Weekend as Promised

So it was a tougher end of the week and weekend than normal. Tougher in the sense that I just didn't get enough sleep. Wednesday and Thursday ESDNM was in town and Tuesday night was my usual late softball league night. Friday around noon, LL and I headed down to Troy Illinois, about 20 miles north east of St. Louis and checked into the hotel my team was staying at, the Super 8 right off the highway. For future reference Joe, stay at the Holiday Inn Express right next door Joe, much nicer.

Anyway, since our first game wasn't until 3 on Saturday (an unusually late start), we decided to hit the St. Louis Cardinals/ Pittsburgh Pirates game and see their new stadium. Unfortunately, there was a 2 1/2 hour rain delay so the game didn't start until 9:30. LL and I haven't had the best of luck with baseball games. Two of the games have had long rain delays (one was rained out) and the third game we were in the last row on the lower level at Wrigley, which are awful seats as it turns out, but there's no chance of getting wet.

We stayed through the delay and the first 7 innings, which was about 11. Here are some pics!

Here's their tribute to Stan "The Man" Musial outside the stadium. Very nice. This security guy in red would NOT move.

One of my favorite players (and ex-Cub) is Lou Brock. He's one of the players honored with a statue outside the stadium.

The Brock plaque.

From inside the stadium much later, here's a picture of some of the statues outside the stadium.

Inside the stadium, this is the view from the stadium from across the field from where we waited out the delay. We were on the second floor just to the right of the foul pole. Then we watched the game from the upper deck from the foul side of the pole.

And here is the view from our seats. Yes, that's a Cubs fan wearing a Mark Pryor jersey! Ha.

Look at that awesome scoreboard. They even put up the doppler radar map of the rain in the area during the delay. They showed the Braves/Reds game live during the delay too (Cards and Reds are battling for first place). Suck on that Wrigley. Yet ANOTHER stadium that's wayyyyy freaking better than Wrigley.

Oh, here's a pic of the scoreboard with the doppler map on it. Ha!

And here's another reason why it's better. During the rain delay, just ONE of the areas you could go sit and hang out was this very nice, comfortable area.

Another reason the stadium is better is this beast. A hotdog wrapped in bacon! Yes!!!! Look at those toppings!!!

The Grill in action.

The one stand with these dogs. See the big pot of beans. Awesome.

The finished product. LL and I split it because we wanted to try this other awesome sandwich...

...this bad boy is a Bratzel. It's a bratwurst wrapped in pretzel dough. Soooooo goooood.

So Saturday morning we decided to drive around Troy before batting practice. We saw this outstanding scene of Americana.

Just down the street was this place. A bit scary.

On our way back to the hotel to get ready for batting practice, we were stopped at a red light on the edge of a bridge where the exit/entrance ramp from the highway come up right outside the hotel. As we stop at the red light, the car in front of us (a black Jaguar) had just gone through. But they were going slowly and erratically. This next picture is awful because of the sun, but the car hit the sign on the right which is anchored by sandbags and knocked it down.

So then this car meanders through the intersection into this construction area on the other side. She goes down into where they are going to be widening the road and have it dug out, but haven't filled it in yet, so it's filled with water from the night before. Instead of backing up, the driver keeps going and is now up past the tires in mud and water.

Immediately I thought the driver had had a heart attack or something, so I pulled through the intersection and parked near the dug out road and hopped out of the car. I told LL to dial 911 and ran up to the car. Inside I found a woman, mid 60's I'd say, sunglasses on but askew, with her head bobbing slowly and unresponsive.

Then I saw the bottle of Smirnoff in her lap. She was drunk. Ugh. The car was in the mud and water and the driver side door was just a few inches from what would be the new median for the road which would prevent me from opening the door. Fortunately the window was rolled down, so I figured out a plan of attack. I told the woman to not touch or do anything while I reached in and put the car in park. This part worried LL a bit from her vantage point by my car. I was ready to side step with the car if she accidentally hit the gas though, so I was hoping to be ok.

So I reached in, without incident, and shifted the car into park. Success!! Then I took the keys out of the ignition and put them on the roof of the car, out of reach of the driver. The problem wasn't solved, but the danger was abated. A few minutes later the cops pulled up and started to take action. When they removed the bottle from her lap, they also found some pills. Not good. Later, because the door was immobile and no one wanted to get their feet wet in the mud, the EMT's pulled her out the driver side window. Then a tow truck came and pulled the car out. Quite the morning.

Here's a picture of the scene with the EMT and police there but after we pulled into the hotel lot, which is where I took this picture from.









We took BP, won our first game 13-3 and lost our second 17-1. Sunday morning we led 11-1 after two innings, but lost 15-11. Ugh. A short softball weekend unfortunately.

And this is just a random flower from our street. I love these!