Day 71: Mik and his Lion

We are doing the Lion Country Safari today before the final game/ballpark of the trip tonight. Mik got a stuffed animal lion as his souvenir. He thinks it will go great with his cheetah.

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Update from laptop 7/29/09: Mik is happy to have finally found a nice snuggy animal as a souvenir of this trip. He tends to like to get one every summer vacation. Several summers ago is when he got the cheetah at the Los Angeles Zoo and two years ago he got his Hard Rock D.C. bear that is his car animal. He had a chance to look at stuffed animals at the Georgia Aquarium and at some of the Build-a-Bears at the ballparks, but the lion was the first one he spotted that he imagined himself actually snugging a lot and he does not believe in wasting money on a stuffed animal if it is not going to get a good amount of snuggy time.

Day 70: KOA Table Cloth Map with All the Ballparks Route

Since the beginning of July we have been getting KOA Picnic Tablecloths at every KOA because we are VIP members. They are really useful because they have elastic to fit onto the table and avoid the need for tablecloth clips. The really cool part, though is that it is a map of the United States and Canada with all the KOA locations. At every place we have used them Dad has been drawing the route of our trip up to the KOA we are at. Now we are at our final KOA and I thought I should share the final one he will probably do. It shows the whole route we took to get to all 30 ballparks and other things along the way, so it really is just missing the journey home. By the way as of now we have traveled 18,225 miles.

Kj’s Baseball Collection: Boston Red Sox @ Texas Rangers

At the Rangers game I got a baseball that was a souvenir for the particular series we saw. On one side it has the logos of the Texas Rangers and the Boston Red Sox and in between it says vs. Below the logos it says Rangers Ballpark at Arlington. It was because it did say the ballpark name that I did not end up also getting the ballpark souvenir baseball I saw. On another side it has the Texas Rangers T logo on a blue background and on the side opposite that is the Boston Red Sox socks logo on a red background.

Mik’s Mini Bat Collection: Rangers Ballpark at Arlington

I already posted about Mik getting the natural Texas Rangers mini bat at the Rangers game. After the game we were able to go back to the stand outside the park and finally get him the ballpark one that he wanted all along. This one is natural on the bottom and has a brick background look on the top half. On the brick background is an oval image of Rangers Ballpark. Above the image it says Rangers Ballpark and below the image it says at Arlington.

Mik’s Mini Bat Collection: Natural Texas Rangers

Mik had seen a ballpark bat at a stand outside the ballpark and Dad kept trying to find it inside, but everywhere inside was sold out and he just got Mik this natural Texas Rangers one to make sure he got a mini bat here. We would have got it outside before the game, but they were having problems with the cash register and could not process any sales. This Texas Rangers bat is natural in color and says Texas and also has the Texas Rangers circle logo.

Mik’s Food Scrapbook: Rangers Ballpark at Arlington

At the Rangers game Mik tried the funnel cake with powdered sugar. He did not finish it all, but it was not because it was bad. In fact he thought it was very good (by the way he had never had funnel cake before). The only reason he did not finish it was that he got full.

Game 29: New York Yankees 11 @ Tampa Bay Rays 4

We got to the game about an hour and a half before the gates opened. Before getting in line and after the team shop we walked part of the Baseball Boulevard Path that eventually leads to the Rays Spring Training field, but that would have been 3 miles round trip, so we only did about two blocks of it. It was interesting to see the home plate time line of baseball in St. Petersburg that we did see. Too bad it was too close to game time and way too humid to do the whole thing.

When the gates opened we went straight to the Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame. Well almost straight, as that was after almost not getting the giveaway because we were not in Rays gear, but the guy behind us who we were talking with before the gates opened helped convince them to give us t-shirts by lending us his hat. The Ted Williams Museum was way pretty amazing and it was good we did it first thing, as it became quite crowded by the time we exited. I will eventually do a post just on it.

After the museum we headed to our seats in section 321. Our seats were pretty good, as even the upper deck here does not seem far from the field. One issue, though is we were way down the 3rd baseline and they do not have the seats angled, although that does not matter in the handicap row because the seats are fold up ones. It is the one thing that does make you feel you are in a multipurpose dome and not an indoor ballpark. Other than that, though it does have a ballpark feel even including a dirt infield instead of mostly turf with small dirt sliding paths like at the other domes (Skydome in Toronto and Metrodome in Minneapolis). Also, the fact that it has its only scoreboards in the outfield instead of on both ends of the stadium makes it obviously mainly for baseball despite technically always intended to be multipurpose.

The catwalks are crazy, but they are what hold the roof up and that roof makes an enjoyable ball game. I cannot imagine going to a game here and not being in an air conditioned ballpark, but I guess we will find out in two days when we see the Marlins for our final ballpark. We already know we are not going to tent camp in the Florida humidity and try to get a Kabin upgrade there, too.

The game tonight was exciting, I guess, but not if you wanted to see the Yankees lose like we did. The Yankees had a lot of hits and scoring including four homers. The Rays on the other hand had few hits and scoring until the second half of the game and mostly the last two innings.

Overall I liked Tropicana Field. I have nothing against indoor parks and do not think baseball always has to be outdoors, especially since many would not want to come and enjoy a game (or at least not come back) if they had to be outside in the humidity. It may be a dome, but it is the best of the domes and at least really tries to feel like a ballpark despite being built to be multipurpose. Only thing I do not get is the cowbells. Mik absolutely hated all the Rays fans constantly ringing cowbells and complained about the noise the whole game, which was also related to Yankees suck and Yankee fan cheering, but just the cowbells on their own are annoying. The main thing, though, is we cannot figure out why the heck they do cowbells here at all. Mik says he could understand if it was like Texas or someplace they have ranches, but this is a beach town.

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