Colorado Trip May 16-18, 2008

So this is how hardcore my family is (except mom) about baseball. My dad and I took a road trip to Colorado over the weekend to see the Twins play the Rockies. We started a tradition when I was 9 that involved going to one (or more) Major League baseball stadiums on vacation. At last count I think minor and major league combined were 18 or 19. I somehow managed to find sitters for the kids: Mom and Wayne took Nick, Jenni took Emily, and Chris and Brenda took Jacob. I was more worried about the sitters than I was the kids, heh. We left Friday around one (supposed to be at noon but they didn't have the rental car ready) On the way out there we stopped in Sioux Falls SD to see the Canaries play the Saints.

Me outside the Birdcage (I always think of the Robin Williams movie when I hear that!)

Our seats were RIGHT by the visitors dugout!!! :-D

I believe the Saints ended up losing, and we took off after the game. The plan was to drive until we got too tired to drive anymore, and pull into a rest area to sleep in the car. We stopped at a gas station maybe an hour after we set off, and while we were driving we could have swore it was raining. Turned out to be BUGS hitting the windshield and roof!! ICK!!! I took a picture when we stopped, the front of the car is covered. It was so gross and took me about 20 minutes to get even half of them off. I think we ended up stopping to sleep around 12:30ish, neither of us slept very well in the car, (I can't imagine why, dad is like 6' 4" tall) I dozed off and woke up around 4:30 when he started the car to keep driving.

We got to Denver on Saturday around 1 in the afternoon and decided to bomb around a bit before the gates opened at 4. They open 2 hrs before game time so you can watch batting practice. We went to the Hard Rock so dad could get his shot glass, and to McDonalds for shakes. It was very interesting b/c you needed a key for the bathroom. Guess they have primo toilet paper or something.

We finally get to Coors Field, and get in line to wait to go in. By the way, I was VERY excited about this night because the first 10,000 fans got a Rockies reusable grocery bags. I am all about reuseable grocery bags ;-) We were standing there trying to stay awake, and all of a sudden I see Lee and Alex Krueger from church!! Well they went there a while ago, and every once a while I run into them. That was hysterical. We chatted for a bit and when the gates opened we met up with them to watch BP. Only the left field stands were open at that time so it was easy to find someone.

I need this.

View from left field.

There are still more pics on a disk I'm waiting for dad to find. While we were watching BP I was right in front of JOE NATHAN playing catch. And then when we went to our seats (a few rows up from the Twins dugout) I was speechless watching Mauer and Morneau run by :-D It was a great trip. We bonded.