Hits and Grits - Part One - Baseball Park Tour 2012

Hits and Grits - 2012

This years baseball vacation has been named "Hits and Grits" ~  obviously because we hit up the southern States, and visited the MLB parks in Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, St. Petersburg (Tampa), and Miami.  Hence....we were in GRIT land :)  lol!

Houston

Well... this will be slightly different, as we ultimately decided that the best way to tackle 6 southern States would be to fly to Houston, grab a rental SUV and drive the entire route.  Oh yeah, and since it's so ungodly effing hot and humid in all those states, we'll need to do it early in the season vs. our normal August time frame.  Even better.... the ONLY time we could make the schedule work was to fly out on May 23rd.... my birthday.  Yeah...well...was I happy to give up a birthday for the trip?  Mostly.  HOWEVER, the vacation truly made up for it in the end :) 

We arrived in Houston on the 23rd, and got to the Hilton Americas with time to stretch out (and iron) for a bit before grabbing the free shuttle to the Minute Maid Park.  The park was an easy three block walk from the hotel, which was pre-planned that way, however, it was beastly hot at 5 pm. 

Game details:  Cubbies vs. Houston Astros.  It wasn't a great game (blow out) and the 'Stros won by a score of 5-1. 
Because it WAS my birthday (such a pain in the ass I am) and all, I decided that I wanted (and needed?) a cocktail.  Um... it seems that unless you can drink beer or wine, you're out of luck.  Literally I walked the entire stadium before finding ONE lounge that sold rum.  Forget about finding Kahlua -- I was perfectly happy w/ a rum and diet coke.  Ahhhhh.  For the price of each drink (ouch) at least they were strong.  Funny thing, we started chatting with the guy sitting next to me at the bar, and he and Mike worked at Oscar Mayer/Kraft at the same time.  SMALL WORLD! 

This stadium was incredible!  It shocked us both at how freaking cool it was -- on the inside -- and out. 

EASY walk to the hotel!

It takes two lefties to truly appreciate this sign!

FINALLY our own "special" section!!!!!!

View from the concourse - WAAAAYYYYYY cool stadium, and is ranked #1b for most surprising/best stadium (it's tied w/ Pittsburgh)

Choo-choo (what am I, like 4 yrs old?!?!)

The hill

We miss you, Prince Fielder!

View from our seats

This one is for Kate and Matt (Baker)!!!

Wow - M2 is finally technologically plugged in!  (Note the I Pad and I-Phone?)

 Once the game was over, we opted to walk it back to the hotel.  Oh -- I forced Michael to join me for yet another birthday drink - night cap.  It's only once a year that I can be a total p.i.t.a. and get away with it!!!! bwahhh.   However, we needed to be up quasi-early and called it quits after one night cap. 


Next up:  Dallas - from Grey Goose to Blue Goose