Day 29 - At a Green Shrine

July 5 - The rest of the family took a day off from sightseeing. I took advantage of my lone opportunity to see a shrine - Fenway Park, the oldest baseball stadium in America. By 8:30 a.m. I was on the hotel shuttle to the train station. An hour later I was in the Red Sox gift shop with my wristband for the 10 a.m. tour. My timing was excellent as within 10 minutes both the 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. tours, the last two of the day, were sold out.

The outside of Fenway Park is nothing special, but the inside is amazing, particularly for a stadium that opened almost 100 years ago in 1912. The current management has done a great job updating the facility for the benefit of the fans, and to a great extent has avoided the relentless marketing that mars many other sports venues. Our guide told the stories of the Green Monster (the 37' high left field wall that by itself is synonymous with Fenway Park), the pervasive green color of the stadium (it's called Fenway Green, and it's trademarked), the fire that burned down a set of bleachers (which weren't removed or repaired because the team was broke at the time), the 502' home run hit by Ted Williams in 1946 that "knocked some sense" into a sleeping Yankee fan. At the end of the tour I coaxed one more story by asking to "go inside the Green Monster", where the operators of the manual scoreboard do their work. She said that not even she had been inside, but there wasn't much to see - a four-foot wide hallway with one electric light bulb and a laptop computer, no heat or A/C, and no rest room. Still, the scoreboard operators have missed a total of three games in 14 years, and 300 names are on a list to fill in for them.


I took a lot of pictures, but forgot to ask someone to take a picture of me, so I bought the souvenir shot--something I try hard not to do--but hey, it's Fenway Park--who knows if I'll get back here.

The girls came down to the ballpark area for lunch in a sports bar. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing at the hotel. Dinner came at a strange venue up the street, Cafe Ascari at F1 Boston. F1 Boston is an elaborate go-kart track, where adults and kids pay $28 per race to run 15 laps around a serpentine go-kart track in vehicles that can reach about 35 mph. I wish I'd brought my camera, about the only time I decided to leave it at the hotel - I figured, what could I see at another restaurant? My bad.

Day Eleven - Birdlands

Though I had many opportunities to take this picture, photo credit to http://www.flickr.com/photos/sfgamchick/2479829530/)

Birds (and to a lesser extent pandas) were the theme of our Tuesday. We got up relatively early and went to the National Zoo in Washington, DC. We drove as far as Greenbelt, MD and then took the train into the city. This all by ourselves as Vanessa had to work. She did provide good directions. The weather was beautiful all day and evening.

As usual, we had to eat as soon as we reached our destination. We had a nice lunch at a Thai restaurant on Connecticut Avenue. My plan for seeing the zoo worked perfectly for about an hour and a half. Walking the short "Asia Trail" near the entrance gave us a look at the famous giant pandas, Tien Tien, Mei Zhing and their baby. Nearby was the birdhouse, where I took dozens of pictures of exotic birds from all over the world. In a return visit to the pandas we saw them wake up and eat popsicles. There I made a tactical error after hearing a report that the red panda (whose habitat near the giant panda was being renovated) had been relocated to the small mammal house. I asked Kallie if that was nearby. Pretty close, she said. It was at least a half-mile downhill, which meant another half-mile walk uphill to get back to the zoo exit, and then another mile or so walk from the exit to our train station. I enjoyed seeing the red panda, though I couldn't get much of a picture because of the crush of youngsters against the glass and the nervous "head down" pacing of the animal.

At about 3:45 p.m. I slumped into my seat on the Red Line train. We arrived back at Vanessa's in Columbia promptly at 5 p.m., our intention all along as the caravan for Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore was scheduled to leave at about 5:45 p.m.

The game between the Orioles and the Houston Astros started at 7:05. We took our seats in the lower stands just as the first pitch was thrown. The game was an exciting back-and-forth affair with three home runs, innumerable pitching changes and arguments by both teams about ball and strike calls on the same batter. It was also "Wild Bill Hagy" Night in honor of a dedicated fan who'd passed away. We arrived a little too late to get a Hagy #34 t-shirt.

The medium-sized crowd seemed a little subdued until the Orioles' game-winning rally in the bottom of the eighth. They stood and cheered on the 3-2 pitch that third baseman Melvin Mora, 0-4 to that point, drove to right-center field for a two-run double that gave the Orioles their winning 6-5 margin. In the Astros' ninth, the fans stood throughout the final at bat, a strikeout by Astros centerfielder Michael Bourn.

All around the stadiums are signs saying "This Is Birdland." Erin and I developed a "Birdland" game to amuse Kallie. When she least expected we showed our claws and cawed loudly right in her face. She recoiled in fright every time. The oriole is not a very scary bird, but no matter.

Traffic between Baltimore and Columbia is a lot better than the Washington Beltway so we had little trouble getting home.

Check out more pictures from the day at www.photoblog.com/dadlak

Today we leave our wonderful hosts in Columbia for my sister's house in West Chester, PA. Our tentative plan is to see the historical sights in downtown Philadelphia on Thursday.

On To Day 12

Day Two - On the Ground in Tennessee

After morning sessions of birdwatching and driving practice, we spent the rest of Sunday with family--eating, watching sports in HD and playing with a passel of grand nieces and nephews. Kay's grand nieces and nephews range from age 18 to 2. The youngest four on hand belong to her niece Dana, who lives nearby in Nashville with her husband Shane.





The two older girls played cards with Kallie and Erin most of the day. The younger kids cruised the house finding things to do.

The sports highlight of the day was LSU's 9-7 comeback win over UC-Irvine in Game Two of the NCAA superregional in Baton Rouge. The Anteaters led 7-2 after six innings, but the Tigers stormed back with five runs in the ninth to force a third game in the best-of-three series.

The lowlight was the first three quarters of Game Two of the NBA Finals, led by the Celtics 83-61. I gave up and went to bed. The Lakers rallied in the fourth quarter, but still lost 108-102. I think the Lakers will need to sweep the three games in Los Angeles if they want to win the championship.

On To Day Three