The idea was spawned from Ben calling Me after the night the Ducks lost to Ohio on Jan 12th. He said “Dad lets go visit some baseball stadiums this summer”. So I looked on Cruise America’s sight and they just happened to have a one way rental from Halifax nova scotia to toronto starting June 30th and ending July 18th. I called Ben back and the plan began. Ben’s goal is to visit all the baseball stadiums in the us and canada. The trip was left on the back burner for many months. Ben wasn’t sure when he would be working this summer and we weren’t sure how Bunny and Scott fit into the trip. Around mid May we final determined that Ben could make the trip, Scott was going to find a job for the summer and Bunny didn’t want to go to baseball games and especially go in an RV. The airplane tickets were booked and we began the planning. We began laying out the route, buying tickets and finding places to park a 30 foot RV while we are in watching a baseball game. In my mind, I really thought we would pull up to the stadium and park in the lot go into the game, come out sleep and go to the next game. Well its not that simple. In the NE the stadiums are located in busy downtown areas. So the parking is really a nightmare. We began to locate RV campgrounds within bus or cab rides to stadiums. At this point we have all of the parking worked out except Pittsburgh. Our schedule is as follows:
Boston July 3rd
NY Yankees July 4th & 5th
Washington Nationals July 6th
Pittsburgh July 7th
Cleveland July 8th
Chicago White Sox July 9th
Chicago Cubs July 10th
Minnesota Twins July 12th
8 stadiums in 10 days …. Let the fun begin …. Marty
A couple of clarifications: If I’m not mistaken, Ben called right after the BCS championship game and he was (somewhat) intoxicated and suggested that a road trip to visit ALL of the MLB stadiums would be fun, wouldn’t it??? So, truly, this entire idea is the result of a night of drinking coupled with Marty’s (perhaps subconscious but right there beneath the surface…) longing to hit the road in an RV. In Marty’s RV-and-son-loving mind, it was kismet, meant to be. 🙂
The other thing I would like to point out here is that I DO enjoy baseball games. That doesn’t mean, however, that I would like to go to 9 GAMES IN 10 DAYS WHILE RIDING SHOTGUN IN A 30 FOOT MOTOR HOME IN THE MOST DENSELY POPULATED AREA OF THE COUNTRY, WITHOUT A DECENT SHOWER OR A DECENT NIGHT’S SLEEP ACCOMPANIED BY TWO OR THREE SIMILARLY HYGIENE-DEFICIENT MALES.
But I’m here and they are there: Let the games begin!!