Kansas City Royals - Part Two - April 28, 2018

We went BACK to Kansas City to finish our quest.  It was a really wonderful trip.  First, we had the best barbecue we've ever had in our lives at Q39 in Kansas City.  The waiter there was absolutely one of the kindest, most polite, most adorable people we have ever met.  Aliyah said he just needed to be a few years younger and she would take him home.

Mmmmmm... Barbecue.

The weather for game attempt #2 could not have been more different than our first visit.  It was in the low 70s, sunny and breezy - gorgeous!  Tailgating is a THING in Kansas City.  This is a city that takes its barbecue seriously.  There were tons of cars, vans and trailers with oodles of barbecue going.  It was a pretty delicious smell heading into the stadium.

The first place we always go is to Guest Services to get a free First Game certificate for the kids.  We told the Guest Services people about our quest and one of the guys said to wait and that he had a gift for us.  He came back and gave us a really lovely picture frame that said Royals on it.  He said, "I thought you could take a picture in the stadium and then frame the picture of your last game in your quest."  How cool is that!  And that it how everyone was at the stadium.  They were so friendly and warm and welcoming.  I loved it!

There's a really nice museum inside the stadium.  It tells the history of the team, the area, players and of baseball itself.  It was really cool.  They also had a really nice kids area with zip lining, base running, hitting, etc. 

We have been to every stadium in the country and I have never seen as many people wearing team gear as I did in Kansas City.  EVERYONE was wearing Royals gear.  I don't know if it's because there's not much competition teamwise in that area or if people are just that devoted, but it was a sea of blue.

There was some good eating at Kansas City.  Aliyah had a great hot dog and chocolate drizzled strawberries on a stick.  Lee had pork tenderloin.  Owen got pulled pork with mac and cheese. I had an enormous pretzel and really amazing ice cream from the Belfonte Ice Cream stand.

Aliyah had chocolate drizzled strawberries on a stick. No one would follow my advice and get burnt ends. 

Owen always tries to mess up my panorama shots

Owen wore his special hat to this last game.  It has the logo of every MLB team on it.

Thanks Kansas City!  You were a great end to our journey.

Kansas City Royals - Part One & The Field of Dreams

We were supposed to go to see Kansas City Royals on April 1.  Mother Nature sure pulled the worst April Fool's Day joke.  When we got to the stadium from the airport, we discovered that the game was canceled because of weather.  It was 35 degrees and sleeting.  (Same temperature in Detroit and they still played, but then, we're pretty tough here in Michigan.  Just saying....)

Our car doors were frozen shut.  At one point, Lee had to get off at the exit and I rubbed the windshield wipers
with hand sanitizer to keep them from freezing.

I cannot express adequately how truly bummed we were.  This was supposed to be the conclusion of eight years of trekking across the country.  And now we had to come back!  On top of that, we had a 13 hour drive back to Detroit.

Our plan all along had been to end the journey at the Field of Dreams.  We talked about whether to still stop or to reschedule that, too.  In the end, we decided to salvage that part of the trip, so we drove to Iowa to stay the night.

Dad, want to have a catch?

The Field of Dreams truly is in the middle of nowhere.  It's free to go on the field, which was frozen solid that day.  Lee and Owen brought their mitts with them and had a catch.  It was really sweet.  It was FREEZING cold that day, so we walked around a little, bought some items from the incredibly nice lady at the gift shop, and hopped back in the car for the rest of the long drive home.

Atlanta Braves - March 31, 2018

We had a really wonderful trip to Atlanta.  It started off with a visit with family, who were nice enough to meet us at the Marietta Diner with almost no notice.

Since we had some time before the night game, we visited Stone Mountain and rented electric bikes.  This was a godsend for Aliyah because she was cruising, without flaring her arthritis.

Finally, it was off to the new Braves stadium.  It is built into a beautiful area of restaurants, bars, etc.  We parked a ways away and made our way through the streets that were hopping with people.  There was some EXCELLENT people watching.  There was a marching band that proceeded across the walkway before the gates opened.  It included some awesome drumline riffs and dancers.

There is a really cool museum in the ballpark, including the #755 made out of bats to honor Hank Aaron. The scoreboard is GORGEOUS, but content on it was really lame.  It was like building a crazy-awesome TV room and then using it to watch Ishtar.  They also had an old-fashioned organ, which I really like, which played a crazy variety of stuff, including Grease Lightning, Ode to Joy and Here Comes the Bride.

Foodwise, there was pretty basic ballpark fare.  One exception was the gigante burrito that Aliyah ordered.  She had no idea how gigantic it would really be.  There was no way she could finish it.  Even Aliyah and Lee together couldn't take it down.

Aliyah made a mistake in not realizing how truly gigante, the Gigante Burrito was.

 

Nice view.  Nice stadium.

Unfortunately, we were sitting right behind a group of twenty-somethings who were super into flirting with each other, drinking, taking selfies, and playing with their hair (both girls and guys).  Aliyah was going to LOSE HER MIND if the girl in front of her tossed her hair over Aliyah's knee one more time.  When they finally left in the 8th inning, Aliyah said under her breath, "Please use Uber.  And protection!"  I laughed out loud.

I know lots of places do it, but I can NOT get behind the tomahawk chop.  We never joined in.  I turned to the kids and said, "On a scale of 1 to racist..."  They immediately knew what I meant.  Not my thing, dude.  Why does this still exist?

Our overall impression of the Atlanta Braves was that the stadium was nice, but nothing super special. (The area just outside the stadium is top notch, though.)  We would give it a solid B+.  (Aliyah feels that I should state for the record that I have hated the Atlanta Braves ever since I moved to Chicago in 1991 and thus my opinion may not be totally unbiased.)