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Twins Games

As I watch the Twins on TV tonight take care of the Texas Rangers (hee hee), I realized I haven't blogged about the Twins games we recently enjoyed at Target Field, the Twins new ballpark, in downtown Minneapolis.  The first game we took in was on Sunday, August 1st.  It was a 1:10pm game and we went with about 30 people from our church.  We all got to sit in the same section and enjoyed watching the Twins beat the Seattle Mariners 4-0.  It was hot and humid that day, but the sun stayed under until it was behind the seating area, so it wasn't bad.  Here are some pictures from that game:

One of several gates entering Target Field

This was taken from the plaza level.  Our seats for this game are way in the upper right hand corner of the picture.

A picture from our seats.  This was before the game so not everyone was there yet.

A view of downtown from our seats.

The second game we got to go to was very different.  On Thurs, August 19th, we went to an evening game with the tickets Karen got me for my birthday.  We were in section 121, row 5, just up from 3rd base.  Much better seats!  We were playing the Chicago White Sox, our inter-divisional rival.  The first two games of the series on Tuesday and Wednesday I had watched on TV and they were awesome games!!  We won both of them, coming from behind.  The Tuesday game, we won on a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 9th.  The game on Thursday that we went to was completely the opposite.  It was miserable from the first pitch to the last and we lost (0-11, I think...  I'm trying to put it behind us!).  Either way, they were great seats and we had fun.  It was a nice evening to enjoy outdoor baseball!

The view from our seats for the second game (no zoom on the camera!)

A meeting at the pitchers mound.  Carl Pavano pitched WAY too many innings as far as I was concerned.

Target Field is an awesome facility.  Easy to get into, out of and around.  Metro Transit offers express bus service from the parking garage at I-394 & Hopkins Crossroad, which is pretty close to our place.  It's $4.50 per person round trip and is cheaper (and easier) than trying to park downtown when there is only two of us.  They drop you off at the freeway level below the ballpark and pick you up on the other side.  Sweet deal!

 

Whiz Bang Days

It was Whiz Bang Days in Robbinsdale a few weekends ago.  We didn't go to any of the festivities except the fireworks show.  They shoot them off just a couple blocks from North Memorial.  AND, since we have access to the parking ramp at North, we were able to enjoy the fireworks from the top of the ramp (7 stories up).  Below are some pictures I shot with the camera I got just before leaving for vacation.  It's a Panasonic FH20.  I wanted something I could shove in my pocket instead of carrying around something that needed to be in a bag that was bigger than a fanny pack, so this is a point and shoot camera.  I think the camera did a pretty good job here.  Maybe a little yellow on the street shots:

A different setting - it didn't take in as much light

Looking Northwest up Bottineau Blvd (County Rd 81) from the top of the ramp

Looking the other way on County Rd 81 

The Minneapolis skyline is in the background

Black Hills Trip - Day 9

Friday, July 2:  Rapid City, SD to Crystal, MN

Well, our Black Hills trip has (sadly) nearly come to an end.  Today is all travel back home.  The Grand Gateway Hotel, unfortunately, didn't offer breakfast, BUT it was attached to a Perkins Restaurant.  We chowed down and then headed on the road.  We stopped twice - once for a bathroom break and the other for bathroom & gas.  Leaving at 9am MDT, we got back just before 7pm CDT, so it was a 9 hour trip.  We each took turns driving (except Nathan!) throughout the trip.  Karen taught Nathan how to do Sodoku puzzles and Dustin and Nathan played some Rock-Paper-Scissors (then we amped it up and played Rock-Paper-Scissors Poker, using fake money we kept track of in our head!)   

As for our license plate game, we all made a guess early in the trip as to how many different states we'd see.  The winner got $1 from each of the losers.  Here were our guesses:

Dustin - 30

Karen - 33

Diane - 38

Nathan - 39

The final number of states observed: 

 47  

Forty-seven!!!  Nathan won!  The states we did not see on the trip were:

Rhode Island

New Hampshire

West Virginia

We grilled burgers and brats after we got home and declared the official end to our vacation. :(  Diane and Nathan stayed until Sunday afternoon.  It was an awesome vacation and there is so very little that we would probably do differently.  We saw so much in so little time, but we didn't over do it.

Thanks for all who have been reading these posts - each day took longer to put together than I figured, but it's been fun to do.  I can't believe it's been 4 weeks since we got back!  I have a couple other posts that are waiting to be done, so check back soon!