New Jersey Pizza, Flagstaff

It was unfortunately not that great. Incredibly friendly staff, and went out of his way to confirm that their vegan cheese doesn't have casien. But it was still kind of greasy and notsuper tasty.

Flagstaff on balance, however, is lovely. J and I put out on the short list to consider for retiring. Yes, it's THAT lovely.

Bakersfield, you're all right

Ride 6 miles in 100 degree heat and a blistering hot wind to get to Lengthwise Brewing's pub, but it was flat and fast, with courteous drivers, and nice (if under-utilized) river trail. Yeah, this beer is gonna go down just fine.

Sacramento TOMORROW!

Welcome to Bakersfield

Yes, that is an actual, operating oil rig next to our truck.

Chess

I whipped J at chess last night at The 806 in Amarillo, a cozy vegetarian coffeehouse in Amarillo.

She had her comeuppance today, taking five of seven games of Trivial Pursuit in the truck. But we agreed that many of the questions were ridiculous - some preposterously easy, some amazingly obscure, many just super dated (we're playing with questions from the cross ~1982 original.)

I then came back to handily win the Alphabet Game. Woot!

Oh, Idyllwild

Of the readers of this blog, probably only S will be able to relate to this - do you remember how Husch and McNeil smelled? Slightly musty, yet comforting, high desert?

The Best Western in Amarillo smells identical in the hallway!

Vegan Albuquerque!

Delicious buffalo wing wrap and Reuben at Mint Tulip in ABQ. More vegan food porn to follow - having dinner with J* (i forget which J they are) and S at Thai Vegan tonight.

First day of driving with zero rain, which was good, since it was enough work keeping the heavily loaded moving truck up the hills into New Mexico.

More likely to follow!

Amarillo!

I'm brown.

Had some tasty vegan snacks here at The 806, and tasty beer, but nothing extraordinary.

Long but mostly thunderstorm free day of driving. Third flat tire in two days (two on bikes, one on the car carrier.)

Vegan hotel dinner

In world famous Okmulgee, Oklahoma. Big times!

Had a flat on the car carrier earlier. Irritating, but only set us back a couple hours, and it was in a Whole Foods parking lot, so it could have been worse.

Why I'm not especially sorry to be leaving Atlanta

Second in a series.

Why I'm not especially sorry to be leaving Atlanta

First in a series.

Back at the Atlanta airport

In the C Sky Club, which i rarely come to, but is arguably the nicest in Atlanta. Lots of seating, natural light on both sides, lots of nice little nooks.

Exact move date still unclear: waiting on the paperwork an admin messed up to be re-processed.

Scumbags at the Orioles game. And Baltimore, generally.

These three pieces of shit screamed vile shit at Leonys Martin, the Texas Rangers right fielder, any time he was out. Martin is from Cuba.

They were sitting in the bleachers, Section 98, Row 4, in seats 19, 17, and 15. The worst was the guy in the black shirt with his Orioles cap turned back (seat 15), closely followed by the redhead in the purple shirt (which, ironically, says "LOVE") in seat 17. I didn't actually much notice seat 19, orange shirt, screaming, but he was with the other two.

They avoided obscenities, which would have probably gotten them kicked out of the stadium. Instead, they screamed ignorant (and inaccurate) bigoted shit:

"HEY MARTIN (pronounced as an Anglo male's first name would be, MART-in, not as he probably pronounces it, mar-TEEN): YOU LIKE GUACAMOLE?!?"

Confidential to the bigoted scumbags: guacamole isn't a common food in Cuba.

"HEY MARTIN! YOU LIKE SOFT TACOS OR HARD?!?"

Confidential to the bigoted scumbags: tacos also aren't a common food in Cuba. 

"HEY MARTIN! WHY ARE YOU JERKING OFF IN THE OUTFIELD!?!"

Martin took the high road, and didn't respond, didn't acknowledge.

Their verbal abuse wasn't funny, wasn't witty, wasn't interesting, wasn't informed. Martin is not an especially controversial ballplayer: he defected from Cuba during the 2010 World Baseball Classic in Taiwan, and signed with the Rangers. This is his first full season in the major leagues. He's hitting .290 this season with 5 home runs and 18 stolen bases.

Confidential to the bigoted scumbags: I don't much care about money, but I bet you care more: Martin is making $3,250,000 this season. In the last year of his current contract, 2015, he'll be making $4,750,000. How 'bout you?

I started out with good seats, but I like to wander, and explore standing room areas. Oriole Park at Camden Yards is not only one of the nicer ballparks I've been to, but it has some awesome standing room just above deep right field. It was marred only by being right over these pieces of trash.

These assholes really made Baltimore look bad. They were as nasty and obnoxious as any fans I've been around in nine different MLB stadiums this season, which is really saying something, considering Oakland, Chicago, and New York. I only listed to a couple innings of it, but I assume they continued throughout the game, until they decided to go crawl back under their rocks.


Earlier in the day I had lunch with my friend K, who grew up near Baltimore, and now lives near Baltimore. We were talking about Baltimore, and I commented how the people just basically aren't nice. They don't much smile, they don't say hello if they don't have to, don't make unnecessary conversation. This is especially striking given that a good chunk of my interactions were with people in the tourist industry: restaurants, hotels, tourist attractions. That said, this was really the only vile, revolting behavior I saw.

Well, that's mostly true. When I was walking away from the game, a street vendor trying to sell some service that seemed to involve his taking pictures of people with a digital camera, said to two women who initially declined his services, but then finally acquiesced and walked back, "Whoa, you guys about as bad as they Jews!" All three laughed. I actually looked back in shock, but nobody noticed my jaw-dropped dismay.

Really the only truly nice people I talked to in my couple days in Baltimore were the guy taking tickets aboard my father's old Coast Guard ship, the cutter Taney, and a bartender (from NYC) and another customer (from Alberta, Canada) at the Pratt Street Ale House. Actually, the other bartender was nice, too.

Orioles Park at Camden Yards

Definitely the best stubhub seats I've had on this whole tour. Beautiful ballpark!

Nationals Park

It is indeed a beautiful park, one of my favorites. But what a seriously weird quite to use for a park that opened in Washington, DC, (well) after September 11, 2001.

Two striking things about the park: the concessions staff is unionized! I think it might be Unite HERE, Local 23, but I'm having a hard time figuring it out on my phone.

And there are more places to sit and drink and eat and chill in Nationals Park, inside, i.e., after you've paid to get in, where you can't see the game in any way, than any other stadium I've ever been to. Like: a dozen, at least.

Pratt Street Ale House, Baltimore

From the outside you wouldn't think much, but it has some solid house ales, brewed mostly in modern interpretations of British styles. Some delicious stuff. Unfortunately for vegans they use a lot of honey for gravity bumping.

Dad's ship!

Circa 1959-61. Gonna tour it tomorrow!

Hope we at least get to peek at the galley.

On the front of the boat you can see the big guns, test firing of which made him flinch at big fireworks for the rest of his life.

I kinda like Baltimore, but it is, like many rust belt cities, a city of contrasts, even extremes: decaying urban core and long blocks of abandoned buildings, then you wander in to corporate capitalist tourist hell (think Hard Rock and Bubba Gump Shrimp Company.) I prefer the blocks of abandoned buildings.

Vegan dinner at Noodles & Co

Not the greatest, but... edible. I'm tired (woke up at 4:15am in Atlanta, flew to DC, ride all over town on their excellent bike share program) then took the Amtrak up here. And it's raining. And the sun is in my eyes...

Good ol' fashioned American hypocrisy

At the Jefferson Memorial.

Busboys and Poets

In Mt. Vernon, Washington, DC. A nice, if undersalted and underspiced, tofu scramble. A little spendy (bottomless coffee, while excellent, is $2.75) but fun place, great vibe, super pleasant people.

Now to rent a bike share and see some sights before the game!

Sad Jeep

This is what your steering column and ignition look like when an amateur car thief tries to steal it. Fortunately we have comprehensive.

Birthday dessert!

Vegan oatmeal raisin cookie (delicious but slightly oily), chocolate cupcake (way too sweet for me but I think J liked it), and a tasty tempeh bacon cheddar scone for breakfast the next morning, all from the lovely vegan Dough Bakery.

Vegan BBQ, Decatur, GA

My birthday dinner at Burnt Fork BBQ. Tasty, kinda fun to get vegan bbq, but not overwhelming.

At the airport now on my way to continue the baseball stadium project in DC and Baltimore. Whee!

Sewing projects

The green ones I've had for at least six years, maybe more. Still goin' strong!

Packing the house and listening to baseball on a rainy July 4. 

Phillies Phanatic Cornhole board!

As alluded to in this admittedly obscure post, here is the final product, with the Phillies Phanatic!

I did the build and line drawing of the Phanatic, while friends & family did the final painting. The build instructions on cornholehowto.com are totally indispensable.

Got garlic?

We do! Join us for dinner! During brand with garlic, broccoli with garlic, grilled corn, and more fun stuff!

Week in review

Phew -- what a week that was! The Rust Belt Baseball Stadium Tour 2013 was a big success. Five games in five cities in two time zones in six days. Tasty vegan food in almost every city.

Only got seriously rained on once: the Twins game in Minneapolis was looking seriously doubtful, as they furled and unfurled the tarps over and over.

 
Got to see the retractable roof close in Milwaukee:

Roof open, beautiful day game.

Roof closing, just ahead of a torrential downpour in the ~6th inning.

Pretty cool. And Miller Field is perhaps the most beautiful stadium of the five I visited (in six days!)

Favorite ballpark: definitely Jacobs Field (aka Progressive Field) in Cleveland. Nicest people, most pleasant atmosphere, easy to get in and out of (none of this bullshit neverending ramp routine that Comiskey (aka US Cellular) does in Chicago to keep the fancy suite and box attendees away from us commoners:

Least favorite ballpark: unquestionably Comiskey, aka US Cellular, home of the White Sox. As I discussed at some length here, it just kinda sucks. Cold, impersonal, concrete, difficult location with few bars or restaurants (or anything) around, obnoxious, unpleasant fans. The scumbags a couple rows behind me were so awful that, in about the only time I can remember, I actually left to get away from them. And since they make it impossible to go to levels you're not ticketed in, I couldn't just stand and watch the game, and so actually left. These miserable people literally used "fuck" in some form in nearly every screaming sentence, lit up cigarettes (though the guest services lady pounced on them, and told them in no uncertain terms that it was their only warning before they would be kicked out), were verbally abusive to the vendors, and just generally were nasty, loud, unpleasant people to be around. When I walked away, I exchanged a look with the guest services lady, who pretty much had to post up near us for the whole game, that was one of those knowing, yeah, you know why I'm leaving kind of looks. I think she wished she could leave too.

As espn.com put it well: "New Comiskey Park: A monstrosity trapped between the ageless classics and the new wave of retro parks."

Favorite city: without a doubt, Minneapolis. Great people, fantastic bicycle infrastructure including a wonderful bike share program, great public transit, great vegan food, great bars, great beer, a great museum. Just great. (Though I did come very close to getting doored by some asshat while biking.)

Here are a couple neat bikes at the Walker Museum:

Least favorite city: without a doubt, Chicago. What the hell do people see in Chicago, anyway? Besides the so-so transit, and a few vegan places in the Loop, the place basically sucks. The South Side (which I walked around extensively) has none of the gritty charm that I love about Rust Belt cities, but all the sadness and unpleasantness. Oh, and the cops are stupid thugs. And the taxi drivers suck.

Walking up Cermak, I did remember a trip a long, long time ago, taking the Greyhound across the country when I was 17. We had an eight hour (or something) layover in Chicago, so when the bus arrived at Union Station, I had nothing better to do than walk all over the city, including all over the South Side. I wandered in to a diner a little after 4am, and ate breakfast with the cabbies and truckers, walked over bridges, looked at buildings, watched people throw trash bags out of tenement windows, forming huge, squalid trash piles on the sidewalks below.

Ah, memories, light the corner of my mind. Back to topic...

Ballparks, in order of how I liked them:

1. Jacobs Field (Progressive Field), Cleveland
2. Target Field, Minneapolis
3. Comerica Park, Detroit
4. Miller Park, Milwaukee
5. Comiskey (US Cellular), Chicago

Jacobs, as I said, is just wonderful.
Target is big and beautiful, but just jam packed with corporate commerce, and a little too damn big.
Comerica is pleasant, and nicely located, but doesn't much stand out.
Miller is a gorgeous facility, and reasonably pleasant to walk around, but is horrifically located. It's out in the eastern suburbs of Milwaukee, not well served by public transit, and a bit of a pain in the ass to walk to.
US Cellular is probably my least favorite baseball stadium I've ever been to.

Alright, an empty fridge, a visit to Hell, and a long to-do list await!