The Latest

All,

I'm sorry to report, but my computer is officially dead. No more. Gone. All of the illegal downloading as eaten up the hard drive including my latest posts. You see usually I write these lengthy posts on the road, we have plenty of time while we are driving, and then we stop at Fedex/Kinkos and hook up the laptop for free and post. But the latest posts have been lost, never to be restored in their original form.

Anyhow, to catch everyone up and to clear confusion because so post came out of order - we went from Chicago, to Milwaukee, to Minnasota, to Kansas City, to the Field of Dreams, to St. Louis, to Memphis, to Lynchburg TN, and now we are in Dallas. The last four days have been chronicled, in what I thought was a humorous format, but it is gone. After the Rangers game tonight we are headed to Denver for a day game on Sunday. I'm going to type on Geoff's computer during that 900 mile voyage. I know you all are enjoying what we are writing, so I will do my damnest to bring it back to you. We are here for you. We are the roadtrippers of the people.

The Metrodome - it's like watching a baseball game in the portable gyms at Whittier High School 

Geoff in front of Harry Potter at the Mall of America - really no description is necessary 

Miller Park - we paid $1 for these seats 

Geoff in Miller Brewery 

Twins in the Twin Cities

The next morning we had to bulldog it through the rest of Wisconsin to get to Minneapolis in time for Heather’s flight home. Get this, rest areas in Minnesota offer free coffee. Maybe it is to encourage people to actually stop as they drive through the state of 10,000 lakes. Regardless, we made it to the airport right on time. If, for some reason, you find yourself dropping a friend off at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport you should know which terminal they are in. It is not like most airports where they have terminals 1-whatever of A,B,C, etc. here they have the Lindburgh terminal and the Humphrey terminal, and they about 7 miles apart. Furthermore, the signs for the respective terminals do not list the names of the airlines that flight into them. We were left to blindly guess which terminal to chose. We chose wisely.

Sadly, Heather had to go. She was such a beam of joy in a rather dull portion of our trip. I wish, just like I did with my uncle and dad, she could stay at least a week longer. Or the rest of the trip.

After she left we had some time to kill so we went to the nation’s largest mall, appropriately called the Mall of America. Let me tell you, it is large. There is an amusement park in it. I think you are spending too much time at the mall when you think, hey, lets go on a roller coaster on our way to Auntie Ann’s Pretzels and the Gap. Funny thing about this place is every single consumer is pasty white. You will not find one minority. It is like we were in bizzaro world. This is the first time that the two of us, dressed like we have been living in a van for the past month, did not stick out like a sore thumb. We found it rather peculiar not that the nation’s largest mall is in Minneapolis, but that there are other malls in this city! We saw two other malls. This town has more square feet of mall space than the Alabama has restaurants that specialize in waffles. Just like Wisconsin only cares about beer and the Packers, Minnesota only cares about hockey and malls.

We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with our host for the night, Dave and Anne, friends of our boy Eric Veneble. Dave and Anne have 4 lovely boys, all between the age of about 6 and 12. They were beams of energy. We had a lot of fun, but didn’t relax too much as you might imagine.

That night we headed over to the Metrodome. This all-purpose stadium is pressurized in order to support the dome which is simply a layer of Teflon less than an inch thick. So when we walked into the stadium our ears popped. How annoying is that. The stadium is your traditional domed stadium, very big and unexciting, nothing to enhance the game-day experience. However we did get excellent seats for cheap (we love the Midwest) and we watched an absolute gem of a game from Johan Santana. It was so bizarre seating there while there was a thunderstorm going on outside. We could actually hear the rain on the roof of the dome. And there were several occasions where there thunderclaps loud enough to echo through the stadium. Baseball is not meant to be enjoyed in the middle of a thunderstorm. To me that is God’s way of saying, get out of here, baseball is not meant to be seen in this ridiculous climate. But it was still a great game, the Twins edged the Indians 2-1 in the bottom of the ninth. The fans there were very knowledgeable and enthusiast. Our seats were so good that we were in prime foul ball territory. In the seventh inning we had a shot coming right at us. Geoff had the better position so he went for it, and it hit the hand of the man directly in front of him and then bounced a few seats down. Geoff didn’t really have the play but he made a valiant effort. I began talking to the man who ended up with the ball, he was from Philadelphia. Get this, he and his family were at the same Phillies game we were at. What are the odds. They wished us good luck on our trip and we left the stadium only to have our ears pop one more time.

We spent the night in the basement of the Sheldon household, which was a delight. Dave and his family were excellent hosts offering us a hot shower, a warm bed, a place to do laundry, and food for the road. Everything a roadtripper could possibly need.

Milwaukee, Beer Country

Milwaukee is the largest city in Wisconsin, which means it is roughly the size of my high school’s graduating class. As we drove into the town we passed a neighborhood drinkery about every other block. It appears that these people take beer as serious as they take the Green Bay Packers. I’m glad to see they have their priorities in the right place. Our first stop was the Miller Brewing Company. We needed to get some drinks up in Heather to take her mind off of Bill Cosby. If for some reason you find yourself in Milwaukee, WI I highly recommend heading over to the brewery, where it is always Miller Time. It shouldn’t be hard to find, there is a huge sign which stands taller than anything in the city, it provides a nice vector to drive to.

We were there on a Friday afternoon of Labor Day weekend so we expected our free tour to be packed out. We were wrong, it was just us and a 20 Japanese tourists, and the most affectionate couple in the US. The touchy-feely couple never went more than 3 seconds without physical contact which got kind of tricky as we headed up 6 flights of stairs that weren’t wide enough to walk side by side. Those two, and the Japanese taking pictures of everything from the tour guide to the eye wash faucet, were just about as entertaining as the tour. But the tour was still more captivating because it featured the funniest educational video of all time. The video, which was the history of the Miller Brewing Company, was narrated by the same guy who does the Miller High Life commercials. The Japanese tourists couldn’t quite figure out why the three of us were laughing uncontrollably when he said, “Goodbye Prohibition, hello Miller Time”. At the end of the tour you can write letters to the US troops stationed overseas and Miller will address them and mail them off. Just one of many things they do for our armed forces. They also gave us three free beers. It was such a nice afternoon and we had more than enough time before the game that we decided to head back to the car, change our shirts, and take the tour again to get another three free beers! It worked like a charm. It was that type of stuff which really made me enjoy my time at the brewery, Miller Time.

Right after the game we headed to Miller Park, home of the brewers, where tailgated is encourage. What a delight. In the parking lot of the stadium is a youth baseball field. How cool is that? Little kids kept help but play like pro players when they are staring at a professional stadium all game long. Heather and I had a catch in the parking lot, we sipped some beers, and all around had a great afternoon. Our tickets only cost $1 – which was a delight. By the first inning we were sitting 10 rows behind the third base dugout, even better. Miller Park is a great stadium with a retractable roof much like Bank One Ballpark in Arizona or Minute Maid Park in Houston. It is a clean looking stadium with a lot of character. And considering the Brewers are about 23 games out of the playoffs there was still a decent size crowd. Supposedly, on days when the Packers are playing there are only a couple of hundred of people at the game. Crazy Wisconsionians.

Sweet Home Chicago

Well, no exactly, Chicago isn’t my home. But that song does in fact rock and that has to count for something. Wednesday morning started off with a bulldog effort from the four of us (Geoff, Brian, Rick, and me) to get to Chicago early enough to see the day game. The Cubs are the first team we have encountered which does not have a highway within ½ mile of the stadium - kind of a bad call. And Wrigley Field is in a real old neighborhood so there isn’t much parking. People actually rent out their own parking spots at their houses, this is where we parked. Waiting for us at the gate was the best treat of the trip, Heather, my twin sister. She was fortunate enough to get to Wrigley Village a couple of hours before us and enjoy the atmosphere and spirits. What a delight. To make things more exciting they had a game day giveaway and 25 random visitors won a Nomar Garciaparra autographed baseball. Uncle Brian won one. Yeah, as if that guy didn’t thieve enough baseballs on this trip, he pulled down on more - however this one isn’t going to be velcroed to the hood of the van.

Sidebar about the van: it is starting to look like 2 guys have been living in it for a month. And as of today only the front two doors are fully functional. The backdoor opens but it won’t stay up and the sliding side door is jammed shut. As Geoff said, two out of four ain’t bad, we are batting .500. So true.

Another sidebar, we don’t like Laura Severson anymore. I for one am rooting for Becky McCullough to pitch every inning of a championship season for Stanford Softball next spring.

So five of us went to the game and all five of us were seated in different sections. Fortunately it was a day game on a weekday and the Cubs are well out of the payoff race so there were a few seats available that were together which allowed all five of us to sit together. I do not take back any of the good things I have said about the previous stadiums but I will say that there is nothing as amazing as seeing a day game at Wrigley. It simply rocks. It has all the age and history of Yankee Stadium or Fenway yet it is also open and comfortable with a great urban backdrop like the new stadiums. Furthermore, we got to see them play the Dodgers. Derrick Lowe was pitching for the Dodgers and he gave a lead-off hit. I thought to myself, ‘this is going to be a long game’. Well, it was, for the Cubs, because he managed to get the next 27 outs without giving up another hit. He threw an unofficial no-hitter! Unbelievable. The Dodgers dominated the Cubs and the fans in front of us hated us until I told them what we were doing and then after realizing we had drove over 10000 miles at over $3.00 a gallon we had earned our right to root for the Dodgers.

Simply put, Wrigley Rocks.

After the game we took Rick and Brian to the airport. They were really bummed they had to go both said that they would love to just finish the trip with us. I can save the sentiment was shared because there would be nothing better than have those 2 guys close this thing out with us. I had high expectations of both my dad and uncle yet I was still surprised at how much they rocked. They were beams of energy the whole time they were here - never complaining, never sleepy, sometimes hungry, but they solved that with a daily consumption of 4 boxes of Cheez-its and 2 bags of pretzels. One of my best memories of this trip will be those two flying across the country to live in a van for 5 days with us. Thank you Dad and Uncle Brian.

No time to get soft though, still a lot of rockin’ to do. We quickly began to look for a pizza place because we heard the pizza in Chicago is better than anywhere else. We finally found one but they didn’t serve beer there. What kind of pizza place doesn’t serve beer. I was hoping for the place in the SNL skit where the guys from Chicago kept talking about ‘da Bulls and da Bears’. Instead we had to settle for some ‘pop’ with our deep dish pizza. It was good, but hardly mind-blowing. When you expect to get your mind blown by the quality of the pizza it is quite the disappointment when said mind-blowing does not, in fact, occur. So it goes.

That night we spent the night at a KOA a ways out of downtown. It was so nice to have some room to walk around. It is such a paradox to be driving through this big country with great expanses and then being confined to a mini-van or a hotel room. I need wide open spaces, room to make my own mistakes. So it was nice to be out camping. The next morning I walked around the campground and befriended a man named Greg. My boy Greg is probably in his mid 50s, he has about half of his teeth, and he, to my surprise, lives at the KOA. It was the definition of a simple man. Didn’t need much to be happy and content. The funny thing about these guys, the good ol’ boys kind of guys, is how they immediately skip from the most mundane topic to the most abstract and then bring it back to something simple, full circle. For example, take this exempt from our conversation, actually it was more of a monologue because I didn’t get the chance to speak,
Greg the one-legged RVer: Beautiful weather we are havin’ here. Don’t you think?
Scott: (Trying to agree)
Greg the one-legged RVer: … It is from the hurricane. All that bad weather has to make good weather somewhere else. Everything is always in balance.
Scott: (Begins to wonder what this guy was doing in the summer of ’69)
Greg the one-legged RVer: … It is too bad though because Katrina is really jacking up gas prices. You know what we need to do?
Scott: (nodding in agreement, making to attempt to interject anymore)
Greg the one-legged RVer: … We need to start taking oil out of Iraq. We got it. Right? The country is still controlled by the US. It is in our best interest. Lets get gas back down to less than a dollar a gallon. That is what those boys fought and died for. But you know what? We can’t worry about those things. All we can worry about is taking care of ourselves and our families. That is all that matters. Just enjoying a beautiful day with your family.
Scott: Right on.

Just then Greg’s friend or partner or whatever drove up on his golf cart, which prompted my suspicion as to how long they were staying here. It seems that they will be at the KOA until the end of 2006. If you ask me, there isn’t much point in living in a portable home unless you take advantage of its portability, especially in winter in Illinois. But to each his own. Right about the time the Dino, Greg’s pal, decided to show me his surgery scars I realized it was time to go. They were great guys though, just out there doing what they wanted, making friends at the RV park and discussing foreign policy and the national energy plan. They even offered me a pork chop dinner that night. Sadly, I had to decline because I had to go to the White Sox game.

We wisely decided to take the ‘L’ to the White Sox game because people in Chicago lack the ability to drive in traffic. I think the problem is that there are too many interesting bumper stickers out there and the great people of Chicago feel it is their duty to read them all. Even those ones about honor students. We got off the L in downtown and walked around a bit. This town is so cool. The buildings, the atmosphere, the culture, it is the perfect combination of big city and mid-west. We hung out a bit, had some food and drinks, and then started headed back to the L station. This is where the magic happened. Heather and I couldn’t find the correct line, the first station we went to didn’t go to the stop we needed. So we were randomly walking up some random street and I spot some random street artist sketching a portrait of some random girl. If I hadn’t made it clear enough, this scene is something that anyone would acknowledge and then quickly dismiss. Well, not anyone, because what I failed to mention was that he had some sample work on the curb - pictures of celebrities including Eminem, 2-Pac, and, wait for it, Bill Cosby. Dr. Huxtible. The Jell-o spokesman. Little known fact about my twin sister, she is obsessed with Bill Cosby. After I pointed the portrait out to here she literally jumped up and down and covered her mouth and screamed, as if she just won the National Spelling Bee. She interrupted the artist to see how much it was, he replied $10, she handed over the cash before the words left his mouth. But please, read on, the story gets better.

As previously mentioned we were on our way to the White Sox game and no Bill Cosby portrait could slow us down. So Heather now gets on the L with Bill, and then ushers him through the turnstiles at US Cellular Field. Our seats at the White Sox game were horrible so we decided to watch the remainder of the game from the sports bar in right field. One of the coolest characteristics of this stadium is that their right field wall is essentially just a fence and on the other side of the wall is a Sports Bar. There aren’t too many baseball fields where you can drink whiskey and watch the game - it was quite a treat. So we sat down at table and I put up the Bill Cosby to overlook our drinks. Heather then replies, don’t be ridiculous, and turns him around so that Magglio Ordonez, the right fielder, can enjoy his presence. For 6 innings Bill just kicked it out in right field. At one point a ball was hit right down the line and Ordonez came over to field it, threw it in, and began walking back to where he usually stands when he noticed a creepy pencil sketch peering at him, it was Bill. Magglio did a double take and then jogged off shaking his head. Clearly he is not a fan of Jell-o.

We left the game after the White Sox beat the Tigers. The game was rather uneventful and the stadium although very nice and new, was sterile. We caught the L and began to ride it North back to our car. After being on the train for 30 minutes Heather taps me on the shoulder and asks, ‘Where is Bill?’. Those fateful words still echo in my mind. Heather left Bill Cosby, her most priced possession, in the ladies’ room of the Dugout Sports Bar at US Cellular Field. I tried to comfort her and remind her it is part of the circle of life - Bill rose from the bowels of Chicago and now, he has returned there.

But the story does not stop here, oh no, there is more. The next morning Heather was driving to Milwaukee, Geoff was in the other Lazy Boy, and I was back in the bedroom. Heather had Geoff call the White Sox to ask if they found it. Here is the dialogue as it was repeated to me by Geoff:
Geoff: Can I please speak to the Dugout Sports Bar I left something there last night?
Chicago White Sox lady: Oh, well this is the lost and found.
Geoff: Well that is convenient. My friend believes she left a picture of Bill Cosby in the girls’ bathroom last night.
Chicago White Sox lady: Are you serious?
Geoff: Yes, I’m serious.
Chicago White Sox lady: (beginning to laugh) Oh, I’m sorry I shouldn’t be laughing.
Geoff: No, it is ok to laugh, it is, after all, a picture of Bill Cosby.
Chicago White Sox lady: Well can you describe the picture to me, size, etc.
Geoff: Well it is about 16 by …
Chicago White Sox lady: You know what, never mind, how many Bill Cosby pictures are going to come in today?
Geoff: You might be surprised.
They never found Bill. Or, more likely, they found him and fell in love with him, and now he is framed over the main office of the Chicago White Sox. Either way Heather is out $10 and a beautiful picture of the funniest man in America to wear sweaters.

Heather and Bill Cosby  

Guess what stadium this is?