Mission Accomplished

When we started this stretch of 10 ballparks in 23 days, I was skeptical that we could get 'er done without hitting some kind of snag or schedule deviation along the way.  The schedule was very tight, 3 days in one spot, 2 days in another and although I did have to make a schedule change, we were able to make all 10.

We wore jackets and jeans in Chicago because guess what, it was cold and windy!

 

If you zoom in, you can see that it really does say US Cellular Field

 

The GM at our Chicago tow company gave us his season tickets, great seats 10 rows back.

 

 

They have a really neat area for kids out in the left field side of the stadium.  There are batting cages, a place where they are timed running from home to first, a mock infield where a guy throws ground balls to the kids

 and a shooting gallery type area where you throw baseballs at cutout images of catchers and when you hit them, they fall over.

 

Two nights later we were in Milwaukee for a Brewers game.  They have a really nice ballpark with a retractable roof. 

 

This is a beautiful park.  I can't believe the Rangers will have a new stadium with a roof in 2021. 

Speaking of beautiful parks, this is our camp site in Stoughton, WI.

 



And yes, for some unknown reason, there's a duck head out in the middle of an open field.

We were camped near Madison, which gave us a chance to see some dear friends we haven't seen in 13 years, Bill & Sharon Napier.  Our kids grew up together until they moved to Madison 26 years ago. 

We had a wonderful dinner at their house and did 13 years of catching up. And it was Jane's birthday, so we had cake and ice cream. 
 

Last stop, Minneapolis, eh?  I mean really, we are almost in Canada don't you know?

And the strange thing is, they built a new stadium in 2010 and DIDN'T put a roof on it!!  Crazy Minnesotans, Minnesota-ites?  Whatever!

For some reason, we like parks where you can see the downtown part of the city from your seat. (We know that's not going to happen in Arlington)

 

This is the farthest north we've been in our "rolling estate".  We parked at Mall of America and took the light rail to the game.  It was very easy. What are the odds of our meeting a man on the train who lives in Lewisville (where we lived for eight years before we started our travels) and flew up for the game because he is also on a quest to visit all the baseball parks?????  Pretty slim, I think. BUT we did.   When we got back, we had to make a run through the mall.  I didn't know they had an entire amusement park inside.

Here's a shot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle ride.

It would take a whole day to walk through this place.
We are spending a few extra days in Minnesota to get a repair done to the RV (which, fortunately, is happening now and not in the middle of our 23 day sprint) and then, strangely enough, we don't know where we are going.  On July 5, we will start our summer stay on the lake in Arkansas, but until then we have to make some travel decisions.  We might go to Texas to find out where the city is in which we "live".  Our address is in Livingston, Texas, at a mail forwarding center run by Escapees RV Club.  When people ask us where Livingston is and we tell them we don't know, we get some really strange looks.  But I need to renew my driver's license which expired last week. I didn't know that after renewing it online for 12 years, I have to appear and have a new picture taken.  They seem to think I might have changed in 12 years. Nah!  South Dakota is also in the running for our "spare time".  After Arkansas, we have our travel plans in place through April or May of next year.

So come back soon to see where we wind up for the next three weeks!

 

This is where we are currently and they have the biggest Cottonwood tree I've ever seen.

 

Maybe this will give it a little better perspective.  If you look closely, you can see Jane standing at the base of the tree.  I'm guessing the trunk is 25 ft. in circumference.