The streak dies... wait, wait... a 9-run 9th!?

Coors Field is pretty nice. Dustin awards it a B+ (or maybe an A-). It’s quite pretty, excellent food variety (not too pricey, either), they have some interesting features in the outfield…
Unfortunately, the experience was a bit marred by the presence of the dregs of society all around us, aka, the Cardinals fans. They were special people. There were the shrieking, arguing, apparently unattended children behind us. There was the deeply unpleasant woman sitting next to Dustin who complained about everything (she snagged the poor Sno-cone kid and chewed his ear off about the rain delay… because it was clearly his decision to delay the game). Then there was the rain delay itself – fortunately, it just delayed the start 30 minutes, but still annoying. So overall, it was a bit tough to fairly judge the stadium itself. I liked it.

As for the game (Rockies vs. Cardinals), by the bottom of the 6th inning, things weren’t looking good. The Rockies were down 9-2 and had left 12 men on base. We were watching the Cardinals win for the 2nd time in a row, and our home-team winning streak was clearly ending.
By the bottom of the 9th inning, the score was 9-3, it was raining, and the park was largely empty. Only foolish people like us stick around to watch games die.

The first batter got a hit. I’m thinking to myself, “Seriously, it’s late, I’m tired and rather chilly, let’s just get this over with.” The second batter lined out. I’m thinking, “Ok, two more of those and we’re out of here. And then another hit. And then a walk/passed ball/runner scores. And then… HOME RUN!
Now it’s 9-7… then a double… then another out (“Oh great,” I said,” they’re just prolonging the heartbreak.” I have no use for optimism). And then a hit. And then a hit. And then a hit. And then another 3-run HOME RUN for the win!!! Holy cow. It was crazy. Clearly, Dustin and I have home-team winning powers beyond human comprehension. People were chanting and cheering so that we could hear it all the way back to our car. Not only was it an amazing 9th inning (I mean, a 9-run 9th? Really?), but the Cardinals lost. Hooray!

Game 8: Success! We are more powerful than the Rally Monkey.

Moo-velous

“Right, and then I was thinking we could-“

“Moo.”

I glance over, nonplussed. “Yes, dear, there’s a cow over there.”

“He looked right at me.” A finger jabs impatiently into my shoulder.

“Right. Moo.”

Unless you have had the pleasure of driving past cows with Dustin, you may be unaware that every cow sighting is supposed to be accompanied by mooing noises. I know I was missing out on this vital piece of life until I met him. It does not matter if the car is silent or if you are in the middle of a deep conversation, the mooing must commence. Cows are noble. Dustin will tell you so.

Sometimes the mooing startles me. Sometimes I gamely join in. Other times I require prompting (hence the jabbing). Often I refuse, but usually while smiling… how can I not?

On this trip we have seen many, many cows. Moo.

Red(bird), White, and Blue

4th of July started with an early morning departure for St. Louis. We arrived in town a bit before noon, and since the hotel couldn’t take us yet, we headed straight for the 1:15 game (Cardinals vs. Brewers).
Blessed cloud cover persisted for most of the afternoon, so while it was extremely humid and hot, we were not sitting in direct sun. We had seats in the bleachers, but these were assigned so we were free to explore and roam around the fairly new Busch stadium. Overall, it’s pretty nice – big without feeling as huge as in Cincinnati, nicely organized, etc. The whole place is a bit bland, though. The food is mostly the same thing over and over again, with few options, and there’s not a lot of personality – while Houston has a train full of oranges and Cincinnati has a YMCA-dancing grounds crew, St. Louis has… hmm… Fredbird the Redbird tries, but I’m not buying.
Due to the holiday, they enlisted some Air Force recruits before the game, which was kind of cool, but then they had a (not exceptional) instrumental solo for “God Bless America” and the National Anthem. That was a bit disappointing, as was the weird female acapella rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the 7th inning stretch. The stadium is nice and comfortable, but overall, a solid “B.”

Our home-team winning streak extended to seven as the Cardinals took a quick lead over the Brewers and never looked back. We were hoping the Cardinals would lose, but the power of our presence was too much for the visiting team to overcome.

After the game, we walked to our hotel, immediately next door to the stadium. It was a complete madhouse (employees were walking around giving out free beers and frozen custard to make up for the huge lines… a nice touch, although I wonder how they get away without carding people for beer…). We made it through pretty quickly since we had hurried over and then spent the rest of our day/evening enjoying a little down time – we saw some fireworks out the window, but we didn’t feel like battling the crowds and humidity, so it was a low-key celebration.

On Monday, we drove to visit my Uncle Don and Aunt Sue in Seward, Nebraska (they’re the same ones we went to Alinea with last week). We enjoyed an excellent dinner and stayed the night with them before leaving for Denver on Tuesday, laden down with homemade focaccia bread and cake for the journey.

Nope, not another restaurant, just dinner at Uncle Don and Aunt Sue's house...

Up next: the last game in Colorado!

Go Cubs Go!!! *

Following a fun-filled Friday night spent catching up with friends, Saturday morning brought breakfast downtown in Wrigleyville and then the baseball game (Cubs vs. Reds). We got to the stadium nice and early (a bit after 10) so we could be sure to enjoy maximum sun exposure (actually, in case you’re unaware, this was because the bleacher seats at Wrigley are not assigned, so if you want good ones you have to stake them out).
After so many games with just the two of us, we enjoyed the company of our friends, and I enjoyed the fact that the womenfolk escaped to the shade for awhile before and then during the game. I think I put on sunscreen seven times. I’m not kidding. I now know what it feels like to melt.
The Cubs started off by leaving 12 men on base during the first four innings, so things weren’t looking too hot (unlike the weather), but then they picked it up and won 3-1. Hooray! We got to sing “Go, Cubs, Go!” and really, what more could a person ask for? Our home-team winning streak has extended to 6 – someone who’s good at math should figure out what the probability of that is…
It goes without saying that Dustin awards Wrigley Field an A+. He is rather concerned/unhappy about a Toyota advertisement that has appeared in left field, but otherwise it’s the greatest ballpark in the world. The fact that the four guys split 26 beers between them may have contributed to this viewpoint.

Post-victory with Ed and Susie!

On Saturday evening, we were able to catch up with another set of Valpo friends, and we even toasted some marshmallows over their fire pit. Ed and Susie were excellent hosts/chauffeurs throughout the weekend, and we enjoyed their hospitality until our early Sunday St. Louis departure.

* As in all instances of direct address, the proper grammar is here “Go, Cubs, Go!” – but I’ve seen Dustin and his friends exchange “Go Cubs Go” on too many occasions to count, so I’m going with that one.

Food, Glorious Food

This update is very food-centric… consider yourself warned. We’ve now finished the restaurant-going and tomorrow we’re heading to the Cubs game, so fear not, the baseball is soon to resume.

Anyway, after spending a few days with Dustin’s family, we set off for a trio of culinary delights in Chicago. On Wednesday, we ate dinner at Topolobampo, a Rick Bayless restaurant (we actually saw him eating on our way in, which was cool). We each got a set 5-course tasting menu with wine pairings. For Dustin, it was the menu served at the recent White House State Dinner, which Chef Bayless was invited to prepare, including a delicious ahi ceviche (Mexican chimichurri, fennel, avocado), a lobster & scallop dish, and a ribeye with “mole negro.” I got the “Veracruz” menu, featuring a tasty mushroom dish and pork with “mole de xico.” We didn’t take any pictures here – we enjoyed the restaurant overall, although the service was not super-friendly.

On Thursday morning, we set off for the Lincoln Park Zoo. No trip with Dustin is complete without visiting a zoo, and we’ve been here a few times. Dustin was especially a fan of the cows, which moo-ed quite a bit. After a couple of zoo-er-ific hours, we went to our bed & breakfast to rest up for the dinner ahead.
Dinner at Alinea. Alinea is currently ranked as the #1 restaurant in the US and #7 in the world. We’ve wanted to eat here for some time, and it did not disappoint. We met my aunt and uncle (who have taken us to eat at French Laundry in Napa, and who had eaten at Alinea once a few years ago) and arrived at our 6:00 reservation. 5 ½ hours, 24 courses, and 11 wines later, we had been delighted and satisfied and intrigued. Dinner at Alinea is hard to explain, so I don’t think I’ll really try… it’s not really like going other places – there’s a lot of unusual techniques, a lot of “what was that and how did they do it?” I will say that we were worried about being too full, but everything was so nicely portioned, paced, etc. that were were surprised – we were certainly much MORE full leaving Topolobampo after five courses the previous evening… it was a memorable experience and a wonderful and humbling meal.

We only took a couple of pictures (without flash, of course), so they are rather poor quality but we’ll include them anyway.

This is a dessert. The yellow is lemon curd, not egg yolk... also, it's on a pillow that smells like Earl Grey tea...

On Friday, we had lunch at Frontera Grill (again with my aunt and uncle). This is the more casual sister restaurant to Topolobampo, so it was somewhat similar but a very different overall experience. We enjoyed several types of ceviche, Dustin had pork, I had lamb shoulder… it was all very delicious and unique and tasty.

We are now staying with our friends Ed and Susie from Valpo, and we’re looking forward to catching up with several of our college friends and hitting the Cubs game tomorrow. Go Cubs go!

Pot Roast, Putt Putt, and Pizza

Editor’s Note: Today’s blog entry will be written by Dustin. In other words, prepare to have your socks knocked off.

After our big city adventure on Monday, the majority of Tuesday was spent going to visit relatives in Geneseo, Illinois. For those of you unfamiliar with western Illinois geography – Geneseo is approximately 20 miles from the boarder of Iowa, near the Quad Cities. (Bonus points if you can name all four.)

After arriving in Geneseo, we took a tour of downtown, drove by my old house, saw the hospital I was born in, and stopped by the cemetery. After this rousing drive about town, we went to my Aunt Elizabeth’s house for lunch. Joining us for lunch were a whole slew of relatives including my Aunt Barb and Uncle Jim from Peoria (photo below).
Lunch was very tasty – pot roast, vegetables, raspberry jello, cheesy potatoes, pie, homemade sheet cake, and more. Needless to say, we left several pounds heavier than when we arrived.

After arriving back in Darien, Skye and Dylan (my youngest brother) accepted my challenge to play mini golf at a near by course. It was a tough fought round of mini golf, but when the smoke cleared, I was victorious (Skye came in third). To celebrate, we went back home and had Giordano’s pizza and prepared for our Wednesday departure to Lincoln Park.

It's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses...

Ok, my love of food is hardly a secret and fortunately shared by Dustin. For the first six days of our epic road trip journey, our culinary adventures were limited to sampling stadium snacks, which were sometimes quite yummy but hardly classy. On Sunday, we moved on to the Chicago week of our trip, and fine dining moved to the forefront. We are on a slight baseball hiatus until Saturday, so if you’re looking for stadium pictures, come back then. :-)

On Sunday night, Dustin and I ate at Table Fifty-two, home to chef Art Smith (he’s been on Top Chef, Iron Chef America, and apparently Oprah likes him). It’s Southern food, but upscale. On Sundays and Mondays only, the restaurant features famous fried chicken, which we were eager to try.
Our dinner was very good, including watermelon gazpacho; pizza with chanterelle mushrooms, baby squash, and balsamic reduction; fried chicken and garlic mashed potatoes (Dustin); pan-seared grouper with faro, currants, and baby greens (Skye); macaroni and cheese; fresh blueberry pie; and an excellent bottle of Pinot Noir. Everything was delicious (especially the chicken - a review had described it as being able to "heal the world," and that's not too exaggerated). It was also very rich and filling. We walked around Chicago for a bit after dinner, and then we returned to Dustin’s family’s house for the night.
On Monday, we took the train into Chicago for the Taste of Chicago. It was hot but not terribly crowded, and we enjoyed a number of “tastes” from the various booths, including spinach stuffed pizza, an enchilada, a fried steak sandwich, lemon ice… we had a fun time eating and hanging out in Grant Park and Millennium Park.

Try not to judge my free visor... it was hot!

In the afternoon, we walked over to the Field Museum, where we saw the famous T-Rex, Sue, as well as various other animals, jewels, and artifacts. Overall, the Chicago leg of the trip is off to a great start!

“…o’er the la-and of the freeeeeee…”

Oh, the national anthem. Typically unremarkable, sometimes awesome, and occasionally worth blogging about.

The Cincinnati Reds game was a mixed bag overall, but the singing of the national anthem had to be the worst I’ve ever heard in person. It was a church choir, and bless their hearts they tried, but whew, that is one church where the “joyful” noise must not be an “enjoyable” noise. People were audibly cracking up during it. Many people started singing, I think trying to cover up the awfulness. When it was finally, mercifully over, most of us just sort of stared at each other, bemused.
Backing up a bit, Saturday was an especially long drive (we lost an hour going into the Eastern time zone, too, so we had to leave extra-early), but we finished Harry Potter, listened to some music, and it went pretty quickly. Our hotel was right downtown in Cincinnati, as is the stadium, so we took up our bags and headed over. We got to the stadium well before the game, got our free giveaway pennant (which we collect, so the freebie was a bonus), and that was when I discovered… bleacher seats.
Now, I should take this opportunity to point out that Dustin did the hotel/game planning for this trip, and for the most part, he did an exceptional job. Other than the one sketchy hotel (which, really, looked fine online!), our accommodations have been good, and the seats so far have been great without breaking the bank. Most of you are probably aware that Dustin’s pretty fantastic, but I should publically acknowledge it anyway.

See, I had been forewarned that we are sitting in the bleachers for this coming weekend’s games (Cubs and Cardinals – both day games, by the way… imagine the heat, in the bleachers… sigh). This, however, was unexpected. It seems that Dustin’s love of the bleachers at Wrigley moved him to get seats in the bleachers at several other stadiums, too. It was very hot and muggy, the bleachers were in full sun, we had zero view of the jumbotron, and I was not an especially happy camper (side note: Dustin has informed me that “jumbotron” is a specific brand, so perhaps I should switch to “video screen” or something? He said everyone probably knows what I mean, like calling all tissues “Kleenex,” but still…). Ok, so back to not-happy-camper-but-trying-to-be-pleasant Skye sitting on the radiating-heat, metal bleachers, unable to see the lineup info. to fill out her scorecard. Just as the game started, it got even better: the guy two rows back spilled his beer, splashing me impressively across the right side of my back. Great.
Lest you be worried that the evening was ruined, fear not. I bring you tidings of chili-cheese dogs and FUNNEL CAKE FRIES! Indeed, by about 8:30, the sun had dipped behind the stadium, I had found tasty food, a breeze was rolling off the water… and the game was again good, as the Reds came from behind to beat the Indians. The crowd wasn’t as good as the crowd in Kansas City, but the game was pretty full and entertaining. The stadium itself had a few weird elements – a “riverboat” thing that only large groups could use, a strange gap in the left-field corner, and it seemed very large and spaced out. Dustin gives it a “B,” which seems about right (the skyline view is pretty, though). Our streak of home team wins is still unbroken, too.
Game 5: A slow start, but ultimately… Success!!!