The Baseball Trip 2012 /Day 1

Thursday, July 26

There are only two rules on the Baseball Trip:
1) No interstate highways.
2) No chain restaurants.
Everything else is up for grabs.

This will be a long trip.The plan is to find a campground west of Milwaukee, ride into town to see a Brewers game, and zip back to the camp that night. Then on to Minneapolis and the long trek to Denver to see the Rockies. And, oh yeah, my son who lives in Ft. Collins. After that, across the heartland to Kansas City and St. Louis, and then home. About 10 days on the road. Nonetheless, it will be well worth every mile because we intend to stop at every Little House on The Prairie historical site we run into. We means me and my friend Randy. Randy navigates and makes random observations.

Random observation from Randy:
"We are going to see a lot of flatness."

There are always many large things to photograph, many weird signs and strange town names to note, and many interesting people to visit. To occupy the time in between, we like to count things. In previous trips we have counted war memorials, Wal-Marts, cemeteries, women on riding mowers...all symbols of death. This year we are counting these three signs of the apocalypse:

-Ron Paul signs
-County Fairs
-Grand openings.

All fun, in a depressing sort of way.

And oh yes, there will be a lot more pictures to wade through because my friend Steve Leyva said, "When are you leaving? I want to read the blog and I want to see lots of pictures. (He's a visual learner.)

Everywhere we ride, there is nothing but brown lawns and raggedy corn. I understand it's supposed to be as high as an elephant's eye by this time of year, but no luck.  The plan is to find a campground west of Milwaukee, somewhere in the Kettle Morraine. We found a nice spot at Ottawa Lake State Park, but considering the drought, the whole damn state of Wisconsin has an open fire ban. The hypnotic flame effect is our favorite part of camping, but we lose.

Random observation from Randy:
"I guess our entertainment will have to be beer."

Ron Paul for president sighting!

We drove  into Milwaukee later that evening to see the Brewers take on the Washington Nationals. The Brewers were riding a six game losing streak. Oops. They get hammered, 8-2. Make it seven in a row.The park is nice and the weather is cool. Temps have lowered to the mid-seventies. Also, My brother-in-law, Walt Sweitlik, is a bigshot in Wisconsin and he got me free tix from his company. Pretty cool.

OK. Here's pictures:

Wacky Wisconsin tailgaters.

Outside Miller Park.

From center field.

From left field.

Favorite sign:  Beef Village

Favorite Town Name: Wandawego, WI

More tomorrow.

Oh wait....me with Bernie Brewer, team mascot. Bernie shoots down a two-story slide whenever the Brewers hit a home run. (You can see the yellow slide in the second picture.) He used to land in a mug of beer, but not any more. They must have thought that was inappropriate. You know, for a stadium named Miller Park.