Monday, June 30, 2008

Cubs Roadtrip to Tampa Bay, June 19, 2008

Rod and I took a quick trip over to St Petersburg to catch the game with the Devil Rays. They were playing some interleague games over our way, so we decided to see them here in Florida where you can still get seats for under $20.

We ended up with Box seats out at the curve of left field. Way out there, but, still in the nice air conditioned stadium--so who would complain. We picked them up at will call. BUT first we tailgated out in the parking lot (where they are back to charging $10 for parking once again!).




About a half hour into our little party, a couple cars pulled up next to us. Three gals and one guy got ouy carrying about 10 bags of food. LOL, one of the gals was a newbie to tailgating, but, my Lord, she did good! Can you believe she made JELLO SHOTS! LOL IN FLORIDA...IN THE SUMMER! BUT, she was prepared with lots of ice and they actually made it through just fine.




BTW, she is a grade school teacher and she brought them to school with her. I am so glad the kids didn't get into them and cause a stir that ended up being televised on every major national news station the day after--because that sweet grade school teacher even shared those jello shots with Rod and I!!! Yippee!!

Once the gate opened, we took off for our seats. Found them easily but to my dismay there was a really large guy sitting next to my seat. SO large he took up his seat, half of mine and half of the guys seat on the other side! I am NOT kidding! AND, I say this because most of you know I fill up a seat FULLY with no problem without any of it being taken up by the guy next to me.
Normally at this stadium, there are so many seats available, you can move anywhere you want, but, since it was the CUBS playing in Central FL for the first time, we were stuck in our section. BUT, it was really cool seeing the Rays stadium filled up!





About the fifth inning Rod discovered a "standing room only" area with leaning tables so we skiddaddled out of those seats--or I tried to but my back was so out of alignment from leaning towards Rod's seat I couldn't acutally move very well. LOL

We stayed at those tables the rest of the night. We both enjoyed the game although we didn't get a ball that night. And, since it was my Mom's birthday in Illinois, I made a sign that said "Happy Birthday MOM from your Orlando Cubs family"...and "GO CUBS".

Anyhoo, the Cubs ended up losing all three games in the series. If it had to be some team sweeping them, I am glad it was our local team. Maybe when we see them play in August they will win!?

The next day, Rod and I took a trip up the coast a bit to Clearwater and stopped in at Honeymoon Island State Park for the day at the beach. It was a beautiful beach day...and we weren't too hung over to enjoy it! I was really impressed with all the benches and swings on the beach for people to sit on and ponder the water and the waves.























While we were sitting on one of those big swings, an older gentleman came up to us and chatted. Turns out he had donated the swing we were sitting on in his wife Dotty's memory. He also told us that it had been filmed in the movie "The Pretender" (I think that was it?!) and that he came down to the swing just about every day to enjoy the beach. Aw, that is just so sweet!!!

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