Day 12 - MLB All-Star game

Tuesday, July 14th. Today we watched the 2009 MLB All Star game. Derek Jeter and the American League All-Stars took on Albert Pujols and the National League. The game was played in St. Louis, Missouri. See below for Bush Stadium and the St. Louis arch:


Just joking.....we watched the All-Star game from our living room in East Greenbush, NY. Yes, the trip has come to an end! Originally we planned to spend a few more days in the Midwest, but after 12 days on the road, we were tired and broke. Home at last...

The last two days were exhausting. Yesterday morning we were in Albert Lea, Minnesota. From there, we drove south through Dyersville, Iowa then on to northern Illinois, northern Indiana and finally to Toledo, Ohio. Today we started in Toledo and drove through Cleveland, Erie, Pennsylvania and finally to New York.

Michelle has been an official "ice cream" taster throughout this trip. She'll post her official ranking tomorrow.

Day 11 - Iowa

Monday, July 13th. "If you build it, he will come". "Is this Heaven? No, it's Iowa". That's right, today we visited Dyersville, Iowa, the home of Field of Dreams!

The place was incredible:




Michelle told Marshall she spotted Shoeless Joe Jackson in the corn field. Marshall went to check things out for himself:




Here's Marshall making friends with the Iowa locals:

Day 10 - Twin Cities

Sunday, July 12th. Today was an early one. We were on the road by 5:30 am for the 325 mile journey to the Twin Cities. The route was due northwest and straight through the heart of Wisconsin's farmland. The first two hours were one continuous dairy farm. As Michelle slept in the passenger seat, Marshall drank his morning coffee and enjoyed the pungent smell of cow manure.

About halfway through the trip, the landscape changed from flat farmland to hilly fir trees. Around this time, Marshall drove past three dead coyotes. Seeing the coyotes immediately gave Michelle second thoughts about camping in Minnesota!

Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes and the Mississippi River runs between St. Paul and Minneapolis. This was the first time either of us had crossed the River, so we felt like it was a big event. Marshall asked Michelle if they could move to the Minnesota wilderness to hunt caribou. Michelle said "no".

We made it to Minneapolis/St. Paul by 11:00 am and immediately concluded that we were NOT excited. Two things stood out about the Twin Cities: 1) The entire place was under road construction, including sidewalks, exit ramps, and main highways and; 2) There were at least 1 million parking garages. Who the hell is parking here, and why do they need so many parking garages??

Anyway, here's a picture of Minneapolis:


We stopped by the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome to get tickets for today's Twins/White Sox game. $8 each for the cheap seats. As you can see, this was by far the ugliest ballpark we have visited on this trip:





The inside isn't much better than the outside. The lighting is yellowish, the sound system is poor, and it's very hard to read the scoreboard. Thankfully the Twins are building a new ballpark:




The game itself was ho-hum. The pitching was sloppy, there were a lot of base hits, a few home runs and a couple errors.

Memorable moments: Michelle sneaking "apple juice" into the game for Marshall and nearly getting caught. Denard Span hitting a lead-off home run in bottom of the first. Mark Buehrle giving up 8 runs in 3 innings. Final score: Twins 13 / White Sox 7

Originally, we planned on staying in Minneapolis overnight, but instead we headed south and camped in southern Minnesota. We didn't let the boring Twin Cities dampen our spirits!

Day 9 - Milwaukee

Saturday, July 11th. Neither of us had ever been to Milwaukee, so we spent the afternoon in the downtown area and checked out the sites. The city is fairly big, and according to wikipedia, it's the 23rd largest city in the USA, at about 600,000 people. It's located on the shore of Lake Michigan and has two main attractions, the waterfront and the Miller brewery.

The Miller compound, which includes the brewery and distribution center, are both in downtown Milwaukee. 2nd fun fact of the road trip - the brewery's warehouse is the size of 8 football fields. Each day more than 500,000 cases of beer are shipped out of the distribution center; 40 percent of the beer is shipped to Chicago.

We started the day with a tour of Miller brewery:




Marshall enjoyed 30 free ounces of Miller tastings. Michelle enjoyed fresh squeezed lemonade:



After the brewery tour and free tastings, we headed to the waterfront (Michelle drove). Milwaukee was celebrating Bastille Day so the downtown area was busy with a street festival, including bands, vendors, etc. The Milwaukee Museum of Art is the big attraction on the waterfront. It's a very odd shaped building and overlooks Lake Michigan:





Early to bed, early to rise...

Day 8 - Milwaukee

Friday, July 10th. Today marks the 1/2 point of our Midwest tour. We're both a little tired, but no worse for wear. Michelle really enjoyed Chicago and she's a little sad to leave. She'll most likely convince Marshall to come back for another vacation at some point down the road. Marshall is excited for Wisconsin, America's dairy land and home of the Miller brewery.

Today was an easy drive. We left Chicago around 11 am for the 2 hour drive north to Milwaukee. The construction and traffic were heavy. Here's a sign announcing an Obama Stimulus Package. It looks like Illinois is actually using its Federal money, I think New York's is still tied up in politics:


We stopped off at the Brat Stop in Kenosha, Wisconsin for some lunch. This place is heaven - brats, fried cheese curds and Green Bay Packer fans. 2,500 calories later, Marshall was content:




We drove to Miller Park to buy tickets for tonight's Brewers/Dodgers game. Michelle was really excited the Dodgers were in town - she even wore her Yankee shirt to honor Joe Torre's tenure with the Yanks. Thankfully we stopped by the stadium in the early afternoon, the game was completely sold out. Luckily we were able to get 2 tickets for the bleachers - $20 each.

We checked into the hotel and headed back to the Park. The traffic was Long Island-style terrible! Marshall was really annoyed. As soon as he saw the crowd of people in the parking lot, his spirits turned. This place was like tailgating at a Jets game! All the fans were grilling brats, drinking MGD and playing bag-o. Too bad we didn't know about this earlier. Marshall would have definitely convinced Michelle to come to the parking lot in the early afternoon:


Miller Park is kind of ugly from the outside - like a big green space ship with a retractable roof. That's Michelle in the foreground wearing her Posada jersey:



The inside of Miller Park is really nice:



We lucked out, all Brewers' bleacher creatures won a free tee-shirt:


Here's Marshall meticulously filling out his scorecard:


Brewers home games are famous for their sausage races during the 5th inning. During today's game, the Italian sausage squeaked out a close victory over the Polish kielbasa. The camera battery was dead, so we don't have any pictures. Marshall decided to challenge the sausages to a race of his own:



Final recap: This was the most exciting game we've seen on this trip. Lots of offense (7 home runs), plenty of star power (Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, Manny Ramirez, Matt Kemp, Joe Torre, etc), thousands of rowdy midwesterners, and Trevor Hoffman and his AC/DC entrance music.

Memorable moments: booing really loud every time Manny Ramirez came to the plate, chanting "cheater cheater cheater" whenever they announced Manny's name, Manny hitting a 2-run home run as redemption, Trevor Hoffman blowing the lead in the bottom of the 9th, Matt Kemp hitting a 10th inning grand slam. Final score in 10 innings: Dodgers 12 / Brewers 8

Day 7 - Chicago

Thursday, July 9th. Today there was no baseball and no driving. We walked around Chicago for 6 hours and now we're tired. After spending 3 days in the city, Michelle ranks it as the best city she's ever visited. Marshall agrees, although he likes Vegas too.

Chicago is really beautiful, the pictures probably don't do it justice. You should really come visit and see for yourself:

Buckingham Fountain - in Grant Park:




Pritzker Music Pavilion -in Millennium Park:





"The Bean" - in Millennium Park:



BP Walkway - in Millennium Park:


Chicago River - en route to Navy Pier:



Navy Pier:



Lake Michigan:


Here's the view from the top of the John Hancock Center. A Chicago secret - you can avoid paying the $20 entrance fee for the observation deck by going up to the 99th floor lounge, so that's what we did:






Pictures along Magnificent Mile: