Riverbrian

I have recently completed a solo 18 day road trip covering 8 ballparks, 9 games, 14 states, national parks, normal tourist traps and not so normal stops. My fairly new 2022 Kia Seltos had 6,400 miles on it before the trip and the journey tacked on 8,522 additional miles. Some of you may find this interesting and some may say what's the big deal, it's a crazy man with a torture filled vacation plan. I was encouraged to tell the story here by individual day because it would be a very lengthy post if not broken down by day. Some days are not that interesting, some days were more interesting than others and some days need a new adjective, but each day was different and they were days that I couldn't experience in my living room. Feel free to comment, shake your head at my moments of stupidity or tell your own experiences of the places I experienced. This is hit and run tourism... I didn't have a lot of time to hit all the stops but I wanted to hit all the stops because who knows if I would ever be back in any of the areas travelled. I researched and scheduled the trip to the minute and followed the schedule to the letter. Day Fifteen - August 12 - Beverly Hills to Beverly Hills I didn't have much on the schedule today so this will be a short recap in comparison to the others. Just wanted to do a studio tour today and that was it. Silly me, turns out that you need to book these tours in advance. I didn't know that, I assumed that you could just walk right in and get it done so I got up and drove down to Paramount not knowing that I would come back empty handed. They had a spot open around 2PM but I wouldn't have had the time to make the Twins/Angels that night so I quickly researched the others and it was the same so I was out of luck. Oh well, such is life. I might have to come back for that, Maybe get into the studio audience of something being taped, maybe when the Swallows return to Capistrano and I was talked out of the Salton Sea by Glunn because it smells bad. So... there is some other stuff to do. In an attempt to salvage the morning, I decided to continue driving south to Inglewood just to eyeball that SoFi Football stadium. It's nice... it is right next to the Forum that used to host the Lakers and Kings. I got to admit that my L.A. hit and run tourism is starting to wane a little. I am mentally getting ready for the road again. I found a Target that was upstairs in a large mall in Inglewood, so I could load up on water and other drinks for the cooler on the long trip home starting tomorrow. The mall was busy... they are not busy where I come from. Next I had to find some interesting to eat so I had my eye out for a potential unique lunch. I spotted a Peruvian Restaurant, never had Peruvian so I pulled in, it wasn't not open, it was closed closed according to the sign on the door. As I turned from the door, I stepped off a curb that I didn't know was there and I fell on butt right there in the parking lot. I was OK but someone nearby was kind enough to ask if I was alright. She wasn't but she did look a little like Loretta Swit. In the same parking lot was a Korean restaurant, I've never had that either so that was my lunch. The menu was in Korean but the choices had a corresponding number and pictures of what the food was supposed to look like. The 11 looked pretty good so I ordered that, It had an egg sunny side up on it that was well prepared but whatever was underneath the egg was not my favorite thing to eat... it was sour, sour. I ate it anyway and was asked how it was and I gave the thumps up to be nice and I asked what it was and it was Kim Chi something. The something I assume was the egg. I can now say that I'm not a Kim Chi Guy. Nothing else to do so I drove back and waited for the journey to Anaheim for the game. In L.A. they have local news at 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00 and 6:00 on the local television stations. They had a story. about plans for a sky tram to Dodger stadium, It made sense to me... dropping people into the stadium from the sky might improve the traffic issues getting into the stadium. Anaheim is quite a ways away, in order to make it on time for a 6:40PM start, you have to leave around 9PM the night before. I was told by some others that I probably won't think too highly of Angel stadium. I disagree... I liked it a lot. I'll be ranking the stadium pretty high up on my list. Now I could have been biased because Glunn and I incredible seats in the front row by the Twins dug out, it was a real nice night and the company was good and the Twins won, All in all it was very enjoyable experience and the stadium gets high marks from me. It was long drive back and we didn't get back until around midnight. I normally don't need an alarm clock but Glunn provided me one just in case because I am scheduled to depart for back home at 5:42AM.

I have recently completed a solo 18 day road trip covering 8 ballparks, 9 games, 14 states, national parks, normal tourist traps and not so normal stops. My fairly new 2022 Kia Seltos had 6,400 miles on it before the trip and the journey tacked on 8,522 additional miles. Some of you may find this interesting and some may say what's the big deal, it's a crazy man with a torture filled vacation plan. I was encouraged to tell the story here by individual day because it would be a very lengthy post if not broken down by day. Some days are not that interesting, some days were more interesting than others and some days need a new adjective, but each day was different and they were days that I couldn't experience in my living room. Feel free to comment, shake your head at my moments of stupidity or tell your own experiences of the places I experienced. This is hit and run tourism... I didn't have a lot of time to hit all the stops but I wanted to hit all the stops because who knows if I would ever be back in any of the areas travelled. I researched and scheduled the trip to the minute and followed the schedule to the letter. Day Fourteen - August 11 - Beverly Hills to Beverly Hills There is no game to attend today, today is beach day. I want to see the iconic Beverly Hills sign, Rodeo Drive, the La Brea Tar Pits and I want to eat Pink's Hot Dog's for lunch and then Malibu followed by the Santa Monica pier and that's it. Glunn is originally from Memphis as we were driving to the game on Tuesday night with the L.A. skyline in view, we started talking about city skylines and I thought that his hometown of Memphis had a rather boring skyline. I said the only thing kind of cool was that triangle shaped building. Glunn was a little confused... "Triangle?". Yeah... you know... that triangle shaped building by the Mississippi River. He said... "You mean the Pyramid". "Yeah... the triangle shaped Pyramid". Last night I asked Glunn about where to find these Iconic Beverly Hills signs and he told me it was in a park not far from Rodeo... which it is but the big one wasn't the one I was talking about... So I said... no... that little triangle shaped one. And he said... You mean the shield. Glunn is clearly resistant to a triangle reference. Anyway, those triangle shaped Beverly Hills shield signs are on the edge of town. Saw one and then I went back to the Park with the big sign to park and I walked to Rodeo. Back in Wyoming I attended my first Rodeo... Today I would experience my first Rodeo. I walked the whole thing, I didn't go inside any stores because I didn't need a $10,000 purse and I didn't want to have to tell the sales people that I was poor. I remember the feel of the incredible air conditioning coming through the open doors as you walked past each establishment, it was like the complete opposite of a blast furnace. They have to have the best air conditioning ever in those stores for that much to drift into the streets. I saw nobody stepping out of a Rolls-Royce holding a poodle. In my estimation all of the people who were walking Rodeo were tourists just like myself. Every store that I walked past had what appeared to be around 3 sales professionals standing around ready for action and what I assume was a security guard dressed in black suit, black shirt, black tie. I didn't see any customers in any of the stores that I walked past. Hard to pay the bills that way but I suppose that just one sale at these stores has a little more bang for the buck than most places. After Rodeo it was off to the La Brea Tar Pits which was what I expected it to be but I was going anyway just to say that I've been. You see the Tar bubbling up, you read all the prehistoric tales. You look around at the high rise buildings that surround it and think that it's odd that this exists here in the middle of Los Angeles. It is actually stranger than the oddness of a pile of white sand just sitting there in New Mexico. After the Tar Pits you drive a mile or two up La Brea Avenue to Melrose for lunch at the legendary Pink's Hot Dogs. I ordered the Brando Dog and the Chicago, you barely step inside to order, then you wait in a room filled with autographed celebrity photos to get your dogs and then you sit on a table outside to eat them. The Hot dogs were fantastic but I have to say that Chicago does the Chicago dog better. On the plus side though, I'll say this... if the Dodger Dog was anything like this... it would be worth the nationwide praise that it gets. Pinks is better than Sonic... That's right... I said it. With all of the driving around that I have done in the past couple of days. There is one thing that becomes obvious. You get to see L.A. one stop light at a time. You simply don't get the chance to go through two stop lights in a row. It doesn't happen. Every stop light, you stop and wait and it doesn't seem to matter if you are the first car at the light or 8th car at the light. You won't get two in a row. Your GPS constantly says 0.3 miles - 10 Minutes. My next destination is Malibu. I want to see what this town is all about. It's a busy highway up the coast on Highway 1. When you first get to Malibu, you think you are in Malibu but you are not. There is a much bigger Malibu if you keep driving west. I was sitting at stop light, I'm used to this by now and I see this lady that was clearly somebody I knew from Grand Forks but I couldn't remember her name, I was thinking to myself, what are the odds of seeing someone from Grand Forks this far away. I was desperately trying to remember her name just in case she saw me. I was focused on her, racking my brain as she started to cross the street in front of me. Who is that? Then she turned a little and I got her whole face... I know her who is that! She must have noticed that I was staring at her... not intentionally, I was just trying to figure out who it was and she looked right at me and she waved! It was Goldie Hawn. she wasn't from Grand Forks but that is why I recognized her and she waved at me because... well I assume it was obvious that I was staring at her and that makes me a creep. I spent an hour or so Malibu seaside... Just sat on a rock and looked at the water and the beach goers having a good time. I don't know what it is about the ocean but I love it and I don't mind just sitting on a rock. I didn't stay that long because I also wanted to see Santa Monica, I took the long way though because I saw a sign saying Malibu Canyon Road and that sounded to inviting to pass up. It was a very beautiful drive, totally worth it and it leads you to Calabasas. I wasn't looking for it specifically but I tripped over it and I remember this was where Kobe's Helicopter went down. I pulled over just to do a little research on my phone, there are hills/mountains surrounding the town. I have an idea where the helicopter crashed but I don't know exactly where the helicopter crashed but I am pretty sure of this... The whole town of Calabasas would have been able to step out their front door and watch this tragedy from a far. The mountains circle the town on all sides. I was thinking to myself that my tourism just got morbid so I took it one more step and I impulsively routed myself to Brentwood to the O.J. murder house. The new owner of the house has changed the address, and plants are now completely blocking the view, I don't blame the new owners of all. It's smack dab in the middle of what I would guess to be a middle class neighborhood comparatively at least to the high dollar places not that far away. OK... enough of that type of stuff, I can check out the Sharon Tate house later. Off to Santa Monica. How do I describe Santa Monica by the pier. Well... First off... The beaches at Malibu were much more laid back. The area around the Santa Monica pier... that would be like Paul Bunyan picking up the entire town of... let's say... Alexandria, Minnesota and dropped the entire thing into a giant filter, that just poured all of the people out in a two block radius and then he didn't provide enough chairs so everybody just started walking around like that never happened. This is a Thursday afternoon... I couldn't imagine a Saturday. I have mentioned how the stop lights slow you down in L.A.... In Santa Monica it isn't the stop lights... it's the people. You just hope you don't hit somebody because you don't want to dent your car. They don't wait for the crosswalk signs... they don't use the crosswalks much either. You are waiting for the car ahead of you to move but he can't because that car has to wait for the people to get out of the way. Finally the car in front moves but you can't because you have people crossing in front of your car. I walked the pier... sure enough there is a Bubba Gump Shrimp just like you would expect. Rides... Games. OK, I've seen it and then I went down to the beach. I haven't mentioned the homeless much in L.A. I've heard that it was bad but I didn't see a lot of it in the areas I hit. Saw some on Hollywood Boulevard and you are sure to see the tents located under almost any over pass or bridge you drive under. However, when I walked under the Santa Monica Pier, there were 3 tents underneath the pier. I thought to myself... If I was homeless, this is the spot. The pier would provide constant shade no matter the angle of the sun and you have Ocean Front property. I finished the afternoon with a long beach walk, I took off my socks and shoes, carried them as I just kept walking North on the edge of the waves, I would have to stop every 4th wave because that one would be shin high and if I kept walking through that one, I would kick the water up on to my clothing. It ended up being an incredibly consistent pattern. Walk for 3 waves... Stop on the 4th... Walk for 3 waves... stop on the 4th. Now I'm wondering why that was so consistent. I'll have to call an oceanographer or Ashbury to find out why. According to my watch, I put in 20,000 steps in this 1,2,3 Stop fashion. Glunn had suggested Dinner in Beverly Hills that night which sounded great. He usually takes the dogs for a walk and out to dinner with him. He has a couple of great dogs. Both very friendly but the younger dog is younger dog friendly so he jumps on you. I understood that Glunn was trying to train him to be a little less so but I didn't mind at all, the dog personality is a wonderful thing. Yeah, you should train them but hopefully not too much because the Hey How Are Doing dogs are the best dogs. They certainly get attention as you walk the streets, they are incredible icebreakers to meeting people. This may not sound like much to some but I have never seen an orange, lemon or grapefruit tree, Glunn has all 3 in his back yard. I thought that was awesome, I was a little mesmerized by them. The oranges were not ripe yet but there was a grapefruit ready and the lemon's were all good to go. I got a real big kick of being able to pluck them off the tree. Took them back to North Dakota, handed them to my wife and I proudly said "I picked those myself". She said "Good Job Honey" but I sensed that the praise may have come with a hint of sarcasm. During the walk to the restaurant, there is a neighborhood intersection of Gregory and Peck, I took note of that and wondered if we would run into an intersection of Steve and McQueen but we didn't. We stopped to eat at an upscale Mexican restaurant called Mirame. These were not fancy Chimichanga's, I can't recall what we ordered because they all had a combination of words that I wasn't used to. Multiple dishes came to the table, all were very tasty. I know I ordered a crab dish and I'm reasonable certain that it's the first dish I've ever had with Roe sprinkled over the top of it. The closest that I've come to something like that was in Cheyenne when they sprinkled Fruity Pebbles over the Shrimp Poboy. The Dogs got theirs under the table, they seemed to like the restaurant and Dogs are typically very generous with the gratuity. With no game that night, it was like having a day off. It was a good day. Tomorrow... Still no scheduled depart time... I will simply rise and shine.

I didn't bring my swim trunks with.

I have recently completed a solo 18 day road trip covering 8 ballparks, 9 games, 14 states, national parks, normal tourist traps and not so normal stops. My fairly new 2022 Kia Seltos had 6,400 miles on it before the trip and the journey tacked on 8,522 additional miles. Some of you may find this interesting and some may say what's the big deal, it's a crazy man with a torture filled vacation plan. I was encouraged to tell the story here by individual day because it would be a very lengthy post if not broken down by day. Some days are not that interesting, some days were more interesting than others and some days need a new adjective, but each day was different and they were days that I couldn't experience in my living room. Feel free to comment, shake your head at my moments of stupidity or tell your own experiences of the places I experienced. This is hit and run tourism... I didn't have a lot of time to hit all the stops but I wanted to hit all the stops because who knows if I would ever be back in any of the areas travelled. I researched and scheduled the trip to the minute and followed the schedule to the letter. Day Thirteen - August 10 - Beverly Hills to Beverly Hills The only thing that is time sensitive today is the game tonight. I just have a list of things to see for myself with my own two eyes. You can see why Beverly Hills became such a magnet for residents to inhabit because it is perfectly situated in the middle of all of it. To the South is the Los Angeles Metro, to the West it's Bel-Air and Westwood, followed by Brentwood and then Santa Monica and the ocean. To the East, it's Hollywood, To the North it's the Hills of the Santa Monica Mountains, filled with expensive real estate and on the other side of that mountain range is the San Fernando Valley with familiar locations like Studio City, Sherman Oaks, Van Nuys, Burbank, Encino and Reseda. With all of the entertainment that gets pumped out of this area and fed across the country and globe, the local geographical references keep getting spoon fed to us in distant lands until they are familiar. It took me a little while to find my feet but you find your feet because the streets are laid out conveniently and pop culture helps you remember them. Starting North and moving South the roads running East/West are Hollywood Boulevard and then Sunset Boulevard, Santa Monica Boulevard, Melrose, Wilshire. Up in the Hills, there is Mulholland Drive and Laurel Canyon. You see the street signs and you know them because the pop culture is dripping off of them. This is what I'm doing today. When planning the things I wanted to see in L.A. back in North Dakota, I did a good job of laying things out geographically for the best efficiency. In hindsight, I did a real good job, really too bad that I didn't really recall the map in my head while executing because that would have stopped me from making an adjustment on the fly that would end up costing me later. The only place that I really wanted to eat at this day was a place called Phillippe the Original, this is where the French Dip was invented and it is located not far Dodger stadium but I forgot that it was so close to the stadium and this is why DINNER was the original plan. I had a hankering for a French Dip right now, I didn't want to get timed out and miss this restaurant so I broke away from my carefully lined up plans and drove a considerable distance to take care of this mid-day French Dip desire. The plan was Sunset Blvd, followed by Hollywood Blvd (Walk of Fame) and then up into the hills stopping at the Hollywood Bowl first. From where I parked by the Fonda Theater on Hollywood Blvd... I could have thrown a sandwich and hit the Hollywood Bowl but I was just getting started driving around the area, I hadn't found my feet and I didn't know the Hollywood Bowl was this close. The restaurant that invented the FRENCH dip is actually in Chinatown or at least on the edge of Chinatown and it would be a half hour, there and back. The sandwich was very tasty but I was surprised that it didn't come with au jus, it was pre-soaked inside the sandwich so no dipping was required... So I guess, I just had the French. I also found out today that my Kia has an electrical glitch that involves this middle finger transmission temp warning icon. I've learned that my Kia doesn't like steep grade climbs at a slow pace, because it produces this transmissions temp warning. The glitch occurs if I don't cycle out of this icon/warning on my instrument cluster to something else like fuel economy or anything really, BEFORE I shut the car off. If I start the car and the last thing on the display was the transmission temp, it shuts down everything as my entire dash blinks on and off non-stop. I have no speedometer, no rpm reading. the entire dash is basically disabled as it just blinks away. When it happens, as you can imagine, you are just thinking... "What the...". On the way to Lake Hollywood Park for the best viewing of the Hollywood sign, it was slow steep incline that caused my Transmission Temp Icon to trigger again like it did in San Francisco. I left it up this time to monitor as I was descending back down, I stopped to fuel, turned the car off and was greeted by the blinking when I started the car up again. I hit the page button to see if it did anything, it didn't do anything... not yet anyway so I shut the car off again. After awhile, I turned the car back on again and everything was back to normal. The car is fine with no signs of trouble, I didn't know that I fixed it by simply changing the page from the transmission temp reading. The tourism started on the Sunset Strip. I'm a big rock music fan, the Whisky a go go is probably the most iconic music venue around and the Rainbow and the Roxy are just a couple of blocks to the west of it. I have little doubt in my mind that if I would have been in this area in my youth, that this is where I would have hung out. The Whisky doors were open, not much going on in it but I was able to see inside, the décor was from decades gone by and I was surprised by how small it was. I'm guessing it would hold about 300 people give or take 100. Next stop was the walk of fame on Hollywood Boulevard, to get there I drove east on Sunset this early Wednesday morning... I can tell you that it wasn't the Sunset blinding me on SUNSET, which I found ironic. BTW... I drove past the Comedy Store and the Laugh Factory a couple of blocks to the east of the Whisky. Now there is no doubt in my mind that the Sunset strip would have been my preferred hang out. The Walk of fame was pretty much what I expected, most everybody knows what it is, it's a sidewalk that draws tourists because it has the names of celebrities in stars all along the walk. Tourists come to... Well... I'm a tourist and I'm not sure why I came but I was going to walk it anyway... for the exercise at the very least. I parked by the Fonda theater with a plan to walk about a mile to Grauman's Chinese Theater, BTW they sold the naming rights, it's now called TCL Chinese Theater, not the same ring to it, I'll just say good luck reading the scribbled names next to the hand prints. Just a couple of blocks into my walk I hit Hollywood and Vine, I look to the North and there is the iconic Capitol records building, that was kind of cool to see. When you start the walk of fame, you read every single name for a couple of blocks, then you start looking into stores and your surroundings and you are reading maybe 50% of the names and eventually you just stop reading names altogether, you don't even look down and are just stepping on the names without apologizing. On the way back on the other side of the Boulevard, there was a point where I stumbled a little bit but caught myself before falling. I looked back and I had tripped over Loretta Swit... Yep... Hot Lips almost got me. After my journey from lunch and back, I headed for the Hills, I didn't get a good view of the Hollywood Bowl but I know where it is and what the surroundings are like as it sits off the 101. Next stop was Lake Hollywood Park for Hollywood sign viewing. This is a significant climb upward to what appears to be a remote beautiful lakeside neighborhood with some isolation from what is happening below. It's a good view of the Hollywood Sign, which is Big, White, and Hollywood is spelled correctly. Next stop was Laurel Canyon, as a rock music fan, this is where that California sound was created because this where they all lived. Jim Morrison, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Joni Mitchell, The Mama's and Papa's, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, The Byrds, The Eagles, Carole King. I stopped at the Canyon Country Store because it served as a gathering spot, they would hang around outside here and jam together. I'm sad to report that they were not jamming when I arrived. The store is... old and cluttered in an attempt to maintain it's hippieness. This was my planned lunch stop that I french dipped away, Lets just say that it did not look like the deli was what they did best, but this was the supposed epicenter of the canyon scene. There was also one house that I wanted to see, the house that Joni MItchell and Graham Nash shared, the inspiration for the song "Our House". There were no CATS in the YARD so life must be hard again. Next up was Mulholland Drive. I assume that this famous road must be on the very top of the Santa Monica Mountains because you get great views of both L.A. and the San Fernando Valley. The homes up here are... I assume... expensive. From this viewpoint, the skyline seems smaller than the population suggests it should be. Chicago for example has a massive skyline that runs along Lake Michigan for miles. L.A. is condensed for lack of a better word. I do imagine that the night view from this vantage point would be quite spectacular with the city lights below. The road goes on and on, as I drove west. When I reached the 405 I figured I better turn South or I would eventually drive into the ocean. I drove by the UCLA campus in Westwood via Sunset Boulevard, Found Hefner's mansion, just a block off of Sunset Boulevard. You can go from a busy boulevard to exclusive neighborhood in one block around here, from there it wasn't far from the Beverly Hillbillies mansion, which is in Bel-Air... not Beverly Hills. Bushes, gates and walls is what you see at these two locations so it wasn't that exciting but at least I know the area and surroundings with my own two eyes. It's getting late in the afternoon now and it's time to head to Dodger Stadium. Grabbed some In-N-Out Burger to eat on the way. Had plenty of time to eat safely, because it was traffic jam all the way. 15 miles to drive and it took over two hours to get there. I ended up being late and I did not get my Freddie Freeman bobblehead. This is where that French Dip lunch impulse decision cost me. If I had just followed the plan, I would have been eating near Dodger Stadium and I would have made the game on time with plenty of room to spare. Just some advice to the kids... Unless you are in Tijuana, Stick to the plan. The GPS took me through some nearby neighborhoods, it was a steep uphill traffic jam to get in, which produced what my Kia does not like. Slow, Uphill Driving and my transmission temperature middle finger came back for a visit while I was on Vin Scully drive, not far from the stadium entrence. When I parked the car and shut it off... I did not cycle off the transmission temp page because I hadn't put the two things together yet. The Twins gave it a little more fight tonight, had a lead for a bit after a Polanco homer that I had a great view of, but the Dodgers took care of that momentary joy. Leaving the stadium, I start the car... it starts blinking on me. I am sure that I'll have to take this in to get it fixed but not here... not now. I still don't know what is causing this, the car is running fine, so I opt to drive with these blinking conditions. New problem... I'm driving and I'm pushing buttons trying to pull up Glunn's address in my previous saved list and I didn't realize that it took my navigation out completely as well. I also kind of forgot that the speedometer would no longer be available and then I hit the freeway without it. I just told myself, keep heading west. I'll be fine. I hate to say it but I'm pulling my cell phone out of my pocket while driving and I'm trying to speak an address into the phone to take over navigation, I don't remember the address, it's programmed into my Kia. I keep heading west, then I'm speaking the symptoms of the Kia into my phone to find the answer. I pulled off to find a spot to read the answers. I find a response on reddit that describes having the same problem after getting a transmission temp warning. I hit the page button, I start the car, no blinking with it on the compass, I shut the car off, cycle to other things like tire pressure, start the car, no blinking, I do this with other settings, no blinking. I cycle back to transmission temp, I start the car and it's back to blinking. Eureka... I Found it. I can't start the car with the transmission temp displayed on the dash or she will blink. It's a glitch that I would have never known about driving on the flat lands of Eastern North Dakota. By some stroke of luck, the exit I took to stop and read, was the exact exit that my GPS would have told me take. I made it... I was little stressed but I made it. Tomorrow... It's more L.A. and I'll get going when I get up.

If the Salton Sea smells real bad. I should have smelt it. ?

Oh Yeah... I learned a lot while learning absolutely nothing at the same time. If I had it all to do it again... I'm still going to Tijuana... Just more prepared, eyes a little more open and not quite so fearless. Oddly, I have always had an appreciation for things going wrong because that is the stuff that you retain. Part of the reason, why I'm working hard putting these notes together is because I know that over time, the details of this trip will fade. In a couple of years, the memories that remain strong will be the situations that occurred in Tijuana. Imperfections are the good stuff in life. I never try to hide the stupid things that I've done, I tell my kids everything stupid I've ever done. When you sit around with your loved ones at Thanksgiving and you are laughing and talking about the old days, you never say "Remember that time when everything went perfect"... You talk about the time you drove the car through the garage door and everybody has a good time laughing with you. I don't embarrass easy. Tiny tragedies are just that... tiny. Tomorrow is a new day. Yes it was tense, Yes it was stupid but it's mine now and I'll gladly take ownership. It didn't ruin my day or trip one bit. It cost me a Zoo. ?

I have recently completed a solo 18 day road trip covering 8 ballparks, 9 games, 14 states, national parks, normal tourist traps and not so normal stops. My fairly new 2022 Kia Seltos had 6,400 miles on it before the trip and the journey tacked on 8,522 additional miles. Some of you may find this interesting and some may say what's the big deal, it's a crazy man with a torture filled vacation plan. I was encouraged to tell the story here by individual day because it would be a very lengthy post if not broken down by day. Some days are not that interesting, some days were more interesting than others and some days need a new adjective, but each day was different and they were days that I couldn't experience in my living room. Feel free to comment, shake your head at my moments of stupidity or tell your own experiences of the places I experienced. This is hit and run tourism... I didn't have a lot of time to hit all the stops but I wanted to hit all the stops because who knows if I would ever be back in any of the areas travelled. I researched and scheduled the trip to the minute and followed the schedule to the letter. Day Twelve - August 9 - San Diego to Beverly Hills If I had a date circled on the calendar during this road trip... I didn't... but if I did, today would have been that day. Not only would the Twins be playing the Dodgers in L.A. tonight but this morning I have planned a trip to another country. I have never been to Mexico, no Cancun, No Cabo and Mexico has never been closer to my reach than right now. I'm in San Diego and I've got a little time on my hands this morning so I made a plan for Tijuana, The San Diego Zoo and then off the L.A. Here's the thing though... I didn't want to drive the Kia in. I've seen the long line of cars at the port of entry on the news and I didn't want take that much time, I wanted to get in... buy a hat or something and get out. I budgeted for a half hour. Hit and Run Tourism is what I do. Making my plans, using North Dakota Internet, I discovered a walking bridge for border crossing... that is perfect. I'll walk in and walk out. OK... I know... Some of you already see the problem but I'll keep going to let the story unfold before you. I drive down to San Ysidro, found a parking lot maybe a block from the walking bridge. The bridge isn't much but it leads to a big mostly empty building that I assume was Mexico Customs. I really have no idea because I really didn't think everything through... this walking bridge was supposed to be magic. There were two uniformed border guards, a scanning machine of sorts and another guy... not in uniform and that guy starts talking to me in Spanish... I tap my chest and say "English" and he simply says... "Passport". I hand him mine, he looks at it for about 3 seconds, hands it back to me and waves me forward. It was that easy to get into Mexico. There is downward path to the left hugging the customs building with a wall on the other side. You can only see straight ahead, its like a funnel that way and it leads to a body sized turnstile... which you spin through and BAM... you are in Mexico. I am immediately greeted by two unconscious souls laying on the sidewalk right by the turnstile... one of which... I'm no doctor but I'd say 50/50 if he was dead or not. He looked horrible, his exposed skin was red and blistering, his body was contorted in an odd shape that did not look comfortable for anyone passed out. I stopped and tried to comprehend what I was looking at and I am just a couple of seconds into Mexico. On the street just a few feet away about 5 taxi's were lined up and the drivers were outside the car shouting Taxi, Taxi, Taxi to get my attention, there were also a couple of food vendors, not far from the two sleeping in the hot sun, there was also a pharmacy across the street. Surely someone would have tended to this guy if he was dead. So, I know it sounds horrible but I continued on, besides I didn't have the time to tend to a dead guy. I waved off the Taxi drivers because I had a plan. It was just a half mile walk to the west and a plaza with all things Mexico just waiting for me to make a purchase. During this hike, you pass by a couple more passed out individuals and people with hat in hand sitting next to the passed out people. I have to admit, I'm not real comfortable at this moment but I remain fearlessly naïve and I continue my journey. walking up and over the main highway to the busiest point of entry in the U.S. I looked down on all the cars waiting to get through and I was thinking, "good thing I didn't try to drive". I arrive at the Plaza, I find a big open space with mostly closed or bordered up businesses but the pharmacies were all open for business. I didn't need a pharmacist, I'm not going in any deeper, I really want to go home now. I call an audible and decide that I'll have food from one of the food vendors that I had walked past and Mexican food in Mexico will be my south of the border experience and then I'll walk back across that walking bridge, just to be done with this. I retraced my steps to the food vendor cart, I looked at his sign and I didn't know what it said and therefore I didn't know what he was making. He starts talking really fast in Spanish I tap my chest and say "English"... he shakes his head signifying no. We kind of look at each other for a little bit, saying nothing. I point to his cart and I hold up one finger and say "One". Yeah I know... Uno but he understood, because he made two of whatever it is he was making. I still don't know what he made me but he held up two fingers and I gave him two dollars and the transaction was complete. Whatever meat it was... was shredded, it had a lot of cilantro on it and on the third bite... there was a bone. OK... That's enough of that... time to go and I walked over to the same body length turnstile that I entered Mexico through, next to the passed out people, who were still there passed out and the turnstile didn't turn the other direction. I'm standing here on the edge of Tijuana... my plans are broken to pieces in my hands... my mastery of the English language is apparently useless. I don't have a back up plan... I was supposed to cross the bridge back and forth. It only does the forth part. I see a police officer, I walk over to her, she doesn't speak English... I start playing charades to communicate. Me (Pointing at Me) Walk (Two Fingers walking across my arm). America (I don't know why I threw my arms out wide when I said America). She nods, she put her hand on my shoulder and lightly pushed me for a block (her hand stayed on my shoulder) and then she pointed to the west. So, I walked that way as instructed. I arrive at... THE LINE. Looking to the north at the point of entry, I was quite a ways from it and this line was at a stand still. I start walking south, looking for the end of the line and I keep walking with these thoughts ringing in my head, THIS WAS A DUMB IDEA, YOU COULDN'T BE MORE STUPID, WHAT DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN, OF ALL THE STUPID THINGS YOU COULD DO, Some of you are already thinking to yourself... Why didn't I just (insert something sensible here)? I didn't do something sensible because I didn't know what I was doing or what was sensible, I didn't know anything. I did no training for this. I found a walking bridge on Google Maps and said... That should do it, I had 18 days to plan and my planning was not sufficient for this, my preparation was not sufficient for this. I have no experience here and my naivety without fear, propelled me into this situation. This is the equivalent of telling a story of trying to repair plumbing with a straw and plumbers listening to me are thinking "use a wrench, you idiot". I have no defense but in my defense, my flimsy plan hinged on a walking bridge that went both ways, that was the extent of my planning and that wasn't possible. At this point, I am willing to fly out of Tijuana because I don't know what my options are. As I'm kicking myself, I have a moment of clarity... The Taxi's... maybe I can take a Taxi like Herb Alpert. So... I walk back to the row of Taxi's. They all shout Taxi, Taxi, Taxi like I'm Tom Cruise. I walk up to the first one and I say "America" while doing the steering wheel thing with my hands. I swear to god... he points at the ground and says "Mexico". It has been suggested to me by others that Tijuana is perhaps the most English speaking city in Mexico. It has been suggested that the people that I am encountering are just playing dumb. Maybe... but if this is true, they are incredible actors. Anyway, I find out that the Taxi's do not cross the border so I tell myself to stop, relax, let's solve this. I sit down on the sidewalk, next to the dead guy (He's breathing He's Fine) and I do something that I should have done BEFORE I CROSSED THAT BRIDGE. I typed into Google... "How do I get out of Tijuana"? The search results said that there was a shuttle to the border with a dedicated lane but Google wouldn't tell me how to find these shuttles so I go back to the Taxi drivers and I am playing charades again trying to get them to take me to this shuttle. I didn't have a universal hand signal for shuttle so this was harder... but one of them seems to understand, because he opens the Taxi door and he nods his head assuredly so I get in the back of the Taxi trusting that I'm not on my way to Acapulco. He brings me to the... THE LINE. OK... I'm back at this line, still in search of the shuttle that could solve my problem. I let the Taxi go because I wasn't about to do another bee dance in front of all these witnesses who have been standing in line since February. I walk away from the line, whip out my phone and I google how to say "Where can I find the Bus to America". I look for the most trustworthy looking person that I could find, reading from my phone I say, "Donde Puedo Encontrar El Autobus America". It worked because he answered me directly... in Spanish. This created a new problem... I now had to enter what he said to me into the phone to translate it back. I don't know how to spell what he just said, I don't even retain what he just said. I just nodded my head confidently and said Gracias, because I had no chance. I was back near the line again, pondering a solution, when I was approached by a man who spoke English, he asked me "Do you want pass"? His job was to walk the line and ask if anyone wanted to purchase a pass on one of these mythical shuttles I guess, I didn't know this was what he did all day so I'm immediately confused and my mind was swimming so hard that even English wasn't making sense to me. I'm thinking "A Pass for What?" but I don't say anything because I don't know what he is selling me and I just want to get back home. He waits a bit for me to respond and I haven't... so... he says... "You don't want to wait in this line, too long" and now my brain starts going back into gear and I speak... "no... no I don't want to wait in this line". He says... "I have pass... 10 dollars". At this point, I put all of my trust in this stranger. He says again "10 dollars" but I'm reluctant to pull out my wallet with a lot more than 10 dollars in it. I ask him "How does this work" and he says "a bus will take me to the front" and I ask, "where is this bus"? He says "come" and just like that I'm following a potential English speaking serial killer as he leads me to a place where he can steal my wallet and dispose of my body next to the other dead body by the turnstile. He walks me about 4 blocks to a building with a bunch of buses around it. He holds a pink colored pass and says 10 bucks, and I now give him ten bucks. He points to the building with a window and he went back to the line to sell some more I guess. I hand the pink ticket to the guy in the window, he says "passport", I hand him my card, he types, stamps the pink ticket and hands both of them to me and he says nothing. All he said was Passport during the whole deal. I ask him which bus because there were 6 or 7 parked on the street by the bus parking lot and he doesn't respond, I see a guy who looks like he belonged walking by so I ask him, which bus and he says "not here" and he leaves. I am now back to the window. "Where is the BUS? The guy in the window is not responding, I'm back to getting frustrated. someone else comes by and I'm given a 20 minute wait estimate, so I stand in this bus parking lot and wait and I trust no one. As I wait, some more people show up and wait with me. I ask is this the shuttle to the border to just confirm and they say yes... I feel a little better and I continue to wait. Two different shuttles pull into the lot and drop off passengers, I try to get on after the passengers depart and the driver each time says "no no no" After around 50 minutes of waiting in this parking lot, the correct shuttle shows up. Then I sat in the bus for an additional 30 minutes while the driver waited for the entire shuttle to fill up. The shuttle indeed had a dedicated lane to the point of entry. I went through customs, I was asked what I was doing in Tijuana and I didn't know what to say. I just said that I have never been to Mexico before and wanted to. I exited through some doors... Off to the right of those doors was that walking bridge that started all of this. I went the opposite direction. Here's the deal... when putting this trip together, I wanted to experience things that I couldn't in North Dakota... I achieved that and more this morning. There is no question that my stupidity took this new experience to a whole new unnecessary level but without a doubt, it was an experience that could not happen in my living room... And... And... most importantly... I learned something important about myself... I am terrible at charades. Back in the safety of my Kia, because of all the time spent in Tijuana, I had to cross the San Diego Zoo off my list and that's probably a good thing because the way the morning was going... I probably would have taken a wrong turn and ended up in a cage. So, I loaded up the truck and I'm off to Beverly. Hills that is. Ok... I'll finish that thought... Swimmin Pools... Movie Stars. Yeah... the next 4 nights... I'll be roughing it in Beverly Hills. For those who have never been to Beverly Hills... I can say without a doubt that it is better than Tijuana. I can't express how grateful I was for the hospitality offered by my dear friend Glunn. It was wonderful to leave your luggage in one spot for 4 nights after the unpacking and packing during the spree of hotels on this trip and in a location that was so central to everything that I wanted to do while I was in the area. I couldn't have asked for anything better from anyone better. I had contacted Glunn to let him know I was coming, I was hoping he might want to go to game, or maybe we could grab some lunch while I was in town and he right away offered me a roof over my head. I know I told him that I really really appreciated this but on the long drive back home, I was wondering if I adequately expressed how much I appreciated it because it was such a gift. Great Accommodations and Great Company... and... and... he speaks English very well... which was perfect because I was in need of some rehabilitation. I met Glunn many years ago right here on Twinsdaily. It's proof that you can make some really great friendships on a website like this. I pulled up to his place mid-afternoon, I was really hoping to not be disruptive, I knew that Glunn worked very hard, with important clientele. I really really did not want to be disruptive to his schedule at all, his individual work hours I assume are high value. Just taking the time out of his day, to greet me, to open the doors, give me a tour of his place, a key, remote for the garage so I could come and go as I please was not taken for granted by me. He ran back to work for a while before we left for Dodger Stadium. There is so much to see in L.A. so the first thing I did was sit down and watch a little T.V. They have a great channel where I was able to watch some old Odd Couple episodes, I had forgotten what a great show that was. There wasn't really enough time for any exploration and I'll be honest, after this morning, my carefree exploration confidence had run out of gas, besides, I have 3 days to check it all out without time constraints ahead and I got plans for that. It is about 11 miles to Dodger stadium. In North Dakota it takes 10 minutes to cover 11 miles, in L.A. it takes 3 full days, you have to bring snacks. In reality, we made pretty good time especially when you consider that we left during rush hour, arriving with enough time to walk around the stadium, grab a beer and a Dodger Dog before finding pretty decent seats behind home plate. Yes, we made pretty good "L.A." time and I was enjoying the traffic jam conversation so it was comfortable, but let's be clear... Getting to Dodger stadium compared to every other stadium is difficult at best and I got the impression that the hour drive covering 11 miles with Glunn at the wheel was the best that could be done. Dodger stadium honestly would have been high up my rankings if it wasn't so difficult to get there, along with the lack of interesting food choices. Otherwise, it is a beautiful stadium that has withstood the test of time. 3rd oldest ballpark in MLB. I do prefer a skyline outfield backdrop, like Target Field or Petco or PNC but at Dodger Stadium you get the San Gabriel Mountains as a backdrop and nobody has anything like that. How was the legendary Dodger Dog? It was a hot dog, just like the hot dog that you can buy in North Dakota. I am suspicious that marketing may have enhanced the status of the Dodger Dog or perhaps, the Dodger Dog just stands tall amongst what I would describe as typical, routine ball park food. However, I hadn't eaten since that bone-in taco this morning so I did find it delicious but my shoe would have tasted pretty good at that point. Once again I forgot to grab napkins, Glunn did not. He's pretty prepared... when we got to the parking lot, he took copious notes on his parking spot so we could find it afterward, he noted nearby trees, how the vehicle lined up with the stadium, he copied down the make, model color and license plate of every car within a mile. he installed fireworks firing cannisters behind his vehicle that would shoot fireworks into the sky if none of the above methods worked. Personally, I made a mental note that there was a sign that said "5" nearby. His method was better. Joe Ryan was getting lit up, the Dodgers just got done sweeping the Soto infused Padres and were on an 8 game win streak in total and they were 15-3 since the all-star break so the Twins were catching the Dodgers at the wrong time and it wasn't pretty. Keep in mind, 10PM in California is 12 midnight to my body clock and I was still adjusting to that, I was tired, I was going to be at the game tomorrow night, I knew that Glunn had his eye on the ballpark exit traffic so I suggested that we call it a night around the 7th inning because the Twins were getting beaten handily, still caught a late night traffic jam on the way back but it was just fine. The traffic jam conversation was once again good. He has a patio that is very relaxing as you wind down the day. Tomorrow I'll be a tourist in L.A... I'm scheduled to depart at... Turns out... I'm not scheduled to depart at any time.

And Nuts

I don't want it in San Diego. Start with I-29 up here in North Dakota. Test it out. Let us be the Guinea Pig ?

I have recently completed a solo 18 day road trip covering 8 ballparks, 9 games, 14 states, national parks, normal tourist traps and not so normal stops. My fairly new 2022 Kia Seltos had 6,400 miles on it before the trip and the journey tacked on 8,522 additional miles. Some of you may find this interesting and some may say what's the big deal, it's a crazy man with a torture filled vacation plan. I was encouraged to tell the story here by individual day because it would be a very lengthy post if not broken down by day. Some days are not that interesting, some days were more interesting than others and some days need a new adjective, but each day was different and they were days that I couldn't experience in my living room. Feel free to comment, shake your head at my moments of stupidity or tell your own experiences of the places I experienced. This is hit and run tourism... I didn't have a lot of time to hit all the stops but I wanted to hit all the stops because who knows if I would ever be back in any of the areas travelled. I researched and scheduled the trip to the minute and followed the schedule to the letter. Day Eleven - August 8 - San Simeon to San Diego I could have slept in this morning. In consideration of the night before, I should have slept in but I didn't. I don't use an alarm clock, don't need one, I'm a natural early riser raised on central time, if I sleep in until 8, that's extremely rare, 8AM in California is 10AM back home, I'm still adjusting to PDT so in a sense... I am sleeping in, if I rise at 7AM. Just an easy 350 mile drive today to get to the game tonight in San Diego, that is really all I have on the schedule besides lunch about 45 minutes away at a restaurant that opens at 11am so there was no need to spring out of bed. Other than... that ocean that I paid extra for and that was enough to get me up and going. There is no need to complicate the ocean, I didn't bring swimming attire, I didn't rent a surf board. I brought a cup of coffee, I found a piece of wood, I sat down and slowly drank it, then I went back to the lobby for a refill and I repeated the process. There was a guy attempting to surf to my left, it looked like a lot of floating in the water but as long as he was having fun, who am I to judge. There were a couple of young kids running around to my right. I would have had to shout loudly for anybody else to hear me so I got this beach to myself. You watch the surfer, you watch the gulls, you look out as far as you can see and you wonder how long it would take to swim to Asia. Mostly... you just breathe. There has been a lot of running from point A to point B through Z on this trip, a couple of hours at the beach is a good place to breathe. Off in the distance, I wasn't looking for it so I wasn't prepared for it, but I'm pretty sure I saw a whale breach. It was quite a ways out so I can't be sure what I saw but if I could see it from that distance, I'm pretty sure it wasn't a walleye. It happens and then it's gone, just something large out there with slow arc out of the water. There is no way to verify... so I'm etching it was a whale in stone to make it reality forever. There is an elephant seal rookery a couple miles to the north that I drove past last night to beat the sunset. I made plans to circle back in the morning on my way out. Elephant Seals are big crabby creatures, they mostly just lay there on the sand, about 20 of them on the beach were today's entertainment and there are about 50 of us humans along the fence watching them from above... just laying there doing nothing at all. All of a sudden, one will decide to switch locations and it will bounce itself forward and this makes the 50 or so humans make an ahh sound, like it just completed a double back flip off the balance beam. When the moving seal bounces nearby another seal, it will get bit, which causes the bouncing seal to bite the seal biting it and this seems to be life as an Elephant Seal rule, lots of biting each other, for all I know that was Grandma biting her grand children, they all get in on the act. The prize for getting bit multiple times? just a different spot on the beach to lay down again. There looked to be about 5 in the water and they were biting each other. For animals that gather together, they sure seem to not like gathering together. The phrase "Get of my Lawn" was probably invented by Elephant Seals. I don't recommend them as pets. In contrast... the viewing area had some very friendly squirrels that walk right up to you for food. I was watching a young lady feeding one squirrel ice cream from the edge of her straw so I went to the Kia and grabbed those 7 dollar nuts that I bought in Gilroy. I sat down and hand fed squirrels until the nuts were gone. A bunch of them were suddenly my friend. Crawling over my feet, they get up on their hind legs with front feet on my shins. Some grab a nut and consume right there, some grab one and take it away but they kept coming. Once the nuts were gone, they seemed to know and they left, they were no longer my friend. Jilted, I drove off to San Luis Opispo for lunch because the squirrels just ate my food so I had to get something else. Research had suggested that I stop at the Firestone Grill in San Luis Obispo. The Tri-Tip Sandwich is the internet recommendation. First off, San Luis Obispo is another beautiful town. For those of you that have been following along, you must be getting the sense that I'm taking a shine to this part of California... It's true, I certainly am. The Firestone Grill is a place your order, pay, get a number, turn around to watch them work the grill and wait for them to read your number restaurant. Good food... pretty damn fast. The Tri-Tip was very good and I'm off for San Diego ahead of schedule because of the efficiency of this restaurant. The drive isn't quite to the level of the PCH yesterday but it's still beautiful, the road leaves the ocean for quite a few miles to bounce around in the hills until you reach Santa Barbara which is a wow moment because the ocean comes back into view and you are still in the hills and the town of Santa Barbara is just hanging around in the middle of all that. Then you hug the coast to Ventura before breaking west through the mountains, back into the valley, back through the mountains and onto the world famous 405. I have heard of the 405 up in North Dakota, it's amazing how L.A. pop culture has spread L.A. to North Dakota for someone like me to put in my pocket. I was expecting a traffic nightmare because that is how it is portrayed but the traffic had a good steady flow to it. The Los Angeles area in general does a terrible job of letting you know what city you are entering. There are a lot of suburbs in Los Angeles and you move through them one after another but you don't ever know what suburb you are in at a given time. There is no signage letting you know. I stopped for gas and I had to ask the young lady behind the counter... "What city is this"? She looks at you funny before she says... "umm... Huntington Beach" and my reply made her even more confused... "Oh, I've heard of that" as I walked back to my Kia. The worst traffic jam (so far) of the trip was about to occur in the countryside about 50 miles north of San Diego. Right before Camp Pendleton. All lanes had slowed to crawl and the occasional lengthy stand still. No idea what was causing this traffic slow down quite a ways from the city as I watched my GPS predicted arrival time go hard the wrong direction. With the memory of that fatal accident that I drove past around Waco, I considered the possibility of this being similar so out of respect I told myself to sit there and not complain because there are more important things in life... like life itself. While sitting in this jam, I had front row seats for Camp Pendleton Marine helicopter maneuvers that were taking place on both sides of the freeway. I don't know what they were practicing but I can tell you that these helicopters didn't look any helicopter that I have seen before. They looked expensive and they looked capable of clearing the traffic jam up it they wanted to. After a lot of time I eventually reached the source of the traffic bottleneck... orange cones. One lane closed for about a mile... caused all of that. Once I realized that nobody had been killed or hurt, I let all that pent up frustration out with a loud "ARE YOU SERIOUS" and I felt better. Once you get to the source of it all, you shoot out like a rocket and you are back to full speed like it never happened. I came up with a brilliant idea shortly after. A third set of identical lanes in between the North and South Bound lanes that can be used during construction of the primary lanes to keep traffic flowing. Yeah... I assume it would be expensive... yeah... I assume that it would require some engineering but let's get it done... because I got a ball game to get to. The City of San Diego is perhaps the most beautiful metropolitan area that I have ever seen. Not from a skyline standpoint, my favorite skyline, is still Cincinnati when you come across the Ohio river from Kentucky but from an everything else standpoint. It's clean, palm Trees all over the place and all of the structures, the lights, signs, offices, stores and houses have a great optic to it. I pulled into my hotel on the Harbor, quickly put my bags in the room and headed down to the lobby to call the Uber for pick up. If I had to rank my favorite stadiums prior to this trip. It would look like this. 1. San Francisco 2. Boston 3. Baltimore 4. Pittsburgh 5. Citi Field (Mets) 6. Kansas City Everybody has to move down a notch now. Petco is my new favorite. It's a beautiful stadium, the architecture is clever, it has nooks and crannies with interesting things tucked into them. it has a beach, it has a park inside the park behind center field that can be accessed by the public when games are not taking place. the sight lines are nearly perfect, the food choices are interesting, there is an section with maybe 100 craft beer options, the concourse isn't circular, there are up and downs that you must navigate but the escalators are plentiful. I sat in the shade under the Western Supply building in left field, the fans that I sat near were fun and into it. All in all, it was a great experience. Move over Oracle... you have been surpassed. I learned an Uber lesson from Phoenix so after the game. I decided to walk a bit before calling for the Uber to take me back to the hotel. This took me through the gaslight district, it looked like a lot of fun, plenty of bars with plenty of Padre Jerseys enjoying those bars so you know that it is a large part of the baseball experience here. Petco has been around for 18 years, I am not sure why the new Texas Rangers stadium didn't talk a long look at Petco and realize that a baseball stadium can be so much more. Back to the hotel... I'm hitting the sack. Tomorrow morning my North Dakota naïve fearlessness is going to teach me a lesson. I will start down that path at 7:30AM.

That Motel 6 in the Bay area at $300 a night probably had them in full dress.

I have photo's on my phone. Badly taken photo's for the most part because I'm not the best at that sort of thing. Got to find the time to transfer them to my PC and with my limited skills it seems to be a lengthy process. Maybe I'll do a photo dump at the end.

There is a big ocean nearby and the glaciers are melting so we are about to have more than we need. Time for a new crop... salty almonds.

I have recently completed a solo 18 day road trip covering 8 ballparks, 9 games, 14 states, national parks, normal tourist traps and not so normal stops. My fairly new 2022 Kia Seltos had 6,400 miles on it before the trip and the journey tacked on 8,522 additional miles. Some of you may find this interesting and some may say what's the big deal, it's a crazy man with a torture filled vacation plan. I was encouraged to tell the story here by individual day because it would be a very lengthy post if not broken down by day. Some days are not that interesting, some days were more interesting than others and some days need a new adjective, but each day was different and they were days that I couldn't experience in my living room. Feel free to comment, shake your head at my moments of stupidity or tell your own experiences of the places I experienced. This is hit and run tourism... I didn't have a lot of time to hit all the stops but I wanted to hit all the stops because who knows if I would ever be back in any of the areas travelled. I researched and scheduled the trip to the minute and followed the schedule to the letter. Day Ten - August 7 - Modesto to San Simeon, CA It is Sunday morning and by some miracle I am leaving on schedule around 6:30AM. I will be spending the morning in San Francisco followed by an afternoon game in Oakland before heading down the Pacific Coast southward. Just in case anybody is wondering how Modesto became the chosen place to camp out for the night with the Bay area next to be discovered, I can thank Priceline for that. The Hotels in San Francisco and Oakland were priced unbelievably high, I know I tend to exaggerate a little on occasion but I'm not exaggerating when I say the prices were around 300 bucks for a Motel 6 type operation. While expanding my search outward to find cheaper accommodations, Priceline chimed in and suggested this Baymont in Modesto for around $125 and I said... You Got a Deal and I shook hands with Priceline. I got a little bit of sleep but not very much. Off to the left, this hotel was nestled... nuzzled is a better word... next to a busy multi-lane Route 99, seemingly inches from my room. The walls could not resist this constant traffic sound. Every Motorcycle sounded like Evil Knievel was jumping my bed. The traffic noise was incredible, you would have to experience it for yourself to believe it. I thought I would have to look both ways for traffic as I exit the room. However, I was tired, so I managed to get use to the sound and I did drift off to sleep, Momentarily... because off to the right, which I was not aware of because of the darkness arrival... Surprise!!! Railroad Tracks. I don't know if any of you have ever been awoken from a deep sleep by a loud train horn. In case you haven't had the pleasure... YOU HIT THE CEILING!!! While you mutter "WHAT WHAT WHAT" like the train was asking you a question when you were not paying attention. Then you try to drift back to the sleep to the clackity clack sound that goes on for a while because each train had some apparent length to it. THREE TRAINS would roll through that night at full speed and at a certain speed... the train horn is required by law. Go Ahead... Google Map the "Baymont Modesto/Salida", You will see for yourself how they impressively squeezed this building in between these two incredible noise makers. Call it the Stealers Wheel or Gerry Rafferty Hotel if you will... because you are STUCK in the MIDDLE and the walls are just not sufficient. You would think that it couldn't be any worse but if you thought that... you would be wrong. Because... I kid you not. A car alarm from a Tesla parked next to my Kia... went off... not once but 5 times just to join the party. 5 Times! not in succession mind you but at well spaced intervals throughout the night. The first time I got up to check if it was my Kia... the 2nd through 5th time, I just stayed in bed and timed how long it would take the owner to calm it... in case you were wondering... About a minute each time. I wasn't sleeping so I had time to ponder what was setting off this Tesla so consistently, the only conclusion I could come up with was... car thieves who were not very good at it. If this was indeed the case, I considered going out to help them. Rapid Eye Movement would not be achieved tonight,, the last blast of noise from the car alarm was about 5:30... I said to myself "Screw This" I hit the shower, packed up and set off for what was going to be a long day sure to be longer due to the lack of sleep. I am serious when I say this: I would have gotten more sleep if there was Mariachi band playing enthusiastically in the corner of my room all night. BTW... I have seen maybe one Tesla in the wild up in North Dakota. They are all over the place in California. My route to San Francisco swung north, through Berkeley and across the Richmond Bridge just so I could enter San Fran via the Golden Gate Bridge, I took a quick nap on the way with adaptive cruise control and lane assist functioning properly. I had been over the Golden Gate once before but I took it again because I remember the view of the San Francisco skyline and wanted to see that again. It was hit and run tourism in San Francisco as I checked out the legendary stuff. Height/Ashbury... the clock on the corner said 4:20 while my watch said 9:14, there is a Ben and Jerry's on the opposite corner of course, Jerry Garcia's old place was a couple of blocks away. Drove by the Painted Ladies., I hit Lombard Street, which I attempted to drive as fast as I could, which was not very fast at all... because the straightaways are very short. There are roads... busy roads in San Francisco with inclines so steep that you feel like you are pointed straight up to the sky and declines so steep that you feel like you are driving straight into the ground. These inclines caused my transmission to give me the middle finger. I've never seen a transmission temp warning icon before but in my Kia, that icon is shaped like a middle finger extended. I apologized and hoped that the car would forgive me. Food was going to happen in Chinatown. The only other time that I was in San Francisco, we took a cable car to Fisherman's Wharf so Chinatown was going to get my attention this time. Finding a parking spot in Chinatown took quite a bit of driving around because it is jam packed with people. Just a little tip... do not look at your cell phone while walking, you will collide with someone. My research suggested that I had to have Dim Sum at the Good Mong Kok Bakery for a true San Francisco treat. The reviews were glowing and lots of people were reading those reviews because the line this Sunday morning was stretched around the block. This line blocked the doors of multiple open restaurants that could have fed you while you waited in line. Talking to the people waiting in line around me, everybody agreed that the Shrimp was the best. The experience was as close to Seinfeld's soup nazi episode as I could ever come. The building is very narrow with no room for tables. You literally walk in a couple feet sideways to the counter... place your order... slide over a couple of feet to pay... get handed your food and then you slide out behind the person who is now ordering. You don't really see the yellow and red menu on the wall until you get in and there is immediate pressure to order RIGHT NOW falling from all directions, you know the line behind you is long and the person taking your order is giving you the... I don't have all day look. There were over 40 different choices to consider and you have to perform RIGHT NOW and you have seen the menu for 3 seconds. It's like a waiter coming to your table, handing you a menu, and after 3 seconds taking the menu from you, while asking what will you have. BTW... you can't say Shrimp... You have to give the corresponding number. You say 19, 33 and 34. The dumplings come in sets of three at a cost of 3 bucks so I decided to get 3 different orders for about 10 bucks total, I quickly chose the Shrimp, The Beef and for something different... the Shark Fin (I wasn't aware of the practice of finning before I chose it) because it was the unique thing that caught my eye doing that quick scan. Like I mentioned earlier, no tables, Chinatown is crawling with humanity so I took my food to the Kia, parked on a significant decline and ate it on the hood, while watching the plastic container closely in case it attempted to slide off the downward pointed hood. About 27 million people walked past me while I dined in this fashion and it felt perfectly normal. The people in line were right... the Shrimp was very very good but... to be honest... I liked the Shark Fin better. Which has created a new problem. Turns out I have a taste for shark fin with no chance to scratch that itch in North Dakota. Afterwards, I walked Chinatown, checking out the many things that I couldn't identify but found interesting to imagine in my mind what they were. It was a very enjoyable morning in San Francisco but it was time for that change. it was time to cross the Bay Bridge to Oakland for the game. I'll just get this out of the way. Just mere blocks from the stadium, the streets are garbage lined, I'm not talking about a candy wrapper and plastic bottle, I'm talking Garbage strewn on both sides of the street, like it hasn't been cleaned in a decade. Garbage at such magnitude that there are spots that you can't see the concrete. I understand that I'm not the cleanest guy in the world but this was too much. I don't care about city politics as two sides stare at each other trying to get taxpayers to fund these new stadiums, I'd rather not watch big money fight each other. Take the politics out... you just move this team to another city. Lake Tahoe... Anywhere. My Oakland experience was just going to be a baseball game, the A's vs. the Giants. GPS led the way and eventually I am funneled into a slow moving line. I don't see a stadium anywhere but the GPS said 0.2 miles away and I am in a slow moving line so it's very easy to trust the process. As I inch forward, providing plenty of time to soak in the garbage scenery. the GPS announces that I have arrived but yet... I do not see a stadium anywhere. The long line is all turning into a parking lot so I trust the process and enter the parking lot... I still do not see a stadium anywhere. All of us arriving from the long line are circling this large lot just looking for a space, this process is slowed because you have to wait for the foot traffic because you can't run them over and they all cross in front of you trusting you not to. After 30-40 minutes, I find a space and I start walking toward where all the people are walking toward... trusting the process... because I still do not see a stadium anywhere. The reason that I could not see a stadium was easily explained by a local gentlemen who was trying not to laugh at me. I was at a Farmers Market of sorts... A rather big one apparently, the stranger pointed and said to me "the stadium was about a half mile that way". I knew before hand that I wasn't going to stay for the entire game because I had an oceanside hotel waiting for me that I wanted to reach in daylight so I purchased the cheapest seats possible which put me way up in the top row of the stadium... Bob Uecker was sitting next to me. The cheapest seats in Oakland were more expensive than decent seats in other parks, which perhaps has a little something to do with A's attendance issues. The field is fine, it has dugouts and white straight lines but all the major league parks have that. The Concourse is cement, very tight and to get up to the top row, it takes a lot of up hill walking. All in All, it was an unimpressive stadium in an unimpressive city. It goes straight to the bottom of the 24 stadiums that I have seen. I can't help wonder what the commissioner thinks when he sees that garbage piled up nearby. Detroit isn't the cleanest city either but they manage to keep a couple of blocks clean around the stadium. The highlight was the hall of fame induction before the game, with Rickey Henderson giving a speech among others but this delayed the start of the game significantly so I left during the 4th inning, which was OK... I Came... I saw... I experienced enough of it. Next scheduled stop was Pebble Beach, I was doing OK for time by leaving early so I made an impulsive addition of Google and Apple to the itinerary since they control the world and it was sort of along the way. I crossed my 4th (The Heyward) out of the 5 bridges that span the bay. I had no problem driving around the Google campus, it was wide open and as you can imagine, it's a very large campus. At Apple... there were gates and security guards. I was told that they were not allowing visitors on Sunday so the security guard let me in... just to let me out. My instructions were to drive to the stop sign, turn right, stop at the gate, the gate would open and I would be off the property. He was very nicely ushering me off. I did as instructed but he left out an important detail in his instruction. Apparently, I was supposed to wait until the gate COMPLETELY opened. At home, when I open my garage door, I start driving forward while it is opening... can't do that at Apple. I pulled forward while the fully automated gate was opening and the movement of my car caused it to freeze and stay frozen. This gate also had it's own security guard and he doesn't operate the gate because it is automated from head to toe. The original security guard who tasked me with this mission came running from his location... maybe a 50 yard sprint, two other cars with tourists who were also being ushered off the property are now behind me. The security guards are asking the other cars to move backwards just so I can back up, pull forward, back up, pull forward, back up, pull forward in an attempt to trigger the gate and it wasn't working. The security guard gets on the two-way radio, declaring a security gate malfunction with some sort of code that sounded a lot like my dim sum order and in less time then it took the Tesla to turn off his car alarm, 4 egg shaped vehicles (yes... they were white and they were egg shaped) with engineers in them show up and they began work on the gate. Eventually, one of the engineers, with a security guard nearby for protection I assume, walked up to my window and told me "it should work now... this time make sure the gate completely opens before you pull forward" which was a nice way of blaming it all on me. I said "Thank You... I will... may I suggest a sign with this specific instruction" He assured me that "there will be meeting shortly to remedy this in the future". I drove off laughing for a bit because... Anybody can get ushered off of the Apple Campus... I, Riverbrian, from North Dakota... BROKE APPLE. I am the reason that they will call a special meeting to fix a security issue AT APPLE!!! I have a Samsung Phone, I am perfectly OK with the hell I hath brought. On the way to Pebble Beach, I drove through the town of Gilroy which professes itself to be the "Garlic Capitol of the world". A roadside store in the shape of a barn was advertising Garlic Ice Cream about 10 feet from the exit needed to get there so I flew into that exit at 75 mph, jamming on the brakes as I slid into the parking lot with a cloud of dust drifting into the wide open doors of the facility. The store had signs saying "10 Dollar Minimum purchase" and also had a sign saying "No returns on the Garlic Ice Cream". The Ice Cream cost 3 bucks, I'd estimate that it was a quarter cup in size and I found it interesting that most of the other smaller items cost exactly 7 bucks. My math tells me that this adds up to to the 10 buck minimum purchase required, which clearly indicates that the Garlic Ice Cream is the gateway to other things. I bought a 7 dollar variety bag of nuts since I drove past all of those nut trees yesterday and I tried the Ice Cream. It was just fine... almost every other flavor of ice cream was better but it doesn't make you gag or force you into a slightly funny facial expression, It was almost flavorless to be honest, you can eat it all and live to tell the story, I didn't need to return it. I tossed the empty tiny quarter cup carton into the garbage and drove off with my nuts. Beautiful isn't a strong enough word to describe the 17 mile drive that Pebble Beach sits on, I'll use Magnificent as the adjective. I shot a 71... in my head, which is amazing because I usually shoot a 106 outside my head back in North Dakota. You get some views of the golf course, forest, ocean views with large rocks poking out of the water, incredible homes that have to cost more than $200,000. There are what I assume to be domesticated deer hanging around because they had no fear of humans, they don't let you walk up to them because they do move away a step or two as you approach but they don't run. They just kind of say... that's close enough buddy. Carmel-by-the-Sea was also magnificent, Only considering all of the territory that I covered on this road trip, if I had to pick the spot to retire with my billion dollars. Carmel/Pebble Beach/Monterey Peninsula would be that spot. I know I'm ocean temperature inclined compared to inland temps without a doubt. Looking back on the entire trip and all of the incredible scenery that I saw with my own eyes... If I had to choose the scenery that ranked #1. It was Highway 1 from Carmel down to San Simeon. The Pacific Coast highway is a longer version of Lombard street and it has it all... Ocean, Bays, Mountains, Hills, Valleys, bridges built into the sides of mountains, steep cliffs and crabby elephant seals. This part deserves a longer paragraph but there is so much to describe and it changes mile by mile for lots of miles. If you like scenery like I do... The PCH has it all. I'll leave it right there. My words won't do it justice anyway. I was trying to make my hotel on the water in San Simeon by daylight and I did...Just barely, I was able to check in, drop my bags off, head to the beach and I didn't have to wait long to watch the sun fall into the ocean. The sky goes from blue to orange and as the sun is hitting the water, it produces what looks like an orange walkway across the water toward the beach to the breakers. Then the darkness darkens step by step. I sat for a while in the dark and just listened to the waves that I could no longer see crash, crash, crash, crash. The perfect end to what was a really great day. I got by just fine with no sleep, I don't think I yawned at all... not once. However, believe me... I crawled into bed and I was out like a light. I can sleep in tomorrow morning... I am scheduled to depart at 9:45AM.

Mixed in with those trees were large signs easily readable from the highway that were consistently yelling at Governor Newsom about water.

I could use some coaching.

I have recently completed a solo 18 day road trip covering 8 ballparks, 9 games, 14 states, national parks, normal tourist traps and not so normal stops. My fairly new 2022 Kia Seltos had 6,400 miles on it before the trip and the journey tacked on 8,522 additional miles. Some of you may find this interesting and some may say what's the big deal, it's a crazy man with a torture filled vacation plan. I was encouraged to tell the story here by individual day because it would be a very lengthy post if not broken down by day. Some days are not that interesting, some days were more interesting than others and some days need a new adjective, but each day was different and they were days that I couldn't experience in my living room. Feel free to comment, shake your head at my moments of stupidity or tell your own experiences of the places I experienced. This is hit and run tourism... I didn't have a lot of time to hit all the stops but I wanted to hit all the stops because who knows if I would ever be back in any of the areas travelled. I researched and scheduled the trip to the minute and followed the schedule to the letter. Day Nine - August 6 - Phoenix to Modesto, CA Today I'm entering California for a solid week worth of California, Today will be 700 miles, over 11 hours of driving with a couple of scheduled food stops. I try to avoid driving in the dark because what the area looks like good or bad is a critical part of this trip that I never want to miss but darkness can't be avoided today. I would have left at the crack of dawn to keep the trip completely daylight hours but I had to wait at the hotel to get a Yosemite reservation for NEXT Saturday and I didn't want to risk a desert reception dead spot so I felt it best to wait. I was not coming all this way and missing Yosemite. Yosemite is the opposite of Big Bend, too many people visiting the park so they have to manage the space via a park entrance reservation system. 70% of the space on August 13th was spoken for in March. They hold and release the remaining 30% exactly one week prior to the requested day. So if you want August 13... You must be on the website August 6 at 8AM and it is suggested to be there right away because they go fast. I was up early, got showered, packed up, luggage in the car, programmed the GPS with today's stops, drove to a gas station to fill up the tank, ice in cooler, breakfast in the lobby and I was back up in the room by 7:45, I had my PC ready to go, my Ipad as a backup ready to go and my phone also ready. I tested it at 7:55 and August 13 was not available so 8:00 meant 8:00. My watch and the atomic clock are in sync, I am not coming all this way and missing Yosemite. It's 7:59:50, I'm ready and I watched it count down to 8:00:00, GO! The N/A on August 13 was gone so I knew it was live. You'd think, I'd get a pass easy being there at the very second it opened, I was shocked when my first attempt was denied due to heavy volume. My 2nd attempt was denied due to heavy volume so were the 3rd and 4th attempts. On the 5th attempt, I got in and I exhaled because I was holding my breath for attempts 2,3,4 and 5. I waited for email confirmation, got it, threw the room keys on the front desk as I passed by, went straight to the Kia and I was moving by 8:05. Apparently, I'm in a different desert now as I have segued to the Sonoran Desert at some point, not sure when, probably around the time I saw that first Cactus. I read somewhere that a Cactus was a Sonoran desert exclusive. I have never touched a Cactus and was hoping to get that chance, but they seem difficult to safely reach. They are usually quite some distance from the Interstate or high up on a hill, if they are close to the Interstate, they are behind fences with no place to safely pullover. I had given up on the idea when they disappeared for a long stretch. At a rest area about 60 miles from the state line, there was a Cactus that I could get to, along with a sign warning of Scorpions and Rattlesnakes. It has a weird softness to it and those needles are real, you pull your hand away fast if you hit the wrong spot. I immediately cancelled an upcoming acupuncture session back home. I should also mention that I took a 2nd rock chip to my window... this one is much larger than the first and it looks like it intends to infect. At this point, I was thinking bring it on... let's go for a record and see if I can it up to 10 rock chips before I get back home, I was also thinking that motorcycles also must get struck by these projectiles and that it must hurt like hell. Reaching the California state line, I was sure to top off the tank because I heard that gas was selling for 74 dollars a gallon in California. I could see the Colorado River as I fueled up and had read that the Colorado was running low, it looked low... but then again, I have nothing to compare it to since it was my very first time in this particular location. I can confirm that there was water in it. The first stop was in Palm Springs for lunch. It's a beautiful place that is pressed up against a decent sized mountain, you can tell that they have a little money in the town because the homeless people are wearing ties and fancy cufflinks. I had chosen a sandwich stop that named all of the sandwiches after old famous Palm Springers, or Springans?, Springees?, Palmers? who are no longer with us. I selected the Lucille Ball, I was in the mood for a Meatball sandwich and it was good... however, no way of knowing at this point if the Bob Hope creation for example would have been better. Before I pulled out of town, I figured that I should check out one... just one... of the celebrity homes that they used to inhabit, lots of great choices like Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sonny Bono, but I still had a long trip ahead so I simply chose the closest one to my current location, that was still on the way out of town. That selection system ended up being Zsa Zsa Gabor, she had a place high up on the west side of the city, not far from the side of that mountain. I imagine that the view of the city lights from that vantage point would have been impressive. I haven't kept a spreadsheet of daily temps during my life time but living in Grand Forks, it is very rare that I experience anything above 100, I may have felt the 106 degrees sometime in my lifetime, like I experienced in Dallas and Phoenix, I'm really not sure... but... I am 100% sure that I have never experienced the 114 degrees that was Palm Springs when I stepped out of the Kia. At 106 degrees, you think about how hot it is... at 114... it doesn't matter anymore, your brain just melts and you are incapable of any thought, and therefore unable to think about how hot it is... you just mindlessly go out and look for Zsa Zsa. I still have a lot of miles to Modesto, I had to navigate Saturday L.A. outskirts traffic and that began almost right away as I drove west to link up with I-5 heading North. I've seen some impressive valleys in this trip but the first view of the San Fernando Valley where the Valley Girls lived in the 80's made me think about the Red River Valley that I live in. It's kind of embarrassing to call what we have a valley in comparison and I haven't even reached the big valley yet, which I do after climbing some mountain, through some pass and there it is as you start a long descent down. This valley is going to dominate the landscape for many more miles. I've read that Agriculture in California is massive and this valley in the center of the state has got to be the agriculture epicenter. From my view, it looked to be nut production primarily, field after field with row after row of trees. I wish I would have had a nut expert along with me just to tell me what tree was producing what nut. The only nut experts that I know think I'm nuts and they charge by the hour. The drivers in California seem to come in two classifications with nothing in between. One group drives 60 MPH with a 70 MPH posted speed limit and the other group drives 187 miles an hour. This means that I am constantly changing lanes to get around the crawlers and to get out of the way of the Earnhardt's that come up on you fast. I was just trying to be responsible and drive 75 in a 70 like normal people. For Dinner it was Pea Soup Andersen's in Santa Nella, California. I've seen this place on the Food Network and it came up often in my research so I put it into my schedule for a California experience. Pea Soup Anderson's is a restaurant slash gift shop and I'm usually suspicious of that combination, however the food turned out to be decent. Yes,.. I had some Pea Soup. Perhaps, I lowered my expectation once I saw the space set aside to display all the varieties of Pea soup merch but the food did it's job. From there it was on to Modesto, arriving in darkness just like I predicted, which is too bad because there was something lurking nearby to the west of the hotel that I wasn't able to see and it was going to play a role in my life during the overnight. I am scheduled to depart tomorrow at 6:44AM.

Well Thanks, I appreciate that I'm checking Edmonton Real Estate now.

I wasn't aware of Chiricahua and now I wish that I would have swung through because I had the time. I honestly like seeing everything, even if it's a tourist trap, I'll go just to say that I've been there, good or bad. I'm just trying to trip over something along the way. For example, I liked the train to Wrigley more than I liked Wrigley. I wish I would have known about Chiricahua it looks like a nice scenery change.

It should be there, comments will change the order. Thanks... This is a lesser viewed forum so I'm not sure what kind of reach I'm getting with these or if anyone would be interested in the first place. They take a while to put together put as long as I know that Squirrel, Ash and you are reading them, I will keep going.

I have recently completed a solo 18 day road trip covering 8 ballparks, 9 games, 14 states, national parks, normal tourist traps and not so normal stops. My fairly new 2022 Kia Seltos had 6,400 miles on it before the trip and the journey tacked on 8,522 additional miles. Some of you may find this interesting and some may say what's the big deal, it's a crazy man with a torture filled vacation plan. I was encouraged to tell the story here by individual day because it would be a very lengthy post if not broken down by day. Some days are not that interesting, some days were more interesting than others and some days need a new adjective, but each day was different and they were days that I couldn't experience in my living room. Feel free to comment, shake your head at my moments of stupidity or tell your own experiences of the places I experienced. This is hit and run tourism... I didn't have a lot of time to hit all the stops but I wanted to hit all the stops because who knows if I would ever be back in any of the areas travelled. I researched and scheduled the trip to the minute and followed the schedule to the letter. Day Eight - August 5 - Willcox AZ to Phoenix Today, I had time on my hands. The only thing that was time sensitive was the baseball game that night in Phoenix and I had more than enough time to make that. I actually timed the start of the day just to make the 3PM check in time at the hotel, which would have left me 3.5 hours to spare before first pitch in case I wanted to walk around Phoenix. The first THING on the agenda was Tombstone, Arizona. However, on the way, there was this THING. Driving west on I-10 the day before, there are billboards, lots of them throughout New Mexico, billboard after billboard telling you to come see "The THING". I'm sorry that is not on my schedule, I am not going to see "The THING" whatever it is and that is what I told myself. The next morning on the way to Tombstone, I don't know, maybe 15 miles west on I-10 from Willcox. One Last billboard "Exit now to see the THING". I don't recall making an impulse decision at that very moment to take the exit, however, the Kia took the exit. I assume, it is all these new features in these new cars, adaptive cruise control, lane assist, blind spot detection, back up camera, rear seat monitor and billboard cognitive recognition. Anyway, I want to be clear... I didn't decide to see the "THING", my Kia did. How do I describe it? Well... first off it's a combination truck stop/museum. How do I describe the Museum? It's a museum that manages to tie Dinosaurs, Aliens and Elvis Presley together. What is the "THING"? I can't post it here, because I don't want to spoil it for future visitors. I'll just say that it was something that looked like it spent way too much time in the desert. Perhaps the whole concept of this Truck Stop/Museum/Thing was created by someone who had spent too much time in the desert. OK, on to the OK Corral. I haven't talked about the scenery for awhile, that's mainly because it hasn't changed much, if at all. Since I left downhill out of Las Cruces, the scenery stabilized or the scenery atrophied into the same thing for 12 billion miles. I have been in the Chihuahuan Desert for quite some time and haven't seen a single Chihuahua. Don't get me wrong, it is still beautiful but I've seen this same beautiful for a while now. Desert, scrub bush, mesquite trees, the rare flowers all seem to be purple and little mountain ranges off in the distance only to be replaced by the next one and the next one and the next one. Ever since I headed west out of San Antonio, I couldn't tell you how many little creeks I have driven over, 20? 30? 50? I don't know. They all have little bridges spanning them with a green sign telling you the name of the creek that you are crossing. Johnson Creek, Armadillo Creek, I'm making up names but you get the idea. Every creek I drove over, I'd look down and there was no water in those creeks. All of them, every single one, no water in the creek, I get that it's the desert so it's probably normal. Then I drove over one with a green sign telling me it was called "Dry Creek". I laughed because I thought that every creek should have that name, then I looked down and you guessed it... there was water in it, that made me laugh even harder. Tombstone is 20 times better than Dodge City. The whole town seems to play along with the 1800's theme, when Dodge City just commits a little section to it. I walked around the entire town, checked out everything and I bought my ticket to the performance... the gunfight at the OK corral was going to be re-enacted before my very eyes. Before the play began I ran into the Earp Brothers along with Doc Holliday out on the street and I managed to get a picture with them taken by Doc Holliday himself. Not many of us can say that we have a picture with the Earp's taken by Doc. At first I doubted their legitimacy but after talking with them for a while, they really seemed to have a firm grasp on what life was like in 1881 so I think it was really them. They looked amazing for 176 years old. After the performance concluded, I came to the conclusion that the gunfight was over pretty quick, maybe 30 seconds and I'm pretty sure that there have been longer gunfights in a random bar in Memphis in the past month. I think the legend that it became probably had a lot to do with people out east having nothing else to read about and therefore marketing made the story larger than life and they are still marketing it successfully today because here I am, many many miles from home. After Tombstone it was on to Tucson for lunch. Tucson did manage to change the scenery by producing a larger mountain and I was pleased when Cactus started to make it's introduction to my journey, I was on the phone with a friend when I saw the first Cactus and I stopped the conversation mid-sentence just to says "Ooo Ooo Cactus... We got Cactus... the Cactus has arrived". The smart-ass I was talking to said... "You mean Cacti, they are called Cacti". I corrected myself... "OK... there is one Cacti out there... First one I've seen in the wild". The lunch spot I picked out was called El Charro's and it was chosen specifically because this was where the Chimichanga was invented. Just to be clear... I'm not a Chimichanga fan in the first place... A plain ole' burrito smothered in Gravy is my preference. However, when in Rome... I'm going to have one where it was invented and I can tell my grand kids about it when I'm complaining about the Chimichanga that we are eating. The restaurant was very busy, it was lunch time, according to the waiter who was really too busy to tell me the history of the invention but did anyway. It was invented by accident... a plain ole' burrito (just like I prefer) was dropped into hot oil by accident, just like the invention of penicillin we have an unintentional Chimichanga. Chimichanga means "Pick that up off the floor" in Spanish. To tie a ribbon around it, this means that I... Riverbrian... chose to eat at a restaurant that became famous for mis-handling food. I told you that my food choices are not always pretty. BTW... I haven't changed my mind about Chimichangas. I'm a little behind schedule, I am still being stubborn and insisting that it's mountain time so that intentionally cost me an hour, watching the gun fight knocked me back a bit but I wasn't worried because I have plenty of time. It's a casual Friday and I am just a couple of hours away from Phoenix. When I arrived in Phoenix, it was 106 degrees. Just like it was in Dallas and it felt the same... this wasn't that famous dry heat... it was a wet heat just like Dallas. I was told it is the monsoon season. I didn't see any monsoon activity but... maybe that's why Dry Creek wasn't dry. You step out of the air conditioned vehicle and you just go "Uff Da... Dis is Hot". That's right... It is so hot that the Norwegian accent you have suppressed for decades and generations... comes back in an attempt to remind you of colder times. I immediately scrap the plan to hoof around Phoenix before the game, I sat in my hotel room, turned the thermostat down to 17 degrees and I tried to figure out how to use the Uber App that I downloaded back home before I left (I have never taken an Uber before) because Uber was how I was getting to and from the game. Uber was easy... You push that come get me button or whatever it said and some guy named Keith came and got me. I didn't even have to tell it where I was. At the game, I had decent seats along the left field line. I mentioned this in an earlier posting... Chase Field belongs in the same group as the 4 roofed stadiums that I have now seen. I'll Rank those 4: Milwaukee, Houston, Arizona, Texas in that order and then I will place that group behind the really interesting outdoor stadiums that I have seen. However, Let's be clear... it's 106 degrees... I am once again grateful for the roof so I am not knocking it. I didn't really check out the food choices because I was focused on the Sonoran Hot Dog. My research told me that this type of dog was really a Tucson deal but I used my Tucson time on the Chimichanga. The Sonoran Hot Dog is a Hot Dog and then they throw everything on it. It's probably the stuff that has fallen on the floor when they make other stuff... I have no idea, it's got white stuff, red stuff, green stuff, I have a hard time recognizing vegetables, there was definitely bacon on it. It was very good... I enjoyed it, yet I still felt like I probably had a watered down version of it. They were probably made full strength in Tucson. After the game... I had the Uber thing down now so I pushed the come get me button and it didn't work so well this time. It immediately told me that some Guy named Guy... (I'm not making that up but I do admit that I thought, it was a designation for some driver who didn't want to enter his real name in)... was 15 minutes away. I was standing outside the stadium on a street that was blocked for post game traffic control when I pushed the button and put the phone back in my pocket. I immediately deduced that there was no way that an Uber could get to me with the street blocked, so I followed the crowd under the impression that the driver could follow my movements and readjust. I figured the crowd and I would eventually hit a clear intersection for easy pick up. The direction I walked was the opposite direction that Uber wanted me to go. Apparently, there was a designated pick up spot that I was supposed to walk toward and that spot was listed BY STREET NAME which was useless to me. I later found out that there was an arrow that would have pointed what direction I was walking but I swear to god... I didn't know and I couldn't see that arrow with the phone in my pocket. Eventually Guy, was able to find me sometime around 5AM and he got me back to the Hotel. I have a long drive ahead of me tomorrow. I am scheduled to depart at 8:01AM

I have recently completed a solo 18 day road trip covering 8 ballparks, 9 games, 14 states, national parks, normal tourist traps and not so normal stops. My fairly new 2022 Kia Seltos had 6,400 miles on it before the trip and the journey tacked on 8,522 additional miles. Some of you may find this interesting and some may say what's the big deal, it's a crazy man with a torture filled vacation plan. I was encouraged to tell the story here by individual day because it would be a very lengthy post if not broken down by day. Some days are not that interesting, some days were more interesting than others and some days need a new adjective, but each day was different and they were days that I couldn't experience in my living room. Feel free to comment, shake your head at my moments of stupidity or tell your own experiences of the places I experienced. This is hit and run tourism... I didn't have a lot of time to hit all the stops but I wanted to hit all the stops because who knows if I would ever be back in any of the areas travelled. I researched and scheduled the trip to the minute and followed the schedule to the letter. Day Seven - August 4 - Big Bend National Park to Willcox, Arizona I can't say that I was awoken by, I will say that I was in the process of waking up when I heard an airhorn blast signifying a bear nearby. I went out to the patio to try catch a glimpse of the bear but didn't so let's say, I went out to patio to just sit back, enjoy the mountains and comfortable morning temps one more time before getting ready to go. I really do wish that I could stayed just a little longer. They had a restaurant that was open for business but I had a different plan. If you consider that I didn't have any dinner last night and also consider that I was in the middle of nowhere with a long drive just to get somewhere, skipping the available breakfast here was risky, I was putting a lot of hope into the actual existence of a little food truck that North Dakota internet research suggested might be nearby. Real Texas Chili was the prize I was seeking. I drove south into the park and departed on a different road heading west. Still beautiful and I still seemingly had the park to myself as I departed. On the west edge of the park is a town called Terlingua population 100, I'm looking for an RV park with a food truck located in that RV park. As I enter the town, there are no RV's anywhere, no signs, it looked like a very small town that was still asleep. On the south side of the highway there was a lime green vehicle that looked like it might be a food truck with no signs of life around it, I almost drove on which would have meant no food until El Paso, there was no traffic to force me forward so I decided to investigate. As I got closer it looked like someone was in the truck and there was a paper menu taped to the side... it was indeed open for business. The menu with Chili under a Lunch header along with the time of day suggested that it was breakfast time but I asked if it was too early for Chili and she replied that it was "Never too early for Chili". It took a little longer than the typical food truck, because she prepared it. She took out a bag with a brown substance and I thought to myself that she was going to microwave it but she didn't, she was stirring in a pan and dropping spices and stuff in and stirring. She asked how I wanted it and I said I was looking for true Texas chili, prepared the way it is supposed to be and she affirmed that I came to the right place. She handed me a cup and I sat down at the only small patio table nearby and she came out and sat with me, there was no other business to attend to... so... why not? She was curious how someone from North Dakota was down here and I told her what I was doing and she told me that was exactly what she wants to do and then she told me her story. If I had to guess, she was probably my age... in her 50's? She was from Dallas and had won some chili competitions so her dream was to buy a food truck, travel around and sell her chili. She found a truck she could afford down here but it didn't travel well so she moved down to the food truck and she has been at this location for 7 years. Tiny town, remote location, she can't be doing big business, at least not while I was there, perhaps... all 100 people come to the food truck twice a day. She said that she enters the World Chili Championships every year and had finished 5th 3 times. I told her that "5th in the state of Texas was impressive" and she corrected me with "World". She KNEW without any doubt at all, that she was going to win it some day so she was going to keep entering. How was the Chili? Delicious!!! The best I have ever had, I can't imagine the 4th place chili being better. Although, I admit that I don't know, was it because of the amazing taste or the story that accompanied it? Either way, it was the best 10 bucks I ever spent on food. I understand that I'm the type of person who can find pleasure in things that others might think what's the big deal? it's just a cup of chili after all. However... I am not kidding when I say: IF this cup of chili and the pleasure of hearing her story was the only thing that I would have accomplished during this road trip... it would have still been worth it. This road trip isn't about the Alamo, the baseball stadiums may have been the main reason for the trip, yet... from my way of looking at things, it is the things that you stumble across, like this early morning experience with a cup of chili, in a place you wouldn't expect that make a trip like this special. As I left... I told her "God I hope you win that thing because you deserve it! I have 4.5 hours to reach my next stop in El Paso, 3 hours before I reach Interstate roads, not that it mattered much because we are still dealing with low traffic and very few towns with stop lights to slow you down. The mountains lessen to lightly scattered as you drive onward as the western landscape transitions back to full desert with the hint of Mountains or larger things off in the distance. Maybe an hour into the drive, I run across something that I didn't know existed, Border Inspection Stations. The highway will lead you to a check point and stopping is the only option unless you want to plow through, taking your chances for the adventure. I hit a total of 4 of them on my trip, two in Texas and two in New Mexico. The first stop, the agent asked me for my I.D. and to pop my trunk just in case I had someone really small back there, the 2nd one asked for my I.D. and then asked me to roll down my back window for a better look inside, the New Mexico ones didn't ask for anything, they just waved me through. When I talk about having the road to myself, yeah, it was me along with a bunch of green and white border patrol vehicles. You see enough of them down in these parts to conclude that it must be a pretty big job that they are tasked with. At one point, I saw 4 vehicles parked in a ditch next to a farm field and it looked like about 5 agents walking the field. The two at the check points that did ask for my I.D. both said to me "North Dakota?" in the exact same inflected surprised tone. One asked if I was lost. Arriving in El Paso, I have the GPS programmed to take me to L&J's café, El Paso's oldest restaurant established in 1927. I'm happy to report that the place was old but the food was fresh. The place was packed and I had the enchilada plate at the suggestion of my server. El Paso has that desert beauty to it augmented by a mountain range that dominates the North Side of the Interstate and as I-10 swings North to Las Cruces it hugs that mountain range to the right, which makes that drive beautiful. Las Cruces, New Mexico was a decent looking place, you think to yourself... "I must be driving through the good parts". The drive continues Northeast now through a mountain pass that reveals an impressive valley below. This valley, is host to an Air Force Base, Missile Test Range and White Sands National Park. I was able to dodge all of the missiles fired in my direction to reach the White Sands. It's odd that this place is just... sitting here... for whatever geological reason. When I was younger, a mere child, I remember spilling an entire bag of sugar on the kitchen floor because I was going to have some rhubarb. That's what White Sands looks like to me, like someone poured sugar all over the floor, with Def Leppard as the soundtrack.... It must have been a lot of rhubarb. To make sure I experienced White Sands to the fullest, I found a spot to lay down to make a sand angel before I left. It was 100 degrees once again, the sun was about 8 inches from my face as I lay down. In my hurry to get back to my air conditioned vehicle, I did not brush off very well and there is still white sand in my cup holders to this very day. This rest of the day was 3.5 more hours of driving to land in Willcox, Arizona. I arrived an hour earlier than I planned and this kind of pissed me off. You must understand that I have a schedule to follow to avoid missing anything. Throughout this trip I have been leaving and arriving very close to the times that I planned, it has worked like a charm. Arriving an hour early in Arizona was not my fault. I planned for mountain time, Arizona does not recognize daylight savings time so it's... now... I don't know anymore... I'm on Pacific Time Now? Greenwich Mean Time? Is it still Thursday? My Kia doesn't recognize Arizona time, it was telling me that I was on schedule the whole way. When I checked into the hotel, I thought the clock was wrong until it dawned on me. Now I gotta do math to keep my schedule together, it is sure to be chaos now. The Hotel was nice, the Holiday Inn Express is consistent and my choice when possible. I will depart at 8:19AM or 7:19 or 9:19.

That's a good idea but next time, I'm going directly to the very source of the problem. I'm bringing my own mustard dispenser with me to the game.

I have recently completed a solo 18 day road trip covering 8 ballparks, 9 games, 14 states, national parks, normal tourist traps and not so normal stops. My fairly new 2022 Kia Seltos had 6,400 miles on it before the trip and the journey tacked on 8,522 additional miles. Some of you may find this interesting and some may say what's the big deal, it's a crazy man with a torture filled vacation plan. I was encouraged to tell the story here by individual day because it would be a very lengthy post if not broken down by day. Some days are not that interesting, some days were more interesting than others and some days need a new adjective, but each day was different and they were days that I couldn't experience in my living room. Feel free to comment, shake your head at my moments of stupidity or tell your own experiences of the places I experienced. This is hit and run tourism... I didn't have a lot of time to hit all the stops but I wanted to hit all the stops because who knows if I would ever be back in any of the areas travelled. I researched and scheduled the trip to the minute and followed the schedule to the letter. Day Six - August 3 - Houston to Big Bend National Park I left on schedule (Yes Continental Breakfast - I loaded up on Sausage and Bacon and a little yogurt) Today was the start of the drive across Texas from East to West, the only planned stop was a little exploration of San Antonio. I arrived in San Antonio, paid 20 bucks to park for 3 hours a couple of blocks from the Alamo and that is where I headed immediately. 40 Years ago, Ozzy Osbourne was arrested in San Antonio for taking a piss on a statue in the Alamo Plaza and he would end up with what was a 10 year ban from ever stepping foot in San Antonio period. I was going to respectfully behave myself. Walking around the Alamo, There are plenty of historical things to look at, historical things to read and little theatres with documentaries depicting the events that took place back in 1836. After soaking it all in, I was pretty well versed and I concluded that Santa Anna and his troops must have attacked from the Hyatt Regency across the street. After all that driving, coffee, water and soda, I was a little disappointed to learn that there are no bathrooms at the Alamo... AHH, I see... Now I know why Ozzy Osbourne did what he did. Under the circumstances, that 10 year ban may have been a little harsh. Now... just stop what you are thinking... I waited like a gentlemen until I left the Alamo and got over to the famous Riverwalk which is really beautiful and a clever idea to do with your river winding through town. It's a beautiful pedestrian sidewalk that traces the San Antonio river. Now... just stop what you are thinking... I didn't use the River either. However... I will tell you this in all honestly... It was 103 degrees in San Antonio as I walked the majority if not the entire Riverwalk along this seemingly peaceful flowing river. With every sweat soaked step, it took everything in my power to not jump into that river. I'm saying that the only reason I didn't was because I didn't want my wallet and cell phone soaked and I assumed there was a city ordinance against that sort of thing, although I didn't see any signs posted and I got to the point where I was looking for those signs. It was 103 degrees, if it wasn't for those three things, jumping into that river would have been completely reasonable. Lunch in San Antonio was a selection made from research. According to what I was reading, the San Antonio dish to try was a soup called Fideo and the place to enjoy it was Pete's Tako House. On Google Maps in North Dakota it looked closer than the reality it was in Texas. I Paid for my parking spot, I wasn't driving so I had simply planned to walk to Pete's Tako House, Turns out it ended up maybe two miles away because of a road closure from where I started. It's still 103 degrees and now I'm moving away from the River removing that option to jump in. Disclaimer: Warning - Sometimes my personal choices are not that pretty. When I finally arrived at the restaurant, I was a complete sweat soaked mess, I wouldn't have let me in but they did. The Waitress came by and asked me if she could get me anything. I said "Yes Please... A big big big glass of water and if you don't mind, I could use a towel of sorts". She was like... "do you need (pause) napkins"? And I'm saying... "an actual towel, towel" and that point she kind of noticed my condition and said... I understand. I went into the bathroom (Now... just stop what you are thinking... I found a shop on the Riverwalk with a bathroom earlier)... I towel off the best I could and finish by throwing water on myself from the sink... at that moment... this felt fantastic. I could have stood there and done it all day. The Fideo... It was tasty, I enjoyed it. It's a Mexican noodle soup of sorts... BUT... My god Riverbrian... It's 103 degrees out and you are eating a hot soup. The restaurant gets an A grade from me, I left a 40% Tip because I'm sure the waitress was frightened of whatever illness she thought I had and now I get to do the mile plus walk back to my parking spot for the 6 hours of driving that remain in the day. 19,000 plus steps in total according to my watch and I turned that AC on when I got in my Kia. From San Antonio to Big Bend my GPS led me to the town of Uvalde. I saw the signs on US-90 saying Uvalde X amount of Miles. I spent those travel times thinking about Uvalde. Would it be disrespectful to pull in and check out the school like some gawking tourist? Would it be disrespectful to just drive past pretending like it never happened? As I reached the city limits, I decided that the thing to do was to stop at the school and just be... respectful. The memorial outside was huge, posters with words of love and sadness, photos of the victims, crosses, flowers, stuffed animals all taking up almost the entire front of the school, obviously arranged carefully by many people who are very very sad. You see the ravine in the back of the school, the normal looking occupied houses across the street, a big banner saying "Welcome to Robb Elementary". It's a neighborhood school right there in the middle of a normal neighborhood. Here's what I'll say and leave it at that. The school looked like almost every elementary school out there, probably built in the same decade as most elementary schools across the country with the same type of design, it felt like I was standing there looking at an elementary school in my own home town, it was that familiar. Uvalde itself is just like any town of it's size that I have ever seen. In the end, I answered that question I was asking myself earlier. Would it be disrespectful to stop at the school? Not in the slightest... as a matter of fact, everybody should... Just to feel just how close to home it feels. I bowed my head and I continued my journey. As you leave Uvalde, you also start to leave the not so scenic part of Texas and enter back to what I'll refer to as the western landscape that would keep me company for the rest of my road trip. The Texas Hill Country is off to the north and the distant hills make things interesting again and than it goes desert on you real fast. It's like you are driving on the moon. The Hills turn to sand and scrub brush dots the landscape for miles. Big Bend National Park is an hour drive from civilization. I made sure to top off the tank in a town called Marathon before I turned south for that hour drive, not knowing when I would see a gas station again. As you head south, the desert landscape continues but in the distance you can see you are headed for increased drama as those hills gain in size, while mesas join the party. As you get to the park entrance, the roads start to curve as you enter the Chisos Mountains, it is so beautiful that you spend your time saying WOW over and over again and I am not exaggerating when I say that I have the road to myself. It is so quiet that I turned off my radio just to hear the quiet and the silence was loud, it was so quiet. I arrived at the Chisos Mountain Lodge maybe an hour before sunset. It is surrounded by mountains on all sides. The guy at the front desk asked me if I "was OK for Food"? Honestly, I was kind of hungry but before I could say that... He said "The restaurant is closed but I could have the chef come in and warm something up for you. I thought that was extremely considerate so I told him "let the chef enjoy his time off,... I'll be alright". There is no internet or TV in the room but you are greeted with a placard stating that Bears are active in the area and a list of instructions on what to do if you should encounter a bear. The room had a back door with a patio, a couple of chairs and a table. I could still make phone calls, Verizon was also active in this area. I sat on the patio, called my son and was in the middle of telling him about the active bear warning placard in my room, when I heard an air horn blast off to my right. The Park Ranger was right on top of it, trying to make noise that bears don't like I guess. I got up from my chair, looked at the ranger and he pointed down into the ravine and sure enough it was an adult black bear just walking slowly through the ravine about 20 yards from me. I stayed outside until the sunset slid behind the mountains. I'm happy to have made this hour out of the way journey just to get some sleep. It was a welcome hour of peace. Big Bend is hard to get to... but it is a gem. I honestly thought about staying an extra day but... I am scheduled to depart at 8AM.

I have recently completed a solo 18 day road trip covering 8 ballparks, 9 games, 14 states, national parks, normal tourist traps and not so normal stops. My fairly new 2022 Kia Seltos had 6,400 miles on it before the trip and the journey tacked on 8,522 additional miles. Some of you may find this interesting and some may say what's the big deal, it's a crazy man with a torture filled vacation plan. I was encouraged to tell the story here by individual day because it would be a very lengthy post if not broken down by day. Some days are not that interesting, some days were more interesting than others and some days need a new adjective, but each day was different and they were days that I couldn't experience in my living room. Feel free to comment, shake your head at my moments of stupidity or tell your own experiences of the places I experienced. This is hit and run tourism... I didn't have a lot of time to hit all the stops but I wanted to hit all the stops because who knows if I would ever be back in any of the areas travelled. I researched and scheduled the trip to the minute and followed the schedule to the letter. Day Five - August 2 - Arlington to Houston I left the hotel about an hour ahead of schedule because I was up and I didn't feel like just hanging around watching Sportscenter. Today was supposed to my easiest drive day so far with a mere 270 or so miles to accomplish. Let's just say that this part of the journey was a break from scenery, I'm back in flatlands driving southward down I-35, the only thing to look at are the Vultures circling the sky, It is either they have a lot of Vultures in Texas or Texas has a lot of carrion but these creatures were constantly doing what they do. Did I say easiest drive day? There were challenges so not so easy after all. When I wasn't watching the vultures, I was looking at the road ahead, there was an old pickup truck with a bunch stuff in the back of it. I watched a plastic pail fly out of the back end, I watched it bounce off the highway high into the air and land directly on my windshield, this produces a loud fwap sound that I just can't experience in my living room. Around Waco, I noticed that there was absolutely no traffic in the North bound lanes and a bunch of flashing lights, followed by the sight of a tractor/trailer off to the side and a car sideways in the road with the top completely taken off to the windows, whoever was driving must have ended up under the trailer and I was hoping that somehow this person or persons managed to duck. It stuck with me so I checked the Waco news later that night and a 23 year old died in that accident, I was already prepared to read something like that. Not far out of Waco, I was in the the far left lane and passing a cattle hauler, that chose to drift into my lane as I was passing. The interstate traffic had lessened considerably and there was no reason for this large vehicle to change lane, this was a full on driver not paying attention drift... at least half way into my lane, if not more. I saw it right away because I was looking to see if there were more cows in the road and I used the shoulder to safety along side a concrete barrier, hitting a fairly intact dead tire that made my Kia hop at 80 mph. Yes... I cursed and Yes,.. I flipped the driver off as I longed for the simpler time of plastic pails. For lunch I pulled into Lockhart which calls itself the BBQ capitol of Texas. I stopped at Kreutz Market and I won't argue with that designation. I ordered a half pound of Brisket and a half pound Chicken with a side of slaw. The meal was served on parchment paper just like God intended and it was wonderful... I'm pretty sure my recommendations carry no weight but I strongly recommend this place, if you ever find yourself near Lockhart, Texas (Not far from Austin). The next stop was Katy, Texas where I stopped at the World's Longest Car Wash certified by either the Guinness book of World Records or Guinness beer. I did plan this stop because it is the world's longest but I didn't plan on the need to get Kansas dirt and mud off the Kia so it's was like a bonus because I actually needed a wash. For those wondering, it did have some interesting flashing lights that you can see in between the multiple colored soaping's blocking your view, it took exactly 4 minutes and 11 seconds to complete. With a clean Kia I stopped at the Beer Can House on the way to the hotel. It is a house that is completed decorated from top to bottom with beer cans, located in the middle of a street, it's a house surrounded by fairly large apartment buildings. Legend has it that the guy (who is no longer with us) drank every single one of those beers. I admit, I wanted a beer but there was no gift shop at this tourist trap. It was 100 degrees downtown Houston when I pulled into the hotel, due to the heat, I elected to relax a little at the hotel before hitting the ball park for the Astros and Red Sox. I chose this Holiday Inn because they advertised a shuttle to Minute Maid. They did not advertise that the shuttle would get me to the game very close to first pitch. I was supposed to get an MLB Network tote bag but that didn't happen because of the shuttle, I was also informed by the driver that the last shuttle back was at 10:00PM so I ended up leaving the game early to adapt to the shuttle schedule. Minute Maid is better than Globe life just because it has some character to it, but it belongs in the retractable roof group of Texas, Milwaukee and Arizona. I'll rank Milwaukee and Houston above the other two for what its worth. The ball park sits in a nice clean area of the city, however, at least where I got dropped off, there wasn't any baseball party business to add to the atmosphere. I sat in the top row of the Crawford Boxes with my back against one the walls. Houston, like Texas does a nice job with alternate food choices, I intended to choose from the alternate choices for something interesting but it was dollar dog night so I bought 4 and only ate 2.5 because I was still well nourished from Lockhart. Once again, I was grateful to be indoors with the 100 degree Texas Temps but I do have one serious complaint. I bought 4 hot dogs and there was no condiment dispensers, just packets! Trying to open up the 2nd packet of mustard after getting mustard on your fingers from the 1st packet is beyond frustrating and about impossible without a weapon that won't get through the metal detectors. The Red Sox won a pitchers duel. Honestly, I didn't mind getting back to the hotel a little early. I will be departing at 7:30AM.