Oh I Have Seen Things: The Baseball Trip 2014 / Day 1

Friday, July 11, 2014

There are only two rules on the baseball trip:
1) No interstate highways, and
2) No chain restaurants.
The rest is left to happenstance.

What can I say? Ten hours of driving, east through Indiana and Ohio. Nothing to see here. No giant, outsized objects, no scenery, no landmarks. An endless stream of Dollar General stores, American Legion halls and Beck's for a more dependable yield of corn. All of this, mind you, to reach our golden destination: Cleveland. Well, Cleveland is ok because we are here to see a major league ballgame between the Indians and our beloved White Sox. The game allows us to get a close-up look at Sox rookie sensation Jose Abreu, and he ,too, fails us. 1 for 4 - a single. No majestic home runs. The Sox lose, 7-4, in pretty lame fashion. (They blew three separate leads!) Things were so bad that I left my camera in the car in the parking lot and captured no pictures of Progressive Field or the aforementioned rookie sensation. Nonetheless, I have included pictures of both at the end of this post, courtesy of Google Images. It was a fireworks night at the ballpark, however, and that was a pretty good display.

Along the way we like to count things - and by 'we' I mean Randy, my navigator and travel partner. It's a morbid form of the license plate game; we count signs of the apocalypse. This year we are counting military weaponry in town squares and grand openings (because there are none).

So far:
2 cannons in Winnemac, IN
2 cannons in McClure, OH
0 grand openings

Favorite town names:
Churubusco, IN
Defiance, OH

Favorite signs:
Rochester High School: Home of The Zebras

Random observation from Randy:
"The Bert Kliman Underpass. I wonder if that was his goal in life, to have an underpass named after him? I want an underpass named after me."

Tomorrow: Williamsport, PA