Take Me Out To The Ballgame

It’s hard to blog from the road, so I’ve decided to break our summer trip into manageable segments. The first segment is the shortest, just the first couple days.

June 30^th was a travel day, and even though we had to sit on the runway in Tucson for an hour and a half, we made our connection. I was very impressed by how well the girls handled the delay. It was pretty late when we got to Aunty Jody’s house, so it was straight to bed for the Rileys.

Meg’s sister and her family got in the next morning, and the cousins got right to it. My brother-in-law and I took the two older girls to a Twins game. The new ballpark is as good as advertised, but they might want to beef up security. A pretty nasty fight broke out in our section, one drunk guy using the other drunk guy’s face as a punching bag. These were big dudes and no one was doing anything to break it up. For a second I thought Tom and I might have to get in there, but thankfully someone beat us to it. The “security“ that finally showed up was some old guy, no way in hell he was going to help. He didn’t even have a radio to call for back up. I never did see a police officer, which I found more than a little odd. I’ve been to a lot of sporting events, at a good number of stadiums across the country; I’ve never seen a situation in the crowd so poorly managed.

Both of the brawlers left bloodied, although I think it was all one guy’s blood. I was worried the girls would be traumatized, but they quickly turned the whole thing into a game, creating possible conversations between the two guys, always ending with “and then they started fighting.” Pretty damn funny actually. The game was quite exciting, but the Twins blew a lead in the ninth and ultimately lost in the 10^th. The best part of the whole night was working with Scout to fill out the scorecard. If you’re taking a kid to a baseball game, forget all the fancy souvenirs. Just get a scorecard, spend the whole game talking with your kid about baseball, it really makes the experience.

That brings us to July 2^nd, another travel day. The drive from Minneapolis to Eagle Harbor, Michigan, takes 8-9 hours with the kids, but it never feels that long. I love driving through northern Wisconsin, close to my roots kind of thing. Eagle Harbor is a pretty remote place, especially if you’re coming from the Sonoran Desert. Not a lot of internet access here on the Keewenaw Peninsula, but the one restaurant in town does have wi-fi access this year. We’ve been told you can sit in the parking lot and patch in. I can’t decide if this is a good thing.