Never take a hotel alarm clock at face value.

All right, I'm starting to back up. I need to post for Friday and here it is Sunday.

Thursday night after I posted, I went upstairs and got ready for bed. the clock was set and I set an alarm. we were leaving at 10:00, so I set it for 8:30 and went to bed. I got up, took a shower, messed around, and went out to go downstairs to get breakfast. To my surprise, the hall in front of my door was where the continental breakfast was being served. Convenient? Yes, but a little weird,too. It just felt different to be fixing my breakfast on the hall in front of my room. Then Shelly and Jordan walk out of their room with their bags and I said" What are y'all going to do downstairs for an hour"? They looked at me funny and said something and got on the elevator. I went back into my room and my clock said 9:15, so i figured I had 30 minutes to get to the bus and have a little extra time. Then someone knocks on my door at 9:36 and it's Margaret Johnson. She said said something to the effect of ready when you are. I said We're not leaving till 10, right. She said yeah and it's 10:06. OOPS.
Never trust a hotel alarm clock without checking it. My bad.

Friday was out in and out day in N.Y. Roll in, see the game and head out to a hotel in Conn.

We got to New York and stood in line for Monument Park. That's the park behind the fence in centerfield honoring the Yankee greats. It was pretty cool.

About 6:00 it began to rain so we sat down in someone else's seats up under the 2nd level. We hung there while it rained for about an hour. they eventually started the game about 8:45 and it finished at 11:59. Shelly, Nicky and I wound up sitting in the seats we sat in during the rain delay for the whole game. Nobody came in moved us. Pretty lucky. Bad news for the home team again as the Yankees lost to the Royals.

We get out and get to our hotel about 2 in the morning. We're going to pull at 10:30. I go in, check my alarm clock and do to bed. I wake up to someone shouting in my room. Ar first I think it's the alarm clock so I start pounding it. Then I think maybe my wake-up call is on speakerphone( which is middle of the night logic) . Then I realize what is being said. It's the "Evacuate. Use the stairs not the elevator" safety speech being repeated over and over. WHAT?

So I stick my head out the door and see people dragging their suitcases down the hall.
Oh, man.
I go back in and grab my sleep apnea machine, pack it up and head outside.
I get outside and see two big honkin' firetrucks and one of them has got a ladder extended up and is pouring a million gallons of water a second on a tractor trailer truck that was on fire in the back of the parking lot, as far away from the hotel as you could get. Dave Wishon and I stand there and look at each other with "Can you believe this" expressions on our faces. Dave begins to start giving his opinion on things very loudly, much to amusement of the people strangers around us.

I'm sorry for the owner of the truck but I'm wondering why I have to get out of bed and watch this. A few minutes go by and a person from the hotel says we can go back inside. It's 6:00 now. I sleep until 9:00. So essentially I got 2 naps that night. Yeah, boy!

TOMORROW: Lookout Boston, here we come!

And off we go....Day 1

Pulled out around 8:20 this morning. Had 18 on the bus. We picked up Shelly Johnson at the Bojangles in Selma. This was not the 1st time I'd picked up a girl at Bojangles, but that's a different blog.

We were heading to Washington, D.C. for the Nationals game against the Mets at 7:05. We figured we would get in about 3:30 and let people spend the time before the game doing whatever they wanted, wherever they wanted. WRONG.
We had beautiful weather on the way up, all the way until we were 20 miles outside of D.C.
We saw lightning fairly close to us for a while and then it started to rain. Then it started to really rain. Then it started to Hail. (Does this sound familiar? The Great Cleveland Hail Storm on last year's trip?)
It was so dark and gray at one point Chad said, "Well, I guess they won't be playing this game tonight."
We figured we'd ride to the ballpark and look at it and take our chances. If you've ever been to a game on a rainy day, you know they never call a game until well after game time. Chad called some one at the Nationals and was told they'd had info that it was moving away and we'd be fine by GameTime.
Sure enough, we turned the corner and got sight of the ballpark at 4:30 and it looked like it hadn't even been raining there. We killed time on the bus until the gates opened at 5:30 and went in. The weather was perfect the rest of the night and we had a great time. The Nats were down 5-3 at the start of the 8th and then the Mets opened it up to 9-3 and that's how it ended. We loaded up and drove to Baltimore for the night. We'll get up and drive to N.Y. tomorrow to see the Yankees and Royals tomorrow night.

Quick Itenerary
Friday- N.Y. Yankees game, drive to Conn. and spend night
Saturday- Drive to Boston and hang out rest of day.We pick up Tony
Stroud for rest of trip
Sunday- Game at Fenway- 1:05 Free time after that
Monday- Drive back to N.Y.and hangout
Tuesday- Free day and game at Shea between Mets and Braves 7:05
Wednesday- Drive to Philly (Margaret is going to Liberty Bell),
Phillies and Nats at 7:05
Thursday- Haul it back Home.

See ya tomorrow. g