I put a few of the pictures that I took (that I had time to edit) on Facebook, but anyone can check them out here
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2085604&l=e17a1&id=48602799
So the trip is over and we are all back home.
The last few days were good, when we got to Pittsburgh we chilled in the hotel room that night trying to figure out what the hell we were going to do for an entire day in Pittsburgh before the Pirates game… We ended up going to get some food at the original pancake house, then Pat wanted to check out this Mt. Washington or something. It was basically just a cable car thing that pulled you up the side of a mountain while checking out the live Turkey’s running around the hillside. Once we got to the top, we looked around a bit and took some pictures, then went back down, it killed all of an hour at the very very most. The only other thing we could think of to do was to head to the movie theater… again. So we ended up seeing “What Happens in Vegas”, it was alright, but either way it helped kill some time before the Pirates/Brewers game.
The game was pretty good, the stadium is pretty cool, but obviously the Pirates are not that popular of a team. Grand total for paid attendance was just over 7,000 people. I’d say the stadium could hold about 42,000, it was empty.
After the game we drove straight to Cleveland and got some sleep. The next day (yesterday) we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum for the day. They wouldn’t get us bring our cameras in so there are no pictures, besides the 2 or 3 that Pat snuck. It was interesting although I enjoyed the Baseball Hall of Fame more. And that was it, after that we jumped in the car and started making our way back to Chicago. We got into town around 9PM last night.
Overall a great trip, personally I wouldn’t change anything about what we did… Well maybe wouldn’t have booked the NY hotel room so early, but we really had no choice, nor did we know that the game in Boston would get rained out, causing us to stay in Boston another day and have to drive straight through to New York. But all in all it was a great trip.
We stopped in Philly yesterday just to get some Philly cheese steaks at Pat’s Steaks. They were decent, I don’t know if they were the best I’ve ever had, but at least I can say I’ve had a cheese steak in Philly. That was pretty much it in Philadelphia, we headed straight to Washington DC. When we got there it was about 6PM and the Nationals were playing the Philly’s at 7. We walked up to the ticket window and bought $60 tickets.
It turns out those seats were pretty good. We were 3 rows from the field, just past third base. The Nationals stadium was very cool, probably has the coolest scoreboard I’ve ever seen. But I guess that’s what you get when the stadium is brand new. So the game was good, Nationals won, then it was time to look for a hotel.
We couldn’t find anything in the city that was either not sold out or not less than $300 a night, so we ended up finding a Budget Inn, which was in ghetto. I seriously thought the car was going to get broken into while we were asleep, but everything turned out fine. We toured all of DC today, saw all the monuments, the white house, our car on the grass… Yeah, apparently we parked in a bad spot on the street and didnt see the sign that said we had to move it at 4PM, we got a parking ticket and to get our car off the busy road, they towed it up onto the grass… it was kind of odd, but whatever at least they didn’t tow it away.
So that was that, no we are in Pittsburgh, going to see the Pirates play tomorrow night, then drive to Cleveland to sleep, then wake up, check out the rock and roll hall of fame and then head home. So we will be home Thursday night at some point.
So we are done with the games we had planned and are starting the
drive back towards home. Currently we are on our way to Philadelphia
to check out a few things for a bit then on to Washington dc. I think
were going to try to catch the nationals game tonight and tour dc
tomorrow.
Yesterday it poured in the morning in new York but we still walked
through central park and got pizza. The rain stopped and it turned out
to be really nice for the game last night which is good because
apparently abby melts if it rains. The game was cool, wish it would
have been a little closer instead of the mets absolutely destroying
the Yankees, but its always nice to see the Yankees lose.
At the very end of the game we witnessed the most insane thing we've
ever seen at a baseball game. Picture the nosebleed seats and how
steep they are, now imagine a guy trying to step over seats to get
down faster instead of using the stairs… And then picture him
slipping, trying to grab onto a girl to stop himself from falling but
instead they both go tumbling head over heals through the seats until
they hit the railing at the bottom!! There was still a section in
front of them so they wouldn't have fallen over to the lower level,
but had they gone into the next section it could have hapened. The
girl was ok, she stopped before the railing and walked away, the guy
was messed up. He was laying on the ground with ems all around him. It
was absolutely insane. He fell from the same row we were sitting in,
which was about 6 rows from the top and 12 or so rows to where he
stopped.
So after the game we just went back and went to sleep and are now
almost in Philly.
We had to stay in Boston another day, as the red sox game got rained
out on Friday and it was rescheduled for last night. So we didn't have
anything to do in Boston so we went to the movie theater paid to see
forgetting Sarah Marshall then walked into ironman, so 2 movies for
the price of 1, not bad. Once the movies were over it was closer to
gametime and we met jon and done at a bar near Fenway. We chilled for
few hours and then went to the game. It was a pretty close game.
We made it out of the game around midnight and drove jon back to his
car so we got on the road to new York around 1 am, and got in to
manhattan at 5 and went to sleep. Its about 130 here now and were
getting ready to head out for the day, not sure exactly what were
going to do though. The mets Yankees game isn't until 805 so well see
what we can find. Of course its supposed to rain here so hopefully
that doesn't happen.
Oh and for the amount of money you spend on a hotel room in times
square, they could at least put a door knob on the inside of the
bathroom, just a suggestion.
Red sox game was rained out last night an rescheduled for tonight
after the day game so were hanging around in Boston for the day,
again, and going to the game tonight. Sucks though since we have
reservations in new York tonight and tomorrow and can't cancel. So we
will get into new York at about 4 am. Then we have the game tomorrow
at Yankee stadium, the next 2 days are going to be long ones.
So we made it into Boston last night to a string of sold out hotels. Nothing had any rooms available at all. Buell’s friend Chris was helping us call places out here (since he lives in Boston) and finally found us a nice little place pretty close to everything. The only problem is that we could only get it for 2 nights, so we gotta find somewhere else to stay tomorrow night. Both Chris and Jon have offered to let us stay at their places, but we don’t want to impose so we’re going to try to find a place. As a last resort we’ll take them up on that, but hopefully it won’t come to that.
So we walked down near The Garden last night, which is where the Celtics play, and tried to see if we could scalp some tickets for the Celtics playoff game that was happening there last night… no luck. So we walked down the streets right near there and found a bar and got some food and some drinks. Then today we did the historic tour of Boston and basically walked the entire city. It’s a cool city, but there’s not a whole lot to see as far as tourist stuff goes. Tonight we’re going to head back into the city and find a place to eat/drink again, Chris and Jon might meet us out, so we’ll see. Tomorrow we have the Red Sox game at Fenway at 7:05PM, so we’re going to spend the entire day down near Fenway and then goto the game tomorrow night. Jon said they have a tour of Fenway that you can take for $10 that takes you onto the actual field and stuff, so we may try to do that.
So everything is going well, we booked a hotel in Manhattan for Saturday and Sunday night, not cheap, but what can you do. We’re glad that is taken care of though, no more shitty Howard Johnson in Queens with one king bed. So that’s that… probably update once we get back into New York so until then….
Sunday night we drove from Niagara Falls on to Cooperstown New York, home of the Baseball Hall of Fame. We got into Cooperstown at around 11PM and the town was completely dead, it looked like one of those creepy towns from some old horror movie, and of course we didn’t have any hotel reservations. The town was full of bed and breakfast’s but all of them were either closed or full. So luckily, thanks to Nicks blackberry GPS, we were able to find that there was a Holiday Inn Express about 3 miles away, so we headed up there and found a room no problem.
Woke up the next day (yesterday, Monday) and headed back into Cooperstown, which was much more active now that it wasn’t 11PM on a Sunday night. We spent the the entire day at the Baseball Hall of Fame which was really cool. Rich Gossage was there giving his interviews to the press before he’s to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, so we got to hang out and watch his interview. The museum and the hall of fame took us about 3 hours to get through and was really cool. After that we ate lunch in Cooperstown and made our way to New York City.
We arrived in New York City last night around 7PM. The Howard Johnson in Queens isn’t the greatest hotel, but it has worked out just fine. We checked in, got settled and then headed into Manhattan. We walked up and down Times Square quite a few times, stopping to eat at some deli. We then stopped into ESPN zone and grabbed a drink while watching the end of the cubs game. After that we wandered around for a bit longer and then came back to the hotel.
This morning we woke up around 11AM here and headed back into Manhattan. This time we went down to Ground Zero and walked around. Then we headed down to the water front and walked all the way down to where the ferry’s head out to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. The line was ridiculously long for the Ellis Island Ferry so we didn’t do it, but we will when we come back here on Saturday. After that we wandered into Chinatown and then Little Italy and by that point it was time to head back here and get our things together to head to the Mets game at Shea Stadium.
The Mets game was pretty cool, Mets won, and Shea Stadium was cool as well. I have some nice panoramic pictures of the 2 stadiums we’ve been to so far and I’m sure I’ll have pictures of all of them. So we just got back, going to get some sleep and check out of here in the morning and head to Boston. We’ll be in Boston until Saturday morning and then we’re heading back here to NYC, but we’re going to try to stay in Manhattan instead of Queens. We have the Boston game at Fenway friday and then Yankees vs. Mets at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. So that’s about all I got. I haven’t put any pictures up yet cause they are pretty big and I need to scale them down and touch them up a bit, but Pat has a bunch of pictures online on Facebook, I’ll try to get a public link from him, but if you’re friends with him you can check them out.
So our plans have changed a bit. We didn't know what we were going to
do between now and when we have to be in Boston Friday for the game.
So last night we bought tickets to see the mets at shea stadium
tomorrow night. We are driving in to just outside of new York city
tonight to a hotel we've already booked, then going to the game
tomorrow night and probably stay another night in ny then drive to
Boston wednesday though Friday and Then come bck to new York city
Saturday.
So day 1, we left around 830 but pat forgot his passport at home so we
had to drive back to his place before we could leave which really
didn't matter because to drive into Canada we only needed id. To get
back in we showed our passports but I'm not sure if we even needed them.
So we made it to Detroit about 30 minutes before the game and found
parking right near the stadium. Detroit was/is not the greatest city
in the world. Lots of broken down buildings and stuff but I wasn't
expecting much. So it was really nice out when we left the car, 65
degrees and sunny so me and nick didn't bring long sleeves in, that
was a mistake. Turns out our tickets were at the very top of the
stadium in the shade and it was freezing. Nick actually bought a long
sleeve Detroit tigers t shirt cause he's a little bitch, I just dealt
with it.
After the game we tried to find a hotel in Detroit, but it was
impossible to find anything downtown so we just decided to head to
Windsor. So we made it into Canada no problem and found a decent chain
hotel right near downtown Windsor.
So in Windsor we went to eat at some bar named peppers and had a few
drinks. Apparently canadiens use real sugar instead of corn syrup in
their pop and it tastes a lot different, not so good, captain and coke
wasn't good. And the bars were filled with 18 year olds dancing on the
bars and in cages… Not complaining, but we were probably the oldest
ones there that weren't creepy old dudes just staring at underage
girls. So we went to the casino and played blackjack. I did well for a
while but ended up down $50. Nick won like 250 and pat won 140. So on
top of losing credit card roulette at dinner I was also the only one
to lose at the casino.
Credit card roulette is where you give the waitress all of our credit
cards and she puts them all behind her back. Then she pulls them out
one by one and puts them on the table. The last one to be pulled has
to pay for dinner, that was me.
Day 2, today. We got up around 10 am and got in the car and headed to
niagara falls, where we spent most of the day. We walked around the
whole canadiens side of the falls and took a ton of pictures and
video. The weather was fine when we got there, and only started
raining when we got back to the car. But that was fine because when
you take a boat into the actual falls themselves you get soaked! But
it was really cool. So then we ate at some place in niagara falls,
again playing credit card roulette and again me losing and paying for
dinner.
We then crossed back into new York and are currently on our way to
Cooperstown. We're going to get a hotel room and call it a night since
we will get into Cooperstown around 11est. Tomorrow we are going to
the baseball hall of fame and then heading further east. We don't have
to be in Boston until Friday for the game there, so were going to try
to find somewhere in between to check out before we get into Boston on
like Wednesday.
So that's that, cell phone works again without international roaming
so I can keep things updated again.
-tom
