Made for Drinkin'

Good news and bad news and they're both the same:  summer is coming to an end.  I had a good summer, with trips to Denver-Salt Lake City-Reno-San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Boston (and a Dodger win at Citi Field), as well as minor league games in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Tennessee.  Despite their recent struggles, the Dodgers have been great (they ended August on a 5 game losing streak, but they were still 17-10 for the month).  And Clayton Kershaw is coming back tonight.  And college football is starting.  So I'm ready for summer to come to an end.

When I first figured out my list of states that I've had a beer from, I was at 30.  The blog posts linked above cover the beers that I added from Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Tennessee.  And I've added three more to the list.  First was Virginia.  I bought a six pack of Optimal Wit at Blue Bell from the Port City Brewing Company of Alexandria, Virginia.  It was okay, but it seemed almost cidery (or at least what I imagine cider tastes like since I don't think I've ever had hard cider) and not beery enough.  And last week, I added two more states, which finished off the original 13 and the east coast.

The Fireman's Fair mug reminds me of the fact that I wish the Fireman's Fair had some good beer.  They'd definitely get more money from me if they did.

On Friday, John was in town and he invited me to go out on his father's boat.  So I stopped by his parents' house first, where he had an Every Night IPA from the Moat Mountain Brewing Company of North Conway, New Hampshire, waiting for me.  I'm not a huge IPA guy, but this was a very solid beer.  We stopped at Blue Bell to get some beer for the boat.  Of course, we had to get some Summer Ale.  We also saw some Cigar City Tampa-Style Lager which is not surprisingly from Tampa, Florida.  The can said "MADE FOR DRINKIN'" right on it.  My comment when John mentioned that was "As opposed to all these other beers that aren't made for drinkin'."  So we picked up a six pack of that as well.

With this beer, I finished off the original 13 states.

That's not my hand.  I googled this picture.  But you can see that it's "MADE FOR DRINKIN'"

It was a good time with John and Joe on Joe's boat.  I always love being out on the water, but I don't get to do it very often.  I think the last time I was on a boat was a year ago when I was in Sydney.  They even let me drive the boat for a little bit.  But I have to say that I wasn't really impressed with the Tampa-Style Lager.  But Florida is crossed off the list (although it's quite possible I had already crossed Florida off the list during Vin's bachelor party or some other previous trip to Florida).  Thanks again to John and Joe for taking me out on the boat.

I was wearing my Australia shirt because I was in Australia at this time last year.

On the way home, we stopped at the Harbor Head Brewing Company (the other Northport brewery).  We picked up a six pack of one of their beers and I tried that as well when we got back to the house.  It was pretty good.  Of course, that didn't add a state to my list.

So I'm down to ten states that I'm pretty sure I haven't had a beer from:

1.  Indiana

2.  Kentucky

3.  Arkansas

4.  Oklahoma

5.  Kansas

6.  West Virginia

7.  Iowa

8.  Nebraska

9.  South Dakota

10.  Alaska

If you know where I can get beer from any of them, please let me know.  I don't think I'm going to any Notre Dame games this year, but hopefully Indiana will be an easy one to cross off at some point in the future.  I still plan on getting to Alaska (possibly next year) so I'm not too worried about that one.  Actually, I remember seeing Alaska beer in Denver (and maybe a couple other places out west), but I purposely opted to cross off other states because I still have to get to Alaska.  According to the Lexington Brewing Company's website, I can find some of their beer in some stores around here so hopefully I'll get Kentucky soon.  But I don't know about the other ones.  None of them are all that close and I'm not aware of any beer from them that's sold in New York, but hopefully I'll be able to find some at some point.

Anyway, college football starts (for real) this weekend.  Notre Dame has to be better than last year, right?  That's not asking for much.  Could we actually be good?  I'm not too optimistic.  But the Dodgers should be clinching some stuff pretty soon.  It would be nice to set the franchise record and to be the first NL team to win 110 games since the 1909 Pirates, but I'll settle for breaking the franchise record for wins (105 in 1953).  Really, I'll settle for just winning the World Series.  Go Irish!  Go Dodgers!

Standing Room Only

My friend Jon wanted to get to a game at Fenway Park so it was kind of a last minute thing, but we took the bus up on Sunday morning and spent a day in Boston and I went to possibly my last baseball game of the season.  I like ending my season at Fenway Park.  I've thought about going to a Staten Island Yankees game or maybe even making it to Pittsburgh, but I think I'll save those for next year.  Of course, I could always go to a Met or Yankee game.  But if I can't see the Dodgers again, I might as well let a game at Fenway Park end my season.  This could change, but for now I'm saying it was my last game of the year.

I had been to Fenway Park three times for three different sports since starting the blog (hockey in 2014 and baseball and football in 2015).  I didn't pay for tickets for any of those games thanks to John.  But John doesn't work there anymore.  So Jon and I had to buy tickets.  My recommendation was standing room only because the only actually seats that weren't totally ridiculously priced were way out in the bleachers.  I think we made a good call.  I don't expect to be back at Fenway Park anytime soon, but I'd go with the standing room only again in the future.  The only thing is where to stand.  Our tickets were for home plate standing room.  Nobody seemed to be checking the tickets so you could probably just go with the cheapest tickets.  There are areas marked for standing room and some aren't good.  I think there were third base and home plate standing room areas that were against the outside wall of the stadium.  But we were directly behind home plate for most of the game.  And we had a little ledge for leaning on and putting food and drinks.  People sitting in seats right in front of us probably paid a lot more for a view that was hardly any better and they didn't have anywhere to put food and drinks (old seats with no cup holders).  The bad thing was the overhang above us that made it impossible to see balls hit too high.  There were three home runs that landed from left field to left center and we didn't see any of them land.  If they had been hit to right or right center, we would have been able to see them land.  Late in the game, we went up to the right field roof and stood there.  We stood in an area that was marked "No Standing," but nobody seemed to care.  I have to say that it was a pretty bad view of the game, but a good view of Fenway Park.  We must have been well over 400 feet away from home plate (we were a long way from the Pesky Pole, which is 302 feet away).

Our view for most of the game.  It's right behind home plate, but that overhang was annoying.

Jon and me on the right field roof

The pitching matchup was Doug Fister against Mike Pelfrey.  The Red Sox went up 2-0 in the first, but gave up three runs in the second.  That was all the White Sox got.  The Red Sox tied it in the third and added three in the fifth.  The final was 6-3.  Chris Young went nuts with two home runs and a double.  Eduardo Nunez also hit a home run.  According to my MLB Ballpark app, the Red Sox are now 8-1 with me in attendance.  It's possible that I'm missing some games from the old days at Yankee Stadium or possibly even a game with the Mets at Shea Stadium, but I think that's accurate.

To drink I had a Summer Ale (of course) and to eat I had a Fenway Frank.  The Fenway Frank was pretty solid, but I'd take a Dodger Dog over it.  And I think Sam Adams beers taste better in Boston.  Maybe it's just a psychological thing.

We came across the statue of Ted Williams after the game.  He finished with 521 home runs.  He missed three full seasons serving in the Marines during World War II.  He played a total of 43 games in 1952 and 1953 because of the Korean War.  If not for all that missed time, he would have been the second player to hit 600 home runs.

After the game, we walked to the Prudential Center.  Inside, there's a shopping mall with a chapel.  That's where I went to mass before the Notre Dame-Boston College game in 2015 and I went to a 5:30 mass.  I didn't go to the vigil mass on Saturday and I put in a lot of effort to figure out when/where to go to mass on Sunday.  We were leaving early enough that I couldn't go in New York.  I found lots of possible late Sunday options in Boston, but some of them don't exist during the summer.  But St. Francis Chapel in the Prudential Center has now come through for me twice.

After that, we were off to the Beantown Pub.  I've been there with John before.  It's right across the street from where Sam Adams, Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Crispus Attucks are buried.  I had another Summer Ale, clam chowder, and grilled cheese.  I had thought about some other options for food.  There's Union Oyster House, which claims to be the oldest restaurant in America, but that was closed for the weekend because of fire.  There's Doyle's, which Kyle and I went to.  It was the first place in Boston to serve Sam Adams.  And our trolley driver said that it had the third best clam chowder in the city and burgers that were better than Five Guys (this guy was amazing, he was right out of a Saturday Night Live skit).  But Doyle's was a little out of the way.  There was the Barking Crab, which was on Man vs. Food.  But I looked into making a reservation and they were all booked.  But the Beantown Pub got the job done.  John had suggested checking out the bar at the Parker House Hotel which is right by the Beantown Pub.  We looked at it after dinner and it appeared to be closed (it was a Sunday night).

Clam chowder and Summer Ale

So that was my trip to Boston.  We went back to the hotel and watched the Dodgers beat the Mets again on Sunday Night Baseball.  I have Fenway Park ranked as my top ballpark.  But Dodger Stadium is really close.  And yes, I'm totally biased.  I give Fenway a clear edge over Wrigley Field.  It's hard to compare Fenway to more modern ballparks.  The history and the weirdness definitely helps Fenway.  What doesn't help Fenway is how expensive tickets are.  You're going to be paying a lot of money if you want a good seat.  Standing room only is a good option, but you can get good tickets cheaper than that at Dodger Stadium (possibly a lot higher up).  When I was there last month, we sat way up high, but we were right by home plate and it was a great view.  Anyway, I think a Dodgers-Red Sox World Series would be a great World Series in terms of stadiums.  Both have a ton of history.  You get the weirdness of Fenway Park and the symmetry of Dodger Stadium.  Both are beautiful in different ways.

It's Chase Utley's World

We're just living in it.  I went to the first of three Dodgers-Mets games at Citi Field with my dad.  It was Yu Darvish's debut with the Dodgers.  Jacob deGrom was going for the Mets.  The Dodgers were pretty much in control the whole way.  Chris Taylor led off the game with a home run.  Yasiel Puig hit a home run in the second.  And Chase Utley hit a home run in the sixth because of course he did.  Yu Darvish pitched seven shutout innings with 10 strikeouts and only allowed three hits and one walk.  The Dodgers won 6-0.  We enjoyed the game.

I'll just mention a few Citi Field things.  We were sitting in my favorite row for an affordable price at Citi Field.  It's the wheelchair row on the Promenade Gold seats.  We were up high, but close to home plate.  The row in front of you is down a few steps so people can get up and they don't block your view.  It's really easy to get in and out of the row.  Other people get get in and out of the row without disturbing you.  You have access to the Promenade Club (which has some good food/beer options that aren't available in most other places).  I don't like that there's restricted access.  If somebody wants to spend money in the Promenade Club, let them.  But I had access so good for me.  To eat, I went down to the field level to get the spicy chicken sandwich from David Chang's Fuku.  I really only went there because David Chang has been on House of Carbs.  It was really just a glorified Chick-Fil-A sandwich.  It was good, but not something I'd pay $12.50 for again.  In the Promenade Club, I was able to get a Sam Adams Summer Ale.  You know my feelings on Summer Ale.  It's even better when I can drink it outside while watching the Dodgers.  And they also have d(o with the line over it) in the Promenade Club.  They sell edible cookie dough.  There were three or four flavors.  I went with the regular chocolate chip cookie dough because chocolate chip cookies are by far the best cookies.  You can get one scoop for $6 or two for $11.  I got one scoop and it was really good, but I definitely didn't need a second scoop.  It would have been nice if they gave out small cups of milk with the cookie dough.

Yu Darvish's first pitch went for a hit, but it was not a sign of things to come.

Summer Ale is the best.

This was really good.

The Mets might not be good, but Mr. Met is still the best mascot in sports.

That was the only game of the series I got to.  The Dodgers ended up sweeping the season series with the Mets.  They had a nice comeback in the second game of this series.  The Dodgers still have work to do, but it's definitely looking like they're going to finish with the best record in the NL and probably the best record in the Majors (they're up 12.5 on the Nationals and 9 on the Astros).  They are fun to watch, but I'm starting to get excited for college football.  Hopefully Notre Dame won't ruin that excitement early in the season.  Go Dodgers!  Go Irish!

It's Always Cloudy in San Diego

After Los Angeles, I took my second trip to San Diego.  I took the train.  I wanted to sit on the side facing the ocean.  Unfortunately, I didn't know which way was which when I got on the train and picked the wrong side.  For a decent part of the trip, the train goes right along the ocean.  The train was pretty full.  San Diego was the last stop and it did thin out before that.  So I did switch seats to sit on the ocean side, but I missed most of the part of the trip along the ocean.  I did get to see some mountains on my side though.  And I was able to watch about five innings of Dodgers-Giants (another Dodger win) on a probably illegal YouTube live stream.  It was bright and sunny the entire way down.  And then I got to San Diego and it was cloudy.  It was cloudy when I was in San Diego five years ago also.

My view of the ocean from the train

Anyway, I got to my hotel, which was in the Gaslamp District and close to Petco Park.  I had googled best fish tacos in San Diego and one of the places I found had a location right by Petco Park.  So I stopped in there before the game.  I got a taco with fish, shrimp, and octopus.  It was really good.  Then I headed in for the game.

I really like Petco Park.  As I walked around the lower concourse, I was surprisingly reminded of Fenway Park in a weird way.  There are some random ramps and stairs that you'll find at Fenway Park also.  Of course, it's a much more modern ballpark.  And of the ballparks built during my lifetime, I have it behind only PNC Park (another one I'd really like to get back to, maybe next year).  One of the things that I didn't like when I was there five years ago was that the dimensions were too big and they had the visitors' bullpen on the field.  So I suggested bringing in the fences and moving the bullpen behind the fences.  They did that two years ago.  It's still been a pitcher's park in two of the three seasons since they moved in the fences, but not as extreme of a pitcher's park as it used to be.  So they've improved Petco Park.  After the Dodgers, I mainly root for teams with good ballparks because I want to see good ballparks in the playoffs.  So my ideal playoffs would be:

NL West:  Dodgers
NL Central:  Cubs
NL East:  Nationals
NL Wild Cards:  Padres and Giants Reds Cardinals Phillies (the Giants and Cardinals get crossed out for obvious reasons, the Reds get crossed out because I think their ballpark is a much better in person ballpark than TV ballpark)

AL West:  Mariners
AL Central:  Royals
AL East:  Red Sox
AL Wild Cards:  Twins and Yankees (I have Oriole Park at Camden Yards ranked one spot higher than Yankee Stadium, but it's fun to be in New York when the Yankees are in the playoffs and it gives us the possibility of Yankees-Red Sox)

I should note that I haven't been to Sun Trust Park yet (maybe next year) so the Braves might take that second Wild Card spot in the NL.

Anyway, back to San Diego.  I was able to get to all three Man vs. Food spots, sort of.  The first was the Petco Park version of Lucha Libre.  It's a Mexican place where Adam had the Surfin' California burrito.  It has shrimp, steak, fries, pico de gallo, jack cheese, avocado, and chipotle sauce.  They also gave me little cups of two different salsas.  I had the Surfin' California burrito at Petco.  It was pretty good.  I think I'd prefer either just shrimp or just steak.  I don't love both at the same time, but maybe that's just me.  I've done two Man vs. Food spots where they have fries on the sandwich (Primanti Brothers in Pittsburgh and Lucky's Sandwich Company in Chicago).  I thought the fries in the burrito got overwhelmed a little bit more than they did on the sandwiches.  I'll get to the other two Man vs. Food spots it a bit, but Lucha Libre is probably tied for first of the three (don't worry, it's not a three-way tie, there was a clear number 3).

As for the game, it was Dinelson Lamet for the Padres against Ivan Nova for the Pirates.  The Padres went up 2-0 in the first and 4-0 by the end of the fifth.  The Pirates managed to score two runs in the seventh, but it was a comfortable win for the Fathers.  Jose Pirela had two triples and Manny Margot hit a home run.  To drink, I had a Pale Ale .394 from the AleSmith Brewing Company (a San Diego brewery) in honor of Tony Gwynn's 1994 season.  It was a solid beer.  Tony Gwynn is my favorite non-Dodger who played for an NL West team.  Nolan Arenado is second on that list.

My view for the game

My flight home was an overnight flight the next night.  I started the day by going to the Broken Yolk Cafe.  Adam did a challenge there that required eating a 12-egg omelette.  I had an omelette that was allegedly a four-egg omelette.  I got one with lots of vegetables.  I was definitely eating some unhealthy foods on the trip, so I wanted something healthier.  I had a few issues with the omelette.  First, they went way too heavy on the vegetables.  Second, it was like an egg version of a crepe.  It was very thin and didn't seem like four eggs.  And going along with that, the egg made like a little sleeping bag for the vegetables, they weren't mixed in with the egg at all.  So you might say that I didn't really like it because I made a bad decision with my order, but I don't think I would have liked one of their omelettes with more delicious ingredients.  So the Broken Yolk finishes third of the three San Diego Man vs. Food spots.

Then I walked to mass at St. Joseph's Cathedral.  It was kind of on the way to the San Diego Zoo, which was my last stop.  The San Diego Zoo has to be one of the two most famous zoos in the country, right?  The Bronx Zoo is the other one.  And I think the San Diego Zoo is the more famous of the two.  Tickets for the San Diego Zoo are about 1.4 times the price of the Bronx Zoo (at least for adults).  I saw some cool animals, but I didn't really see how it was any better than the Bronx Zoo (I was last there on a field trip in 2013).  It's probably bigger than the Bronx Zoo, but I wouldn't say that's worth being 1.4 times the price.

St. Teresa of Calcutta and St. John Paul II

Leigh Ellis is right, the giraffe is a very graceful animal.

I went to the airport very early for my flight.  I was hoping to watch the Dodgers on Sunday Night Baseball on my iPad.  The Dodgers were down 1-0 in the ninth.  Chase Utley had an infield single and a stolen base.  He scored on a Yasiel Puig single.  The Giants took the lead in the 11th.  Chris Taylor led off the bottom 11th with a groundout, which put the Baseball-Reference win probability for the Dodgers at 11%.  Then Corey Seager doubled.  The Giants put Justin Turner on first base with an intentional walk.  Cody Bellinger had come out of the game in a double switch so Kyle Farmer came up to pinch hit for his first career at bat.  Of course, he doubled to win the game.  It was another awesome win and the Dodgers swept the Giants.

I was able to get to the airport version of the third Man vs. Food spot, Phil's BBQ.  I had the same thing Adam had, the El Toro sandwich, which has tri-tip and barbecue sauce.  When I watched the episode, I suspected that the sauce was a little too thin for my tastes.  I usually like a thicker barbecue sauce.  I have a co-worker who makes his own barbecue sauce.  His is thin (but probably thicker than this one) and it's really good.  But in this case, my suspicion was correct.  I didn't love the sauce, but the sandwich was still pretty good.  I had that at the beginning of the Dodger game as I watched on a TV at Phil's.  Around the eighth inning, I went to Red Mango for some desert.  I had their mango frozen yogurt and it was really good.  It had me googling Red Mango to see where they were on Long Island.  None of them are all that close to me, but they are around.

The El Toro at Phil's BBQ

Before I wrap this up, I have one note to make on the new Man vs. Food, which just started with episodes in New York and Milwaukee.  I've been to a ton of Man vs. Food spots, but surprisingly, I don't think I've been to any of the nearby spots from the original run.  Adam did New York, Brooklyn, and Long Island episodes.  I've never been to any of those places.  He did a Philadelphia episode.  I've never been to any of those places.  The only Boston spot I've been to is the Barking Crab, but that was just to drink Summer Ale.  And the only Washington spot I've been to is the Nationals Park version of Ben's Chili Bowl.  I don't think I'll be going to any of the New York spots from the new version.  One was on Staten Island, which is pretty much a foreign country.  One was a pizza place.  What Casey (the new host) had there was ridiculous (a pizza topped with pizza in a box made out of pizza).  It did seem like there were some good pizza options there, but I can find good pizza options in a whole bunch of other places around here too.  And the other spot was Clinton Hall, where he had a fondue burger.  The fondue burger seemed absolutely ridiculous, but it might have other interesting burger options (it's also a beer hall) so we'll put Clinton Hall down as a maybe.  I'll keep watching the new Man vs. Food, but I'm a little worried because Casey already looks like Adam did in his last season.

So that was my last big trip of the summer (there was another quick baseball trip that I'll get to later).  It looks like I'm not going to any Notre Dame football games this year.  After last year, I didn't want to go to any home games.  I applied for the Boston College game in the lottery, but I lost.  This looks like it will be the first year since I graduated that I don't get to a football game.  So I don't know when I'll be on a plane again.  My guess is I'll do something next year for my February and/or Easter vacation.  Hopefully I can spend the fall enjoying Notre Dame football (I'm not optimistic) and the Dodgers making a World Series run (I'm more optimistic).  Go Irish!  Go Dodgers!

No Kershaw, No Problem

I was back in California for my second time this summer.  It was my fifth trip to Los Angeles (starting in 2011), but my first trip in almost two years.  I targeted the last week in July for two reasons.  The Wednesday game was Clayton Kershaw bobblehead night and the Friday game was against the Giants and it was Friday Night Fireworks, where you get to go on the field after the game.  When I planned the trip, I didn't know that Sean would be living out there.  He joined us for the first game.

The Dodgers entered the Wednesday game on a four-game winning streak.  I had been to Clayton Kershaw bobblehead night once before.  My favorite student likes the Giants for some reason.  She just graduated this year, but I told her that when she comes to visit, I'll give her the bobblehead from this game.  It's Kershaw batting.  I like to think that it's Kershaw about to hit a home run against George Kontos on Opening Day in 2013.  Since it was Kershaw bobblehead night, his two-year-old daughter Callie threw out the first pitch and it was adorable.

This was our view from the Top Deck of Cali Kershaw throwing out the first pitch.

For the game, it was Brock Stewart against Ervin Santana.  I was on a streak of 15 games dating back to 2012 where the Dodgers won every game I went to that Kershaw started and lost every game that anybody else started (6-9 in those games).  So I was a little worried.  Stewart had not given up an earned run in limited relief innings, but this was his first start of the season.  I didn't expect him to last very long and he didn't.  He gave up five runs in three and two-thirds, but they were all unearned.  The Twins led 5-0.  Pete asked what I thought the chances of the Dodgers winning were.  I said they still had a chance to come back, but really, you shouldn't win when you're down 5-0.  Baseball-Reference's box score gave the Dodgers a 7% chance of winning when Cody Bellinger flied out for the second out of the fourth inning.  Then Joc Pederson hit a home run to make it 5-1.  And the comeback was on.  Yasiel Puig hit a home run in the fifth to make it 5-2.  Chase Utley hit a pinch hit two-run double with two outs in the 7th to make it 5-4.  The Dodgers tied it in the eighth on a weird play.  Logan Forsythe was hitting with runners on the corners and one out.  Kike Hernandez ran on the pitch and Forsythe hit a fly ball to center.  I was thinking double play because the ball was going to be caught.  Fortunately, the center fielder was thinking the same thing and didn't look at the first baseman, who was getting in position to be the cut off man.  The throw went to first with nobody there and the Dodgers tied the game.  In the ninth, the Dodgers had runners on first and second with two outs.  Justin Turner won the game with a base hit through the hole on the left side.  I was at Opening Day in 2013 (the Kershaw home run/shutout game) and in 2011 I saw Matt Kemp win a game in the 11th with a home run after the Dodgers had been down 4-0 early in that game, but this was probably one of my five favorite baseball games that I've been to.

I also managed to cross Arizona off my beer list with a Kilt Lifter Scottish Style Ale from the Four Peaks Brewing Company in Tempe.  The guy at the concession stand gave us a hard time for getting a beer from Arizona.  And that thought did go through my mind, but I was okay with it because the Dodgers weren't playing the Diamondbacks.  I had two Dodger Dogs that were good.  I feel like I don't really have a choice when it comes to food at Dodger Stadium.  At most, I'm getting to two games a year.  I have to go with the Dodger Dogs.  And that's not a bad thing.  Dodger Stadium gets credit for having real mustard (they also have terrible yellow mustard, but the real stuff is there), which can be hard to find outside of the Northeast.

The Dodgers were off on Thursday, so I just kind of hung out.  Pete had to work for most of the day.  I got Pinkberry in Santa Monica (blueberry muffin yogurt that was excellent) and I took a walk down to the beach and pier.  We went to Father's Office for dinner.  I had been there with my brothers back in 2011.  The burger was very good.  We finished the night at Santa Monica Brew Works for some local beer.  I had an Amber Waves American Red Ale and a 310 California Blonde Ale.

Southern California is the best.

My last full day in the Los Angeles area was Friday.  Pete and I went to the Richard Nixon Presidential Library.  I happen to share a birthday with Richard Nixon.  Nixon was definitely complicated.  Watergate wasn't good.  The 1970s in general weren't good and he was president for almost the first five years (although the second half of the decade was probably even worse).  But he did some good work with China.  China is definitely still in need of political reforms, but the economic changes in China since Nixon's visit have been good for both China and the US.  The museum was good.  Nixon and his wife are buried nearby.  We also saw the house where he was born.  It was definitely a small house for a big family.  And they had the helicopter that he left Washington on after resigning.  Like Air Force 1 at the Reagan Library, we got to go inside, but we couldn't take pictures inside.  As we were leaving, we saw Edward Nixon, the last surviving Nixon brother.

Outside the Nixon Library

At the desk in Nixon's Oval Office

I had seen this picture before, but I can't get enough of it.

Nixon and Zhou Enlai meeting in China in 1972

The house where Nixon was born on January 9, 1913

The helicopter Nixon took out of Washington after resigning as president

After the Nixon Library, we stopped at In-N-Out.  It's good, but the fries are definitely lackluster.  I still say that Shack Shack is the best and Five Guys is better also.  I was a little worried about making it to Dodger Stadium in time for the game.  It turns out that we could have been fine.  We drove right past Dodger Stadium before the game started.  But we had Katie's ticket.  So we met her at a coffee shop about a mile and a half from the stadium.  We got there first and we were a little worried about how long we'd have to wait for her.  It didn't take her long to get there and we left probably about a half hour before the game started.  But Los Angeles traffic was unforgiving.  By the time we parked and walked from there into the stadium, I think it was the third inning.  When we finally got in, it was 1-1.  Corey Seager and Brandon Crawford hit home runs that we heard on the radio.  The pitching matchup was Alex Wood against Matt Moore.  Alex Wood had an RBI groundout to give the Dodgers a 2-1 lead in the fifth.  But the Giants scored three in the top of the seventh to go up 4-2.  When the Giants scored their fourth run, Baseball-Reference says the Dodgers had a 17% chance of winning.  But we're talking about the 2017 Dodgers here.  Of course, they came back.  My old friend George Kontos came in when Moore got in trouble in the bottom of the 7th.  Yasiel Puig had a pinch hit RBI groundout.  Chris Taylor tied it with an RBI double.  That brought Corey Seager up with the go ahead run on second.  The Giants made a pitching change, bringing in the lefty Josh Osich to face Seager.  While he was warming up, I put on the Corey Seager shirzey that I had bought at the game with tag still on.  Seager hit a home run to give the Dodgers the lead and it was awesome.  Brandon Morrow worked an easy 8th and Kenley Jansen struck out the side in the ninth for the save.

They just added the Jackie Robinson statue this year.  He was safe.

We were one section over from where we were the night before.

I had a Dodger Dog and a Ballast Point beer (Long Beach, California).  I don't remember which one it was.  The good news was I got the beer late and I was able to enjoy it as the Dodgers came back and finished off the win.  We hustled down to the field for the fireworks.  It was so cool being on the field.  I've been on the warning track of several stadiums (Shea Stadium for Banner Day way back in the day, New Yankee Stadium, Dodger Stadium in 2011 before the blog, Minute Maid Park, Target Field before Dennis's wedding but no blog post, Chase Field, Coors Field, AT&T Park), but I had never been on the grass at a Major League stadium.  It was so cool to be down there.  We sat on the grass and watched the fireworks.  I remember on the Dodger Stadium tour they told us that the outfield grass was cut shorter than the infield grass.  They want the infield grass to slow down the ball for the fielders and they want the outfielders to be able to run.  But it was amazing how short it was.  And it was also very densely packed.  The combination of a comeback win (with Seager hitting the go ahead home run) against their biggest rival and getting to go on the grass in the outfield puts this game at least in my top 10 games that I've attended.  I was going to try to figure out a top 10 list, but it's probably just these two games, at least one of the games I went to in 2011 (my first two games at Dodger Stadium, both Dodger wins), and the rest just being Kershaw starts (with Opening Day in 2013 being number 1, of course).  Maybe the game I saw in 2007 when Chien Ming Wang was five outs away from a perfect game sneaks onto the list too.  Anyway, watching the fireworks with Pete and Katie definitely made me think back to the fireworks at their wedding.  It was a great way to finish the awesome second leg of my trip.

There would be deli mustard on this excellent Dodger Dog.  I would never defile the Dodger Dog with ketchup.

Pete and me on the field after the game

The fireworks were fun.

I took this just before we left the field.

Katie found this bar that had all these bobbleheads right before we left.  This picture shows a tiny fraction of them.  They had them for all teams, not just the Dodgers.

Watching Baseball in Memphis

I was taking another trip out to the West Coast and I wanted to stop somewhere along the way.  I've now been to every state between Canada and Mexico, but there are several where I've never spent a night.  I think I deserve credit for all of them, but a few of them are probably a little questionable.  I think the only time I've spent time in Rhode Island was when my brothers were looking at Providence way back in 1995, but I've driven through it several times.  If you added up the combined amount of time I've spent in Maine, New Hampshire, Nebraska, and Oregon, it's probably about four hours.  But I did make a point of going to all of them (I had meals at non-randomly chosen places in all of them except for Nebraska, I went to a Gulf War memorial in Nebraska).  The only two states that I didn't make a point of going to were Kentucky and Tennessee.  We drove through them on the way to and from the Notre Dame-Georgia Tech game in 2006.  So I stopped in Memphis.  The Memphis Redbirds are the Cardinals' Triple-A team and they had a game the day before I was heading out to Los Angeles and there was a direct flight from New York to Memphis so Memphis it was.

After checking into my hotel, my first stop was Gus's Fried Chicken.  It was on Man vs. Food and I remember Bill Simmons talking about it when he was there to cover the Grizzles in the Western Conference Finals in 2013.  I had the 2 piece white plate which included a breast, a wing, baked beans, cole slaw, and white bread.  It was definitely tasty, but not as exciting as I was expecting based on what I had heard from Adam Richman and Bill Simmons.  I guess I'm just not that big of a fried chicken fan.

Good, not great

I didn't do anything else until the game because it was 97 degrees and humid.  The game was the Redbirds vs. the Salt Lake City Bees (an Angels affiliate).  It's a pretty big stadium compared to the other minor league stadiums I've been to, but that's not too surprising because it was only the second Triple-A stadium I've been to.  The box score says that there were 3,071 people there.  I think that's exaggerated.  I would guess that it was no more than 2,000, but maybe I'm just thrown off because of how big the stadium was.  When I googled food at the stadium, the one thing that came up consistently was the barbecue nachos from Rendevous.  Rendevous is a barbecue place that was also featured on Man vs. Food so that's what I went with.  I was disappointed.  Way too much cheese.  It didn't let the meat shine.  I didn't finish them.  I should have just gone with the $1 hot dogs that they had that night, but I knew I had some Dodger Dogs in my future so I wanted to go with something else.  I had a Memphis beer.  I'm not sure which one it was, but it might have been a Lucid Kolsch from the Memphis Made Brewing Company.  They had one concession stand with several local beers so I know I definitely had a beer from Memphis (crossing Tennessee off of my beer list), but I don't remember for sure which one it was.  Whatever it was, it was solid.  I was hoping they'd have some Arkansas beer as well (Arkansas is right on the other side of the Mississippi River), but I couldn't find any.

My view for the game

I came across the grounds crew playing basketball as I took a lap around the concourse.

Possibly a Memphis Made Lucid Kolsch

Anyway, it was scoreless until the Bees scored two in the top of the 7th.  But the Redbirds answered in the bottom of the inning.  They hit a two-run home run to tie the game and then the go ahead run scored on a double play.  That ended up being the winning run.  I noticed that a lot of the fans seemed more excited about Salt Lake City than Memphis.  I figured it out when Salt Lake City's starter left the game.  I looked him up and he was from Tennessee and he went to Arkansas State.

So Autozone Park was decent.  The beer selection was pretty good.  The food selection could be better.  The crowd was tiny.  I think two days later was $2 beer night, but it doesn't look like the crowd was all that much bigger that night.  The 360 degree concourse was cool.  That was probably my last minor league game of the year, so here are my updated minor league stadium rankings:


13. Arm & Hammer Park in Trenton
12. Dehler Park in Billings
11. Arvest Ballpark in Springdale
10. Autozone Park
9. TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater, New Jersey
8. Memorial Stadium in Boise
7. KeySpan Park in Brooklyn
6. Newman Outdoor Field in Fargo
5. Isotopes Park in Albuquerque
4. Daniel S. Frawley Stadium in Wilmington
3. Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park in Charleston
2. Dunkin Donuts Park in Hartford
1. Regions Field in Birmingham

Driving 42.5% Across the Country

I've always wanted to drive across the country.  Tom was moving to San Francisco and he asked if I had any interest in joining him on his drive.  My weekend in New Jersey with Adam conflicted with the beginning of his trip, but I was able to join him in Denver.  I missed out on a little bit more than the eastern half of the country.  My phone says it's 2,951 miles from here to San Francisco and 1,253 miles from Denver to San Francisco.  I've traveled extensively on the east coast and I've also done plenty of driving in Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, so I wasn't too disappointed on not being able to join Tom until Denver.

I arrived in Denver on Monday a couple hours after Tom got there.  Our first stop was Coors Field for a tour.  It's amazing that Coors Field is now the third oldest National League ballpark.  It's a really nice stadium, but the problem is you just can't play normal baseball at that elevation.  Our tour guide explained that the ball travels 9% farther at that elevation than at sea level.  To combat that, they made the dimensions about 4% bigger than most ballparks.  So the stadium isn't big enough to take away those extra altitude home runs, but it is big enough that there's more room for doubles and triples.  And if you play deep to try to take away doubles and triples, you're going to let more singles fall in.  I was at Coors Field in 2012, but they've made some changes since then.  The most notable is the right field roof.  They took out seats (it is a huge ballpark and the Rockies hadn't exactly been selling out on a consistent basis) way up high in right field and put in bars and places to sit and not watch the game.  Or you could hang out by the railing and watch the game.  Also, I noticed how high the row of purple seats is.  I knew about that row, which denotes a mile above sea level, but I was right down by the field when I went five years ago so I didn't notice it then.  We also learned that Blue Moon (you know, crafty MillerCoors) was created at Coors Field.

This is from the right field roof.  You might be able to make out the row of purple seats that's a mile high.

Apparently every team got one of these when the All Star Game was at Citi Field in 2013.

On the field at Coors Field

After Coors Field, we went to Zanzibar or Stars and Stripes or whatever it's called now.  It was on Bar Rescue.  I didn't have anything to drink because I was holding off until our next stop, but Tom had a beer.  The inside looked pretty cool, but I noticed there was a refrigerator where they kept some liquor that looked really dirty.  They also had these cheap flags from other countries hanging up.  Tom said he would get rid of them.  I agree, they didn't really make sense and they definitely didn't add anything.

Zanzibar/Stars and Stripes

Then we went to the Cherry Cricket, which was featured on Man vs. Food.  It has been voted the best burgers in Denver.  On the show they had waitresses throwing darts at a dartboard that determined Adam's toppings.  Apparently that's not an actual thing (I wouldn't want my toppings to be left up to random dart throws anyway).  I got a burger with hot jack cheese, guacamole, pico de gallo, and grilled onions.  Tom got a black bean burger with some stuff.  It was very good, but it definitely doesn't unseat another Man vs. Food spot, the Vortex in Atlanta, as the best burger I've had.  I had a Melvin IPA to drink.  I'm not a huge IPA fan and they had a pretty wide selection so that's not what I would have gone with ordinarily, but it was the one beer they had from Wyoming so it was my chance to cross Wyoming off the list.  I liked it more than I usually like IPAs.

Little Cricket Burger and Melvin IPA

We were off to Salt Lake City the next day.  The fastest route took us through Wyoming, where we drove for over 300 miles on I-80.  When I went to Denver five years ago, I drove to Cheyenne.  I definitely didn't expect to ever be in Wyoming again.  To get to I-80, we drove north on I-25, which could have taken us to Cheyenne, but that would have kept us too far to the east, so Tom's phone had us cut across to the northwest to get on I-80 around Laramie.  Part of that cut across was about four miles on a dirt road in northern Colorado.  The highest elevation on I-80 in the country is in Wyoming a little to the east of where we had gotten on, but we did see a sign for the continental divide with an elevation of 7,000 feet at one point.

This was a random hotel in The Middle of Nowhere, Wyoming.

We didn't do a whole lot in Salt Lake City.  Before going to the hotel, we went to a vegan restaurant.  I had a salad and a Moab Rocket Bike Amber Lager.  I'm pretty sure I had a beer from Utah when I went to the Jazz game in 2015, but I didn't mention it in the blog post.  So I can now say with certainty that I've had a Utah beer.  It was pretty good, but it was served in a frosted glass.  I've never been a fan of that because you take it out of the refrigerator and you get all that condensation.  That just waters down the beer.  Jon Taffer pointed out the same thing on Bar Rescue once.  I went to Bruges Waffles and Frites, which is a Man vs. Food spot that I went to in 2015.  This time, I just had some fries with aioli sauce and andalouse sauce.  They were good, but I maintain that European Republic has better fries and sauces.  I went to Temple Square and walked around and thought about the All About Mormons episode of South Park.  And then I went back to the hotel to watch the All Star Game.

Northeastern Utah

Joseph Smith was called a prophet.  Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.

The next morning we were off to Reno.  It was my second time in Nevada.  The first time was for an education conference in Las Vegas a month before I started the blog.  We stayed at the Eldorado.  I took a walk around and got lost at one point because it was connected to another hotel.  I went to the sports book and checked out some odds.  The Dodgers are currently the favorites to win the World Series.  Hopefully they'll prove that to be accurate.  The Warriors are heavy favorites to win the championship again next year, with the Cavaliers at 3 to 1 and the Celtics and Spurs at 10 to 1.  In the NFL, I didn't look at the favorites, but the Jets and Browns are tied with the worst odds to win the Super Bowl at 250 to 1.  And Notre Dame was 28 to 1 to win the National Championship in football and I think 75 to 1 to win the National Championship in basketball.  I didn't make any bets because the entire purpose of casinos is that they make money while providing you with nothing in return.  One good thing about our hotel was that the Brew Brothers microbrewery was right inside.  We went for happy hour and had a couple of pints for $3 each.  I had a Redhead Amber Ale and a Carano Extra.  Both were pretty good.  Nevada is a state I might have had before, but we can make that one official now too, which brings my beer state total to 35.

Casinos look nice.  That's because their entire purpose is to take your money and provide you with nothing in return.

Our shortest city to city drive was the last one, Reno to San Francisco.  We went through the Tahoe National Forest in California.  There were a ton of trees.  The elevation also got pretty high.  I saw signs for at least 6,000 feet.  We might have even got up around 7,000.  For a little while, Tom's car said the outside temperature was in the mid-40s (it was very before sunrise).  The descent was pretty rapid.  We could definitely feel the air pressure increasing as the altitude decreased.  We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge around 9:00 in the morning and got to Tom's apartment shortly after that.  It was really foggy as we crossed the bridge.  I took some pictures, but they weren't great.

Inside the Tahoe National Forest

Driving across the Golden Gate Bridge in the fog.

We wanted to do an AT&T Park tour the following day (I had been there once before for a Giants game in 2014), but it turned out that there was a private event and hence no tours.  The move into the apartment went as smoothly as possible.  The movers were done around noon, which was before they were even scheduled to arrive.  So we went to AT&T Park to see if we could get a tour that day.  We went to look into buying tickets and there was a sign on the cash register that said the 1:30 tour (the last one) was sold out.  We asked and they told us that they had two tickets left.  So we got to take the tour.  I wanted to paint asterisks near any mentions of Barroid's "accomplishments."  He was the biggest cheater in the history of baseball (dishonorable mentions for Roger Clemens, A-Roid, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGwire).  The first stop on the tour is the upper level and you work your way down.  It is quite a view from up there.  It was at that stop that the tour guide explained that there's a garden in center field because Hunter Pence wanted one.  That makes sense because Hunter Pence is the type of guy who brings 13 items to the express lane.  And I've always disliked how they don't cut nice looking patterns into the grass.  The tour guide explained that the grass is that way because that's the way it was Seals Stadium, where the San Francisco Seals played.  I think it's a pretty dumb reason, but at least there is a reason.  I was hoping that we'd get to go in the press box, but that was not included.  Of course, AT&T Park was the site of Vin Scully's last game.  The visitors' clubhouse was definitely not as nice as the visitors' clubhouse at Coors Field.  The tour ends up in the visitors' dugout and on the warning track between the dugouts.

Asterisks are greatly needed.

Here's a guy who was a much much better player than Barry Bonds.

That grass could look so much nicer.

On the field at AT&T Park

We got to two Bar Rescue spots on that first day in San Francisco.  After the tour we went to Patriot House, which is a little weird because it's on the third floor of a big office building.  We were there in the middle of happy hour, which was not busy (it was before most people had gotten off of work and it was a Thursday).  I had a Racer 5 and two fish tacos.  I would rate the experience as pretty solid.  Of course, I liked the Patriot House theme, even if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for San Francisco.  We went from there to Tom's friend's apartment to watch the Mike and the Mad Dog 30 for 30.  They were the best.  I hope that somehow they end up back together when Mike is done at WFAN, even if it's not every day.  They should do a weekly podcast.  Back in my camp days, I did a Mike and the Mad Dog Alvernian article.  It might have been my best one ever.  Then the three of us went to the Roc, another Bar Rescue spot.  This one was right by Fisherman's Wharf.  I just had a glass of water.  Tom asked for a Jack and Diet Coke because he had been there once before and they didn't have Jack Daniels.  They still didn't have Jack Daniels.

The Smelly Hippie House would make more sense for San Francisco, but I appreciated the Patriot House theme.

Our last day was Friday and we didn't have much to do.  We got to sleep late.  We actually made it to two Man vs. Food spots.  First was Ike's Place, where Adam had the $30 Kryptonite sandwich.  I wasn't going to do that so I had the sandwich named after Adam instead (it was $13).  It was pretty good, but probably a little bigger than it needed to be.  From there, we took the bus back to Fisherman's Wharf to go to Ghirardelli Square.  I had to get some ice cream there.  I had a sundae that was all chocolate themed.  It was good, but probably not as good as I was expecting.  I do like chocolate more than vanilla, but I think I would just go with the regular sundae if I ever get back to San Francisco.  After that, we walked up to Coit Tower.  The weather/hills combination was kind of annoying.  It was all cold and foggy where Tom lives so I wore a sweatshirt.  But then it was like high 60s and sunny when we were in eastern San Francisco.  Walking up ridiculous hills in that weather with a sweatshirt on got pretty hot.  After that, we took the bus back to Tom's apartment to rest for a little bit.  Then for dinner we went to our second Man vs. Food spot, Taqueria La Cumbre.  After the big lunch and the ice cream, I decided to go with a vegetarian burrito.  It was fine, but nothing special.  To be honest, I'd rather have a vegetarian burrito at Chipotle.  Maybe a burrito with meat would have been better than Chipotle.

We didn't go up Coit Tower, but there were some nice views from outside the tower.

We did a lot of driving through five states.  It was cool driving through the mountains.  Here's how I'd rank the states in terms of the scenery during the drives:

5.  Nevada- it was the most desert-like.
4.  Colorado- We didn't actually do that much driving through the mountains in Colorado.  We had the mountains to the west of us for most of the time.
3.  Wyoming- About 300 miles of driving through the mountains.
2.  Utah- Eastern Utah was really cool.  Western Utah was not as exciting.
1.  California- Mountains and forest in the east, the Bay Area in the west.

So that was it for my first trip to California for the summer.  I will be back next week.  It will be a more direct route, but there will be a stop before I get to California.