspot.com) for more information and opinions on the stadium. In my opinion, it was not great but it definitely wasn't horrible, and it was definitely better than stupid Yankee Stadium. When we got into the stadium at 12:18, 8 minutes into the game, the first inning was already over, a sign of how the game was going to be. We got up to our seats, which were in a pretty nice spot on the third deck, and sat down.another inning zipped by in a matter of seconds, and it was already the third inning by 12:25. Gray and I decided to go down to the team store and get our souvenir of the game and then go get some food. In the time it took us to walk down to the first deck, buy our souvenir, come back up to the third deck, get food, and come back to our seats, three and a half innings had passed. Fortunately, the guy next to me was keeping score, so I cheated off of his scorecard and got caught up on my own scorecard. The game obviously was a pitvhers duel. It was Oliver Perez pitching for the Mets against Jamie Moyer of the Phillies. Moyer only had one shaky stretch in his 7 innings pitched. In the 4th inning, he walked two people in a row and then David Wright made him pay with an RBI single. Perez gave up a couple more hits than Moyer but was equally as effective. His only mistake was a hanging slider that Jayson Werth almost killed a camera man with over the fence in center field. Perez ended up stiking out 12 over seven and two-thirds innings. Moyer only gave up one run, but the Phillies bullpen came in and gave up two runs in the eigth inning, so we got to see Billy Wagner come in and close out the game. Overall, a very good experience. Also, a very short game. 2 hours, 20 minutes to be exact.
3:00 PM - We headed back to the car and got out of our parking lot to get on the road to Massachusetts. It was a pretty nice drive except for the stupid 55 mph speed limit and the extremely expensive gas in Connecticut.
8:00 PM - We got to our campsite and set up the tent so it could dry out and now we're heading over to Cracker Barrel!!!
11:00 PM - We ate some awesome dinner at Cracker Barrel and then headed over to the Super Stop and Shop to pick up some drinks and ice and stuff. Our waitress at Cracker Barrel told us that you could go to Staples to get Wi-Fi because they leave the Wi-Fi on at night, so now here we are updating the blog and checking facebook and things of the sort. Tomorrow we go to Boston!!! Woo Yay! We're pretty excited, but we're going to bed soon. I would imagine I'll be able to update tomorrow. So yeah. Good night..
Friday, July 25, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Day 6 - New York City (Brought to you by Pace Salsa - "New York City?")
Ok, so to do this day justice, we must continue last night's story. We arrived at Codorus State Park at 12:06 AM on Wednesday, July 23rd. On the entire drive, we had been seeing lightning, but Jason looked up radar on the phone and it said that the storms would be missing us to the south. Once again, how wrong it was. We set up the tent in the dark as usual, still not knowing how to fix the semi-collapsing problem that had occurred in South Carolina, which we now know how to fix since I asked my Dad. The tent once again was semi-collapsed in on us, but we all fell asleep easily. Flash forward to 4:45 AM. BOOOOOOM!!! Good morning, extremely large thunderstorm! The rain just starts pouring down in sheets on us, and the wind blew hard enough to slightly shift the rain cover, allowing a few of our dirty clothes to get wet. Now imagine the four of us in our boxers wondering what on earth to do. Fortunately, the rain gave us a break and stopped for about 15 minutes, just enough to throw everything in the tent into the back of the car and to carry the tent to the bathroom to fold it up in dryness. Again, imagine the four of us running around a campsite at 4:30 AM in just our boxers, carrying air mattresses and tents. Finally we got everything dried and folded up in the bathroom, but at this point we all smelled like wet forest mud. We took turns in the two showers and got all cleaned up and dressed for the day and left the campsite around 5:10 AM. I was driving, Jason was riding shotgun and keeping me company and Gray and Kyle collapsed back to sleep in the back. The trip to Jersey City, NJ was pretty problem free except for when we decided we wanted McGriddles in Pennsylvania. Using Jason's GPS, we ended up trying 6 different McDonalds and not succeeding at a single one. The first two were doing renovations and therefore weren't open, one was the stupid GPS's fault, as it was not a McDonalds but rather a billboard advertising McDonalds, one didn't open until 45 minutes later, and one was inside a mall, so obviously it wasn't open that early. Finally, we gave up, dug up the pop-tarts, and continued towards New Jersey. Not much happened the rest of the drive, except it was obvious when we got to New Jersey because suddenly all the turn signals stopped working and people were just forced to try to swerve in and out of traffic without signalling! How unfortunate! Anyway, we arrived at our campsite at around 9 AM and slept in the car for an hour. It was fun. When we woke up, we took the ferry to Pier 11 on Wall Street. We took Wall Street down to Trinity Church and jumped on the subway on over to Yankee Stadium. We got there and made our way down to the line for the bleacher seats. After standing outside for 15 minutes, we started filtering our way into the stadium, only to find that no bags are allowed into the stadium unless they're purses or diaper bags. Mainly because the security there is too lazy to check the bags for anything. Therefore, even though Kyle's fanny pack only had a towel, 3 baseballs, and a bottle of water, and my bag only had my laptop and a bottle of water, we were forced to go across the street and check in our bags at the bowling alley. Stupid. Anyway, we finally got into the stadium just in time for the last 8 minutes of batting practice. I'll start by saying that the stadium was a disappointment somewhat, due to A) how crappy it was and B) how crappy the human environment was. The park was nothing special except for Monument Park, which we found out that we weren't allowed to visit because the bleacher seats are separated from the rest of the stadium. The fact that we could only see stuff in the bleacher area was a bummer in the first place, but then the fact that we had an hour and a half to kill, the fact that we were all tired, and the fact that there was nowhere comfortable to sit or lie down made it even more boring. I did manage to find a way to get a few pictures inside Monument Park. About 45 minutes before game time, I made my way over to a part of the bleachers that was right about the monuments. The line to go through the monument had been cut off at that point, so only a few people were left filtering inside. I found the first person I could that didn't already have a camera with him, asked him to take some pictures for me, and then tossed my camera down to him. At this point, the security guard was starting to slowly push people out of the monument, so the guy took pictures of just a couple of important Yankees and then tossed the camera back. It was pretty nice.
Finally the game started at 1:05 PM. I would tell you what all happened but I was too tired to remember most of it, plus the "well-run" vending companies at Yankee Stadium didn't have any scorecards. Way to go Yankees, reflecting the Steinbrenner values of being dumb. Now I will say that there was one cool thing about the bleacher seats: Roll Call. Every game, one of the "Bleacher Creatures" starts the bleacher crowd in chants for each Yankee fielder, starting with center field. The crowd continues chanting until the player turns around and acknowledges the crowd. That was pretty cool. The game itself was pretty boring, with the Yankees just scoring in two innings and the Twins just scoring one run in the ninth inning, which allowed Mariano Rivera to come in and save the game for the Yankees. The final score was 5 to 1, and while the game wasn't amazing, it is still an awesome experience that none of us will ever forget.
After the game, we picked up our Souvenir of the Game, listed in Kyle's blog (eastcoastbaseballroadtrip.blogspot.com), across the street from the stadium and made our way back onto the Subway into town. We got off at Grand Central Station, grabbed some coffee, and then headed out onto Broadway. We didn't get too far before realizing that we were starving. We stooped at Chipotle because A) their burritos dominate and B) they had free Wi-Fi (side note: Wi-Fi has been way harder to find than one would expect, which is why blogs have been so infrequently posted). After eating, posting, and checking facebook (after all, facebook is life), we took off down Broadway towards Times Square. We took in our fill of Broadway, stopping in the gigantic Toys-R-Us store to see the Ferris Wheel inside it, checking out Times Square and seeing where most of the shows on Broadway were. Then we headed over to Central Park to look, since three of us had never seen it. From there, we went to the semi-invisible Apple store, which just has a glass entrance but the store itself is underground. After that, we climbed back on the subway to get out to our ferry near Wall Street. We took one that took us pretty close to Wall Street but didn't quite take us there. That turned out being a problem, as we got a little mixed up before finding our way back to Pier 11. When we got back to Pier 11, it was 8:41 PM. Our boat had left at 8:40, and the next one didn't come until 9:40. We sat around the dock, called some people, tossed a racquetball around that i had left in my computer bag. When we finally got on the boat at 9:30, we had started to see a few flashes of lightning. When we got back to the camp, we trucked it over to our site and started setting up the tent correctly thanks to the directions I got from my dad. Unfortunately, what we thought was a stake bag in the tent bag was actually a bag of extra poles. At this point, things are starting to seem a lot like the night before. About halfway through putting up the tent, we see the sheets of rain advancing on us rapidly. Too bad it was too late to act this time. The rain hit us before we could even start to throw stuff in the car. Jason was inside the tent when it hit, Kyle was close enough to the car to jump in and stay relatively dry, but Gray and I got absolutely drenched. Gray and I ran to the bathroom to discard phones, wallets, etc. Then ran back out to the tent to start grabbing the two air mattresses which were already pretty moist due to the tent not being fully erected. We also grabbed Gray's sleeping bag, which was in its protective bag, so it barely got wet. Finally, when there was a semi-break in the rain, Jason ran to the car and Gray and I carried the tent into the bathroom. Then it started raining really, really hard again. We called Jason and told him and Kyle to go to the nearest Walmart and get tent stakes and towels. While the were off doing that, Gray and I hung the tent, the tarp, and the rain cover for the tent over the shower stalls in the bathroom. We slapped the tarp until it was dry since it doesn't hold water. Then we put deflated the mattresses and put them under the hand dryer in the bathroom inch by inch until they were both semi-dry, then we dried off our hats and then sat around in the bathroom waiting for Jason and Kyle to back and for the rain to stop pouring down. Finally the rain stopped, and Jason's radar said that the storm's had passed and shouldn't be bothering us again.We set up the tent again in the dark with stakes and Jason and I climbed in. Kyle and Gray sacrificed comfort for being smart and slept in the car. The story picks up tomorrow in Day 7. Goodnight Josh, Jason, Kyle, and Gray, ye unsuspecting campers.
This was actually the only Starbucks we saw in the entire city in 2+ hours of walking. Surprising.
Finally the game started at 1:05 PM. I would tell you what all happened but I was too tired to remember most of it, plus the "well-run" vending companies at Yankee Stadium didn't have any scorecards. Way to go Yankees, reflecting the Steinbrenner values of being dumb. Now I will say that there was one cool thing about the bleacher seats: Roll Call. Every game, one of the "Bleacher Creatures" starts the bleacher crowd in chants for each Yankee fielder, starting with center field. The crowd continues chanting until the player turns around and acknowledges the crowd. That was pretty cool. The game itself was pretty boring, with the Yankees just scoring in two innings and the Twins just scoring one run in the ninth inning, which allowed Mariano Rivera to come in and save the game for the Yankees. The final score was 5 to 1, and while the game wasn't amazing, it is still an awesome experience that none of us will ever forget.
After the game, we picked up our Souvenir of the Game, listed in Kyle's blog (eastcoastbaseballroadtrip.blogspot.com), across the street from the stadium and made our way back onto the Subway into town. We got off at Grand Central Station, grabbed some coffee, and then headed out onto Broadway. We didn't get too far before realizing that we were starving. We stooped at Chipotle because A) their burritos dominate and B) they had free Wi-Fi (side note: Wi-Fi has been way harder to find than one would expect, which is why blogs have been so infrequently posted). After eating, posting, and checking facebook (after all, facebook is life), we took off down Broadway towards Times Square. We took in our fill of Broadway, stopping in the gigantic Toys-R-Us store to see the Ferris Wheel inside it, checking out Times Square and seeing where most of the shows on Broadway were. Then we headed over to Central Park to look, since three of us had never seen it. From there, we went to the semi-invisible Apple store, which just has a glass entrance but the store itself is underground. After that, we climbed back on the subway to get out to our ferry near Wall Street. We took one that took us pretty close to Wall Street but didn't quite take us there. That turned out being a problem, as we got a little mixed up before finding our way back to Pier 11. When we got back to Pier 11, it was 8:41 PM. Our boat had left at 8:40, and the next one didn't come until 9:40. We sat around the dock, called some people, tossed a racquetball around that i had left in my computer bag. When we finally got on the boat at 9:30, we had started to see a few flashes of lightning. When we got back to the camp, we trucked it over to our site and started setting up the tent correctly thanks to the directions I got from my dad. Unfortunately, what we thought was a stake bag in the tent bag was actually a bag of extra poles. At this point, things are starting to seem a lot like the night before. About halfway through putting up the tent, we see the sheets of rain advancing on us rapidly. Too bad it was too late to act this time. The rain hit us before we could even start to throw stuff in the car. Jason was inside the tent when it hit, Kyle was close enough to the car to jump in and stay relatively dry, but Gray and I got absolutely drenched. Gray and I ran to the bathroom to discard phones, wallets, etc. Then ran back out to the tent to start grabbing the two air mattresses which were already pretty moist due to the tent not being fully erected. We also grabbed Gray's sleeping bag, which was in its protective bag, so it barely got wet. Finally, when there was a semi-break in the rain, Jason ran to the car and Gray and I carried the tent into the bathroom. Then it started raining really, really hard again. We called Jason and told him and Kyle to go to the nearest Walmart and get tent stakes and towels. While the were off doing that, Gray and I hung the tent, the tarp, and the rain cover for the tent over the shower stalls in the bathroom. We slapped the tarp until it was dry since it doesn't hold water. Then we put deflated the mattresses and put them under the hand dryer in the bathroom inch by inch until they were both semi-dry, then we dried off our hats and then sat around in the bathroom waiting for Jason and Kyle to back and for the rain to stop pouring down. Finally the rain stopped, and Jason's radar said that the storm's had passed and shouldn't be bothering us again.We set up the tent again in the dark with stakes and Jason and I climbed in. Kyle and Gray sacrificed comfort for being smart and slept in the car. The story picks up tomorrow in Day 7. Goodnight Josh, Jason, Kyle, and Gray, ye unsuspecting campers.
This was actually the only Starbucks we saw in the entire city in 2+ hours of walking. Surprising.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Day 5 - Baltimore and DC
Day 5 - Mike's House to Baltimore to Washington DC to Baltimore to Hanover, PA
Ok well its about 11 PM and we're on our way to our campsite in Pennsylvania. This has been an interesting day so far. To start, we woke up about 30 minutes later than we were planning, which cut off some of the time that we got to spend in Washington DC. After we got to Baltimore through the disgusting traffic (thank god we have 4 people and could therefore use the HOV lane, otherwise we might still be sitting on the Interstate), we parked at the Amtrak Station in Baltimore and bought our train tickets to DC. The train was really kinda fun. None of us had ever been on one in America, and we were able to find a little rectangle of four seats facing each other so we busted out my laptop and started playing Monopoly! 40 minutes later, we were in DC at Union Station, and we hit the ground running. Too bad it was in the wrong direction. After going about 6 blocks away from the Capitol and Josh stubbing his toe on a rouge concrete block, we got turned back in the right direction and found the capitol. Now, considering we got to DC at 11:25 and had to be on the train at Union Station at 4:05, I'd say its fair to say we were pressed for time. We got to the Capitol and took a few pictures from each side of it, then headed off towards the National Mall.
We made a beeline for the National Archives since our resident history nerd Gray could not live without seeing the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. As we reached the line to get into the Archives, Jason and I decided we wanted to go get a couple of pictures of the Smithsonian Castle and then get back with Gray and Kyle before they were let inside. As we got to the Smithsonian Castle, I get a text from Gray saying they had just been let into the museum. After getting our pictures of the castle, Jason and I ran-ish back to the Archives to re-enter the line to get inside. Once we finally got in, we moved quickly up the stairs to the Rotunda. As we approached, who else do we see just through the golden gates of the Rotunda at the front of the line for viewing but Gray and Kyle. I calmly walked up to the security guard, explained to him that Jason and I were grouped with Kyle and Gray but had gone to the bathroom, and we just wanted to get back with them. The best part was, it worked. So, thanks I guess to Kyle and Gray's patience, Jason and I got right in to view the documents. Let me tell you, we got some nasty glares from the 200+ people in line as we made our way forward. Anyway, by the time that whole fiasco was done, it was nearly 1 PM! We were hungry, but there was no way we were delaying for food. We walk-sprinted over to the White House and got to see something pretty cool. As we approached the sidewalk across the street from the White House, a police officer we would not be able to see the front of the White House for a few minutes. We soon found out why when 3 helicopters, 2 marine and 1 presidential, passed over head. The marine helicopters peeled off, but the presidential one landed on the front of the White House. Jason, thinking fast, ran halfway around the Elliptical Park and managed to get a view of the front of the White House. Since his camera gets 10x zoom, he was able to record a video of the helicopter on the lawn and then as it took off and flew over his head!
I'll post the video later, because it's awesome! Anyway, after that, we took off to the Washington Monument and got our pictures there, and then over to the World War II and Lincoln Memorials.
By the time we got out of the Lincoln Memorial, it was 3:10 PM and we knew we needed to start hurrying. We asked a security guard for directions to the nearest Metro station, and he gave us what sounded like good directions. Wrong. He told us to go 6 blocks down on 21st street from I think Constitution, but after we had gone 9 blocks down, we figured that the directions were crap. Unfortunately, it was 3:35 at this point. After getting directions from a blind man, who was correct, unlike the sighted security guard, we made it on to the Metro, but we had to switch lines a few stops down to get to Union Station. At this point, we were really pushing it, getting on the Red Line to Union Station at 3:52. We arrived at Union Station at 3:57 and took off running to find the trains and then to find our platform, which, of course, was the second farthest one away from us. Yay! We made it onto the train with 1 minute to spare, took separate seats, kicked back and enjoyed the ride back to Baltimore. That's where more fun came. Between bad/confusing directions from the GPS (Sophia is her name) and the drivers of Baltimore, who are the rudest S.O.B.s I have ever had the misfortune of driving around, as well as a wrong turn that took us down a sidewalk along the marina/mall, where we got many confused looks from the mall's patrons, it's safe to say that we had a hard time driving the whole 2 miles to get to our parking spot. Hahaha while we were driving by the marina, Jason just started waving at random people and they all started waving back and laughing at us. It was great. Anyway, we finally got parked and headed into Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Two words: Absolutely beautiful.
The atmosphere was amazing, considering the park includes Eutaw Street, which is closed off to traffic and has some great food stands set up, and has an old brick warehouse as the backdrop behind right field. We made our way down to our FRONT ROW seats in right center field and met the people next to us, the Meyers family. Jason's segment will tell you more about the fun we had with them. The game was another awesome high scoring one, including 5 home runs, and the visiting Toronto Blue Jays came away with a 10-8 win, but not before allowing the Baltimore Orioles to load the bases in the 9th inning to provide some suspense. We then made our trek to our campsite in Hanover, Pennsylvania, which is surrounded by some very creepy country houses for miles and miles. The Day 6 blog will tell you a hilarious, dysfunctional tale of 4 campers vs. 1 thunderstorm.
Jason's segment will also come later. So will pictures and videos. So yeah. We're gonna go to the invisible Apple store now. Bye
Jason's Segment
First off, I want to apologize for how late this is in getting out to you guys. But nonetheless, here it is. When on our travels, we stopped in a little town called Baltimore. There we met a little boy at the Orioles game named Stephen Meyers. Let me just tell you Stephen’s story. Upon arrival at our seats, I see this pretty awesome kid sitting next to me. Us being new to the town and stadium (and from Texas), we start to make conversation with the boy and his dad, learning about the Orioles, about Baltimore, and about the stadium. During every half-inning or so, the boy would hold up a poster, which I eventually asked what it said. Turning it toward me, he read it saying “Hey, Its my birthday! Toss me a ball!” The fellas and I were so excited for this kid and his birthday that we took it upon ourselves to beg, jab, and otherwise annoy the players until they turned around and noticed either what we were telling them, or what Stephen’s sign said. The opposing team didn’t want anything to do with us, tossing us aside as mere hecklers, which we eventually turned into when we found that they were going to completely ignore us. (which prompted me to heckle them with the “oh-so-intimidating” “I hate being ignored” heckle. FINALLY the right and center fielders for the Orioles start to look up and see what we’re yelling about (but still pulling the “I’m really looking at the scoreboard” bit). All we needed was a flyball to either of them for a 3rd out and we’d be set. Well sure enough, in that same inning, the centerfielder catches the 3rd out, roughly 20 ft from the wall, which he then nonchalantly tossed up to the kid. It made all of our days and to see Stephen’s face light up was a great sight.
Stephen Meyers if you’re reading this, happy birthday again buddy, and I hope we meet again.
Ok well its about 11 PM and we're on our way to our campsite in Pennsylvania. This has been an interesting day so far. To start, we woke up about 30 minutes later than we were planning, which cut off some of the time that we got to spend in Washington DC. After we got to Baltimore through the disgusting traffic (thank god we have 4 people and could therefore use the HOV lane, otherwise we might still be sitting on the Interstate), we parked at the Amtrak Station in Baltimore and bought our train tickets to DC. The train was really kinda fun. None of us had ever been on one in America, and we were able to find a little rectangle of four seats facing each other so we busted out my laptop and started playing Monopoly! 40 minutes later, we were in DC at Union Station, and we hit the ground running. Too bad it was in the wrong direction. After going about 6 blocks away from the Capitol and Josh stubbing his toe on a rouge concrete block, we got turned back in the right direction and found the capitol. Now, considering we got to DC at 11:25 and had to be on the train at Union Station at 4:05, I'd say its fair to say we were pressed for time. We got to the Capitol and took a few pictures from each side of it, then headed off towards the National Mall.
We made a beeline for the National Archives since our resident history nerd Gray could not live without seeing the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. As we reached the line to get into the Archives, Jason and I decided we wanted to go get a couple of pictures of the Smithsonian Castle and then get back with Gray and Kyle before they were let inside. As we got to the Smithsonian Castle, I get a text from Gray saying they had just been let into the museum. After getting our pictures of the castle, Jason and I ran-ish back to the Archives to re-enter the line to get inside. Once we finally got in, we moved quickly up the stairs to the Rotunda. As we approached, who else do we see just through the golden gates of the Rotunda at the front of the line for viewing but Gray and Kyle. I calmly walked up to the security guard, explained to him that Jason and I were grouped with Kyle and Gray but had gone to the bathroom, and we just wanted to get back with them. The best part was, it worked. So, thanks I guess to Kyle and Gray's patience, Jason and I got right in to view the documents. Let me tell you, we got some nasty glares from the 200+ people in line as we made our way forward. Anyway, by the time that whole fiasco was done, it was nearly 1 PM! We were hungry, but there was no way we were delaying for food. We walk-sprinted over to the White House and got to see something pretty cool. As we approached the sidewalk across the street from the White House, a police officer we would not be able to see the front of the White House for a few minutes. We soon found out why when 3 helicopters, 2 marine and 1 presidential, passed over head. The marine helicopters peeled off, but the presidential one landed on the front of the White House. Jason, thinking fast, ran halfway around the Elliptical Park and managed to get a view of the front of the White House. Since his camera gets 10x zoom, he was able to record a video of the helicopter on the lawn and then as it took off and flew over his head!
I'll post the video later, because it's awesome! Anyway, after that, we took off to the Washington Monument and got our pictures there, and then over to the World War II and Lincoln Memorials.
By the time we got out of the Lincoln Memorial, it was 3:10 PM and we knew we needed to start hurrying. We asked a security guard for directions to the nearest Metro station, and he gave us what sounded like good directions. Wrong. He told us to go 6 blocks down on 21st street from I think Constitution, but after we had gone 9 blocks down, we figured that the directions were crap. Unfortunately, it was 3:35 at this point. After getting directions from a blind man, who was correct, unlike the sighted security guard, we made it on to the Metro, but we had to switch lines a few stops down to get to Union Station. At this point, we were really pushing it, getting on the Red Line to Union Station at 3:52. We arrived at Union Station at 3:57 and took off running to find the trains and then to find our platform, which, of course, was the second farthest one away from us. Yay! We made it onto the train with 1 minute to spare, took separate seats, kicked back and enjoyed the ride back to Baltimore. That's where more fun came. Between bad/confusing directions from the GPS (Sophia is her name) and the drivers of Baltimore, who are the rudest S.O.B.s I have ever had the misfortune of driving around, as well as a wrong turn that took us down a sidewalk along the marina/mall, where we got many confused looks from the mall's patrons, it's safe to say that we had a hard time driving the whole 2 miles to get to our parking spot. Hahaha while we were driving by the marina, Jason just started waving at random people and they all started waving back and laughing at us. It was great. Anyway, we finally got parked and headed into Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Two words: Absolutely beautiful.
The atmosphere was amazing, considering the park includes Eutaw Street, which is closed off to traffic and has some great food stands set up, and has an old brick warehouse as the backdrop behind right field. We made our way down to our FRONT ROW seats in right center field and met the people next to us, the Meyers family. Jason's segment will tell you more about the fun we had with them. The game was another awesome high scoring one, including 5 home runs, and the visiting Toronto Blue Jays came away with a 10-8 win, but not before allowing the Baltimore Orioles to load the bases in the 9th inning to provide some suspense. We then made our trek to our campsite in Hanover, Pennsylvania, which is surrounded by some very creepy country houses for miles and miles. The Day 6 blog will tell you a hilarious, dysfunctional tale of 4 campers vs. 1 thunderstorm.
Jason's segment will also come later. So will pictures and videos. So yeah. We're gonna go to the invisible Apple store now. Bye
Jason's Segment
First off, I want to apologize for how late this is in getting out to you guys. But nonetheless, here it is. When on our travels, we stopped in a little town called Baltimore. There we met a little boy at the Orioles game named Stephen Meyers. Let me just tell you Stephen’s story. Upon arrival at our seats, I see this pretty awesome kid sitting next to me. Us being new to the town and stadium (and from Texas), we start to make conversation with the boy and his dad, learning about the Orioles, about Baltimore, and about the stadium. During every half-inning or so, the boy would hold up a poster, which I eventually asked what it said. Turning it toward me, he read it saying “Hey, Its my birthday! Toss me a ball!” The fellas and I were so excited for this kid and his birthday that we took it upon ourselves to beg, jab, and otherwise annoy the players until they turned around and noticed either what we were telling them, or what Stephen’s sign said. The opposing team didn’t want anything to do with us, tossing us aside as mere hecklers, which we eventually turned into when we found that they were going to completely ignore us. (which prompted me to heckle them with the “oh-so-intimidating” “I hate being ignored” heckle. FINALLY the right and center fielders for the Orioles start to look up and see what we’re yelling about (but still pulling the “I’m really looking at the scoreboard” bit). All we needed was a flyball to either of them for a 3rd out and we’d be set. Well sure enough, in that same inning, the centerfielder catches the 3rd out, roughly 20 ft from the wall, which he then nonchalantly tossed up to the kid. It made all of our days and to see Stephen’s face light up was a great sight.
Stephen Meyers if you’re reading this, happy birthday again buddy, and I hope we meet again.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Day 4 - Spartanburg to Mike's House
8:00 AM - We actually all did wake up at 7 AM. After packing up the tent and brushing teeth, applying deodorant, etc., we went up to the park check-in and paid for our one night stay. Now we're on I-85 North.
10:30 AM - Ok, we got to Charlotte around 9:30 and decided to stop at Walmart for ice, batteries, and a small fan for camping. Had no problem finding all of that. Then we went over to Best Buy to find a 400 Watt converter since my Dad and Mrs. Andreen informed us that the PS3 uses 400 Watts. So we went into the store to get a converter that would actually work. Hahahahahahaha. Want to take a wild guess what happened after remembering our stop at the Beaumont Best Buy? Yep, we brought it out to the car, opened it (neatly this time so we could put the box back together in one-ish piece), and plugged the PS3 into it. BZZZZEWWW. Whatever the opposite of good luck is, we're having that with the power converters. Next time we stop by a Best Buy, we're gonna try a 750 Watt converter. Oh well, at least Guitar Hero 3 will never get old...oh wait, it did yesterday.
12:48 PM - Blogging from Greensboro, NC, the heart of civilization. We're probably 4 or 5 hours from DC and the Clifton, VA area. Yay.
7:00 PM - We're at Mike's house! His mom made us some pizza so we had a good dinner. We're probably gonna head out to throw the frisbee around a little bit and then I'm sure we'll be busting out the PS3.
11:00 PM - Alright well we got our frisbee on for a while until we got nice and sweaty and then we came back to the house and I smoked Gray and Jason at pool while Kyle set up the PS3 and then proceeded to beat Mike 28-14 at NCAA Football 09. After that, Gray and I played out our rivalry, Fightin Texas Aggies vs Texas Fat Cows. Seeing as how I had never used a Playstation controller before and how Stephen McGee apparantly can't throw the ball within 10 feet of his target on the game, Gray jumped out to a 28-0 lead by halftime. Then he pulled a cheap but clever one on me, kicking and recovering and onside kick to start the second half, partially due to my inability to figure out how to switch alignments. I started scoring points late, including a 83 yard kickoff return for a TD, but ended up losing 49-24. Nonetheless, it was still fun. Now we're gonna go to bed since we should probably be leaving around 8 AM.
8:00 AM - We actually all did wake up at 7 AM. After packing up the tent and brushing teeth, applying deodorant, etc., we went up to the park check-in and paid for our one night stay. Now we're on I-85 North.
10:30 AM - Ok, we got to Charlotte around 9:30 and decided to stop at Walmart for ice, batteries, and a small fan for camping. Had no problem finding all of that. Then we went over to Best Buy to find a 400 Watt converter since my Dad and Mrs. Andreen informed us that the PS3 uses 400 Watts. So we went into the store to get a converter that would actually work. Hahahahahahaha. Want to take a wild guess what happened after remembering our stop at the Beaumont Best Buy? Yep, we brought it out to the car, opened it (neatly this time so we could put the box back together in one-ish piece), and plugged the PS3 into it. BZZZZEWWW. Whatever the opposite of good luck is, we're having that with the power converters. Next time we stop by a Best Buy, we're gonna try a 750 Watt converter. Oh well, at least Guitar Hero 3 will never get old...oh wait, it did yesterday.
12:48 PM - Blogging from Greensboro, NC, the heart of civilization. We're probably 4 or 5 hours from DC and the Clifton, VA area. Yay.
7:00 PM - We're at Mike's house! His mom made us some pizza so we had a good dinner. We're probably gonna head out to throw the frisbee around a little bit and then I'm sure we'll be busting out the PS3.
11:00 PM - Alright well we got our frisbee on for a while until we got nice and sweaty and then we came back to the house and I smoked Gray and Jason at pool while Kyle set up the PS3 and then proceeded to beat Mike 28-14 at NCAA Football 09. After that, Gray and I played out our rivalry, Fightin Texas Aggies vs Texas Fat Cows. Seeing as how I had never used a Playstation controller before and how Stephen McGee apparantly can't throw the ball within 10 feet of his target on the game, Gray jumped out to a 28-0 lead by halftime. Then he pulled a cheap but clever one on me, kicking and recovering and onside kick to start the second half, partially due to my inability to figure out how to switch alignments. I started scoring points late, including a 83 yard kickoff return for a TD, but ended up losing 49-24. Nonetheless, it was still fun. Now we're gonna go to bed since we should probably be leaving around 8 AM.
Day 3 - Atlanta and Spartansburg
Day 3 - Atlanta
We left Joey's house around 9:15 AM for the 2 hour long but 3 hour of time drive. Thanks a bunch, time zone change. We got to our parking spot in the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium around 12:20 and took some pictures where Hammerin' Hank hit number 715. We then made our way into Turner Field for the Nationals-Braves. After being thwarted by an usher in our attempt to get down by the field to take some pictures, we made our way up to Section 417, Row 2, Seats 1, 2, 3, and 4, although that quickly changed to seats 1, 3, 5, and 7 after we realized how hot it would be to be packed together in the 97 degree heat. After sitting in the sun for a few minutes and talking to our usher Alexis for a few minutes about the park and the city, we made our way over to the Coca-Cola mist sprayers. Surprisingly, everything in the stadium was sponsered by Coca Cola. You would have thought that Coca Cola was based in Atlanta or something. Anyway, there was some cool stuff out there, so we took some good pictures. We got back to our seats just before game time. The first inning was pretty slow, but then it turned into a blowout. In the 2, 3, and 4th innings, the two teams combined to score 16 runs, due to both poor pitching as well as a couple of errors by the Braves. I must say though, in the pitchers' defense, the umpire was calling the tightest strike zone i've seen in a long time. Bobby Cox got thrown out in the 3rd inning after arguing balls and strikes, which was pretty awesome. The final score was 15-6 Nationals. It was a great game at a very nice stadium. Then we made our drive to Spartanburg, SC for our night of camping at Croft State Park.
Night 3 - Spartanburg, SC
Oh my God. Ok, so lets start with this statement: The tent is not as big as we thought it was. We got to Croft State Park at 9 PM but nobody was in the office, so we just went ahead and picked one of the many open spots. We popped up the tent, which did not have three compartments like I thought it did. We decided to put all 4 of our air mattresses in it. Let's just say it was a tight fit with just the mattresses in the tent. Throw in the fact that it was still 88 degrees outside even though it was dark, and we we're just getting started with our night. We figured we'd get up early tomorrow morning to get to the Virginia area faster, so we all climbed into the tent around 9:45. As we climbed in, we noticed that the tent poles had started leaning inward due to the pull of 4 air mattresses on the edge of the tent. We finally all got settled, none of using sheets or sleeping bags due to the sheer heat of the night time. After a little jostling and making sure i was positioned in a place that would ensure that my face would not come in contact with any of the other three guys' feet, We began to calm down for sleep. Too bad the tent had other ideas. Out of nowhere, we found the top of the tent in Kyle's lap. The poles had swiveled around 180 degrees and folded at the middle. Exciting huh? After about 5 minutes of manuvering and holding poles up with our feet, we found just the perfect spot where the tent would stay up on its own. Each of us was slowly reminded to turn our phone to "Alarm Only" mode as we each received text messages that woke all of us up at random points in the night. Quite an experience.
We left Joey's house around 9:15 AM for the 2 hour long but 3 hour of time drive. Thanks a bunch, time zone change. We got to our parking spot in the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium around 12:20 and took some pictures where Hammerin' Hank hit number 715. We then made our way into Turner Field for the Nationals-Braves. After being thwarted by an usher in our attempt to get down by the field to take some pictures, we made our way up to Section 417, Row 2, Seats 1, 2, 3, and 4, although that quickly changed to seats 1, 3, 5, and 7 after we realized how hot it would be to be packed together in the 97 degree heat. After sitting in the sun for a few minutes and talking to our usher Alexis for a few minutes about the park and the city, we made our way over to the Coca-Cola mist sprayers. Surprisingly, everything in the stadium was sponsered by Coca Cola. You would have thought that Coca Cola was based in Atlanta or something. Anyway, there was some cool stuff out there, so we took some good pictures. We got back to our seats just before game time. The first inning was pretty slow, but then it turned into a blowout. In the 2, 3, and 4th innings, the two teams combined to score 16 runs, due to both poor pitching as well as a couple of errors by the Braves. I must say though, in the pitchers' defense, the umpire was calling the tightest strike zone i've seen in a long time. Bobby Cox got thrown out in the 3rd inning after arguing balls and strikes, which was pretty awesome. The final score was 15-6 Nationals. It was a great game at a very nice stadium. Then we made our drive to Spartanburg, SC for our night of camping at Croft State Park.
Night 3 - Spartanburg, SC
Oh my God. Ok, so lets start with this statement: The tent is not as big as we thought it was. We got to Croft State Park at 9 PM but nobody was in the office, so we just went ahead and picked one of the many open spots. We popped up the tent, which did not have three compartments like I thought it did. We decided to put all 4 of our air mattresses in it. Let's just say it was a tight fit with just the mattresses in the tent. Throw in the fact that it was still 88 degrees outside even though it was dark, and we we're just getting started with our night. We figured we'd get up early tomorrow morning to get to the Virginia area faster, so we all climbed into the tent around 9:45. As we climbed in, we noticed that the tent poles had started leaning inward due to the pull of 4 air mattresses on the edge of the tent. We finally all got settled, none of using sheets or sleeping bags due to the sheer heat of the night time. After a little jostling and making sure i was positioned in a place that would ensure that my face would not come in contact with any of the other three guys' feet, We began to calm down for sleep. Too bad the tent had other ideas. Out of nowhere, we found the top of the tent in Kyle's lap. The poles had swiveled around 180 degrees and folded at the middle. Exciting huh? After about 5 minutes of manuvering and holding poles up with our feet, we found just the perfect spot where the tent would stay up on its own. Each of us was slowly reminded to turn our phone to "Alarm Only" mode as we each received text messages that woke all of us up at random points in the night. Quite an experience.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Day 2 - Houston to Auburn
9:30 AM - We have departed from Houston after plenty of last minute packing. We're a little cramped in the back seat, mainly due to the large volume of food that our parents sent with us. No complaints there though, and I'm sure it'll all be gone in the span of a couple of days. We've got our 4 suitcases in the back of the van, the TV in the middle and all sorts of random stuff strewn about the cabin. It's gonna be interesting, that's for sure.
10:30 AM - Well, crap. My AC/DC power converter doesn't have enough power to run either the PS3 or the TV. Frustrado. We're stopping at Best Buy in Beaumont to pick up hopefully a 200 Watt converter. Then I'm gonna lose to Gray at NCAA Football 09 as the Fighting Texas Aggies! Ok we're at Best Buy, so we're gonna make a mad dash for the converter now. Oh, and we're all getting really annoyed with the radar detector because it's detecting all of the X-Band radars from stores like Target and Wal-Mart. The beeping has to stop.
11:30 AM - Well, this is becoming very interesting. Stopped at Best Buy to buy a power converter. We bought a 200 Watt, 115 volt converter and brought it back to the car and tested it out. No dice. After a more thorough investigation of the PS3, we found that it uses 120 volts. So we went back into Best Buy and returned the converter, getting some weird looks from the people who had just had us in the check out line a few minutes ago. After returning it, we took a closer look at power converters and found one that was advertised as providing 120 volts. After taking it out to the car to check it, we found that it too was insufficient. Muy frustrado. We then read the box and saw that it said 115 volts, but the manual said that it was 115 volts so that it could run with 110 volt and 120 volt appliances. Except PS3s I guess. Anger.
12:00 PM - Unhappiness with the video gaming system is setting in. After a call to the Sony Playstation 3 helpline, they told us what we already knew, which was that the Playstation isn't getting enough power. Unfortunately, they couldn't tell me anything else, even though I'd sat on hold for 25 minutes. Super gay. Oh well, Kyle and Jason are entertained in the front, Gray is playing Game Boy, and I'm about to bust out my computer's Monopoly, so it's all good.
12:53 PM - Jason - "Give me some Cajun jokes."
Josh - "Shane Heumann"
Entire Car - "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" (very loud, hilarious laughter)
2:30 PM - We just got gas at a station that featured a live tiger out in a cage at the stadium. Pretty cool, except it was being a lazy cat and sleeping in its little box thing. Oh well.
4:00 PM - Thank God. We are out of the god-forsaken state of Louisiana.
10:52 PM - Auburn, AL - We just got back from a mini-tour of the Auburn campus with Kyle's friend Joey, who we're staying with. It's a pretty nice campus, really cool looking football stadium. It's been a long day in the car, things are slightly less organized than they were when we left this morrning. We rolled into Auburn around 8:30 or so, grabbed some pizza, and then went with Joey to a place called Snow Biz, some really awesome snowcones. From there, we headed over to the Auburn campus and walked around inside the basketball arena for a while and looked at a few other places too. Now we're trying to find out where on earth we're going to sleep tomorrow night. Ought to be fun. Oh, well Baseball Tonight is on, so I'm gone. Nationals - Braves at Turner Field tomorrow!!!
9:30 AM - We have departed from Houston after plenty of last minute packing. We're a little cramped in the back seat, mainly due to the large volume of food that our parents sent with us. No complaints there though, and I'm sure it'll all be gone in the span of a couple of days. We've got our 4 suitcases in the back of the van, the TV in the middle and all sorts of random stuff strewn about the cabin. It's gonna be interesting, that's for sure.
10:30 AM - Well, crap. My AC/DC power converter doesn't have enough power to run either the PS3 or the TV. Frustrado. We're stopping at Best Buy in Beaumont to pick up hopefully a 200 Watt converter. Then I'm gonna lose to Gray at NCAA Football 09 as the Fighting Texas Aggies! Ok we're at Best Buy, so we're gonna make a mad dash for the converter now. Oh, and we're all getting really annoyed with the radar detector because it's detecting all of the X-Band radars from stores like Target and Wal-Mart. The beeping has to stop.
11:30 AM - Well, this is becoming very interesting. Stopped at Best Buy to buy a power converter. We bought a 200 Watt, 115 volt converter and brought it back to the car and tested it out. No dice. After a more thorough investigation of the PS3, we found that it uses 120 volts. So we went back into Best Buy and returned the converter, getting some weird looks from the people who had just had us in the check out line a few minutes ago. After returning it, we took a closer look at power converters and found one that was advertised as providing 120 volts. After taking it out to the car to check it, we found that it too was insufficient. Muy frustrado. We then read the box and saw that it said 115 volts, but the manual said that it was 115 volts so that it could run with 110 volt and 120 volt appliances. Except PS3s I guess. Anger.
12:00 PM - Unhappiness with the video gaming system is setting in. After a call to the Sony Playstation 3 helpline, they told us what we already knew, which was that the Playstation isn't getting enough power. Unfortunately, they couldn't tell me anything else, even though I'd sat on hold for 25 minutes. Super gay. Oh well, Kyle and Jason are entertained in the front, Gray is playing Game Boy, and I'm about to bust out my computer's Monopoly, so it's all good.
12:53 PM - Jason - "Give me some Cajun jokes."
Josh - "Shane Heumann"
Entire Car - "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" (very loud, hilarious laughter)
2:30 PM - We just got gas at a station that featured a live tiger out in a cage at the stadium. Pretty cool, except it was being a lazy cat and sleeping in its little box thing. Oh well.
4:00 PM - Thank God. We are out of the god-forsaken state of Louisiana.
10:52 PM - Auburn, AL - We just got back from a mini-tour of the Auburn campus with Kyle's friend Joey, who we're staying with. It's a pretty nice campus, really cool looking football stadium. It's been a long day in the car, things are slightly less organized than they were when we left this morrning. We rolled into Auburn around 8:30 or so, grabbed some pizza, and then went with Joey to a place called Snow Biz, some really awesome snowcones. From there, we headed over to the Auburn campus and walked around inside the basketball arena for a while and looked at a few other places too. Now we're trying to find out where on earth we're going to sleep tomorrow night. Ought to be fun. Oh, well Baseball Tonight is on, so I'm gone. Nationals - Braves at Turner Field tomorrow!!!
Friday, July 18, 2008
Night 1 - Jason's House
Ok, so Day 1 was pretty damn sweet! Gray, Jason, and I went to the Cubs-Astros game. We got there like 10 minutes late but somehow missed the entire 1st inning because Brian Moehler mowed the first 3 Cubs in 4 pitches. It was a very fast game, Jim Edmonds homered in the 5th inning and all the stupid freaking Cubs fans decided to be really loud about it. Carlos Lee launched one off of the windows in left field to tie it up at 1 in the bottom of the 7th. In the 8th, the three of us decided to make a point to the stupid, boisterous Cubs fans so we just randomly picked the 2nd out to make a big deal about. When the Cubs' batter grounded out, the three of us just stood up and started screaming and high-fiving. It ruled. In the bottom of the 9th, Miguel Tejada led off with a ground-rule double, and then on the next pitch, our boy Hunter Pence smacked a single to left-center field and Miggy came around and scored on a bang-bang play at the plate. It was so awesome!!! After we got back, we started packing the car. Tomorrow we leave at 8 am!!! YAY! So far, this trip rules.
Day 1 - Houston
Today is Day One of our East Coast Baseball Roadtrip. For those of you who aren't aware of what all is going on, let me give you some more background. Me and three friends, Jason Howeth, Gray Jodon, and Kyle Guest, are going on a 14 day, 10 game, 11 stadium baseball tour of the East Coast of our country. Our stops include Houston (tonight), Atlanta, Washington D.C. (no game here, just a tour of the stadium), Baltimore, New York for both the Yankees and the Mets, Boston, Cooperstown (Baseball Hall of Fame), Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Arlington. We're camping 6 nights, staying with relatives and friends 7 nights, and staying in a hotel 1 night. This trip is going to be flat out amazing. Tonight is Game 1, Chicago Cubs vs. Houston Astros. We are using Jason's tickets for section 212 on the Club Level. The pitching matchup is Ted Lilly vs. Brian Moehler. I've got to get back to packing, but I will post again tonight after the game!
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