Day 39: San Francisco

Today we were back to baseball, as we drove to San Francisco to watch the Giants host the Philadelphia Phillies. Former St. Louis Cardinal, Matt Morris, out-pitched former Pittsburgh Pirate, Jon Lieber with the help of a Ray Durham home run in the 4th inning. Ben had chosen the Giants, so we are now even at 13-13 in picking games on the trip.

AT&T Park was a great ballpark, situated right on the edge of the San Francisco Bay. McCovey Cove actually was larger than I had expected, and was also closer to the stadium than I would have thought as well. Also, the weather in San Francisco was freezing cold. We might have been the only people in the stadium in short sleeves, as the temperature was certainly not above 55 degrees. Quite a contrast from the 110 degrees we had become accustomed to in Las Vegas.



We made the drive from Vegas to San Fran in about 8.5 hours, making our usual stop at Subway for lunch. Also along the way, we drove by one of the largest dairy farms that either of us had ever seen. Thousands of cattle could be seen standing out in the summer heat, standing around and munching on grass. It was perhaps one of the worst smelling experiences of the trip, and that is saying something since we have gone about 2 weeks now without doing any laundry.

Our 5 nights in Las Vegas with Moutray and Morgan were an absolute blast. Our room at the Luxor was quite spacious, and our only complaint would be having to pay for the internet. On the gaming side, we all put in quite a few hours at the poker tables, in particular the $2-$4 limit tables were our most fun, providing both entertaining banter and the soft play we were looking for. However, surprisingly enough we all showed profits at the roulette tables and slots as well. You just have to know when to stand up from the table, that is the key to beating Vegas.



Another glorious aspect about playing in a Vegas casino is the free drinks. Whether you want water, juice, soda, beer, or liquor, it is complimentary while you are playing any limit of any game. Quite a nice perk, especially since it is delivered right to your seat while you are playing. All things totaled, Ben and I are both able to say that we made 1 withdrawal from a casino ATM when we arrived on Sunday night, and had more money in our wallets when we left on Friday morning. I guess all of that poker playing is finally starting to pay off!



Here are the statistical updates:
1-end of day odometer: 32,586
2-miles traveled today: 877
3-miles traveled total: 15,821
4-states traveled in today:
bonus stat: home teams are 3-0 when Ben and I are shivering at the end of the game

Day 34-38: Los Angeles (NL), Las Vegas

Today we saw the Dodgers host the San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium in L.A. It was a good pitching matchup, with Aaron Sele out-dueling Jason Schmidt for a 3-1 victory for the Dodgers. I had LA today, so I finally put an end to Ben's comeback and take a 13-12 lead into the all-star break.

Dodgers Stadium was very big, and our seats were in the outfield bleachers. One rather strange thing though, was that if you sit in the outfield bleachers at Dodgers Stadium you are cut off from the rest of stadium. We could not walk all the way around, and also, there was no alcohol being served in the bleachers. This was probably a good thing with the rowdy crowds that are often out there. We had a great time at the game with my 2nd cousin, Maryel Harding, who joined us after providing a place to stay in Lompoc, CA. Also, it was her birthday, so Happy Birthday Maryel!



After the game, we made the 270 mile drive to the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas. We are joined by a couple of friends from Furman, Moutray McLaren and Morgan Purvis who flew out for a week at the poker tables with us.

Unfortunately, most of the casino hotels do not have free internet in the hotels, so we will not be able to update the blog each night, so this will be the last post until late Thrusday night most likely. So, don't worry too much if you don't hear from us, but call us if you want some fun stories hopefully.



All statistical information will be updated with the next post.

Day 33: Oakland

And the comeback continues. After seeing our 24th game of the trip between the Oakland Athletics and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, we are tied 12-12 in picking games. The game started out with Jered Weaver of the Angels continuing the shutdown of the A's. Yesterday, the Angels pitcher gave up a leadoff double and then retired the next 27 batters. Today, Weaver pitched 7 innings of shutout ball and the Angels bats came alive for six runs to help the Angels beat the A's 6-4. Ben chose the Angels today because Weaver entered the day 5-0 with a 1.35 era.

The drive today was another beautiful trip through the west as we headed south on I-5 through the mountains. We made a stop in Weed, CA to get gas and had a great view of snow covered Mt. Shasta which stands at 14,162 ft. While in Weed, we paid a painful $3.299 per gallon.



As we were walking up to buy tickets for the game, we encountered two ladies looking to sell two tickets. They were in the lower tier on the third base side 19 rows up. We paid them $20 total for the tickets and got to sit with these nice ladies for the whole game. They were a pleasure to meet and we gave them the blog address so hopefully they are reading this post.

Also, during the game we witnessed our second fan ejection of the trip. A young man in Angels attire decided to consume a few too many beverages of the adult variety and began to antagonize the fans around him. Eventually, after an obsenity-laced tirad, he was escorted from the McAfee Coliseum just as a the group of men sitting near us during the Boston game.

We would like to extend a warm thank you to the lady working the desk at the Best Value Inn last night. She had a vacancy after we had stopped at 4 other hotels which were all full. They had wireless internet and a continental breakfast.

Here are the statistical updates:
1-end of day odometor: 31,281
2-miles traveled today: 899
3-miles traveled total: 14,638
4-states traveled in today: Oregon, California
bonus stat: teams are 0-3 when their cleanup hitter has 2 or more walks