The month of May has been a busy one! We just wrapped up all our final projects, papers, presentations, and exams for school. One semester down – Woo! (Four more to go – Boo!) I am definitely looking forward to my summer off. My brother and his friend came out to help us celebrate… well, that and to watch the Twins/Red Sox series at Fenway.
The Twins came out to Boston for a 2 game series as part of their East Coast trip. They played Wednesday and Thursday night. Game 1 on Wednesday was a bit cold and rainy… quite the conditions for Travis’ first outdoor MLB game. We were a little worried they might postpone the game and make it a double header on Thursday. They stuck it out through the rain though… and so did we. We had standing room only tickets on the Green Monster. For those of you not very familiar with Fenway, the Monster is the 37-ft (that’s like four stories!) high green wall in left field and every Red Sox fan dreams of sitting in the Monster seats. All we could afford was SRO, but the view is truly amazing! It’s like being on your own personal balcony overlooking the entire field. With it being only 310-ft from home plate, you truly feel like you are on top of the stadium up there. Plus, you get your own concession stands and bathrooms, so you never have to wait in line. It was well worth it – definitely a Fenway experience to remember. Big Papi hit a bomb in the 4th inning that bounced off the wall about 10-ft from where we were standing. It got review and was declared a homerun. The entire stadium erupted – even as a Twins fan, it was pretty exciting. The Twins tried to make a comeback in the top of the 9th. The tying run was on second and the winning run was on first. Thome was up to bat with two outs... It was a battle, but eventually he grounded out to second and the Twins lost 2-3.
Thursday was gorgeous. It was warm, the sun was shining. It was the kind of day outdoor baseball was made for. We started off with a little pregame action at the Bleacher Bar, which is a bar underneath the outfield bleachers of Fenway. It has a garage door on one wall that looks out onto the field. The bar was packed on game day, hopping with people in Sox gear. We were definitely out numbered. After a few beers, we ventured into Fenway and found our seats. We were in Section 118 Row 4, behind the Red Sox dugout about even with the on deck circle. They were great seats! Seeing the players up close like that really puts them into perspective… and I must say – Mauer is tall, but Morneau is huge! The Red Sox got a few homers off Liriano early in the game which led to a final loss of 2-6 for the Twinkies. It was inevitable, the streak continues! Adam is 0-9 in the last 2 years of Twins games he’s attended – I think we have to ban him from the games from now on. =) We had fun though… we did the wave, belted out “Sweet Caroline”, and took in some heckles from the Boston fans (definitely used to that by now!).
After the game, we went to drown our sorrows at Lansdowne Pub right across from Fenway. We met up with a few more Minnesota people there too. And actually, there was surprisingly a lot of Twins gear in the house! We’ll get ‘em next time… Go Twins!
I took Friday off from work to show Travis and Jon around the city a bit. The day started with waking up early to finish a take home exam, then going outside to find my car had been towed because of street sweeping! (Freakin Everett!) It started off a little rough, but got better as the day went on. We had lunch at Tavern on the Water and got to enjoy the view of Boston from the harbor. Then we walked to the Charlestown Navy Yard and toured some old war ships. We got to board the UUS Cassin Young, which is a Destroyer from WWII, and the USS Constitution nicknamed “Old Ironsides”, which is the oldest floating commissioned naval vessel in the world. After that we headed to Bunker Hill and climbed all 294 stairs of the monument. It’s a major leg burner and you’re quite winded when you get to the top, but the view up there is incredible. Once Adam got done from work, we went to the Atlantic Beer Garden for dinner and drinks on the rooftop patio. Then began our mini pub crawl… we went to the Barking Crab for a tourist stop, the Black Rose for some live Irish music, and An Tains for $1 Miller Lites to end the night.
On Saturday we decided to avoid the city for the day and headed to the mountains. We went to Franconia Notch State Park in NH to do some hiking. We hiked the Basin-Cascades Trail all the way to Lonesome Lake and back. It was 5.4 miles roundtrip. The trail runs up a granite rock face that has whirlpools of water and waterfalls along the whole thing. There is one spot along the trail that is actually a perfect natural waterslide. You can slide down the rock on your butt into a pool of freezing water at the bottom, which we did so many times in fact that all three boys wore holes in their shorts! It was a great time – we even built up quite the spectator gallery that cheered us on. About halfway up the trail is Kinsman Falls, where the guys jumped in for an arctic swim. They were all about being Bear Grylls in the great outdoors (I just played the camera crew). Rocky Glen Falls is another waterfall along the way. The whole trail was breathtaking... your eyes were always enticed by something along the way. When we reached the end of the trail at Lonesome Lake we sat on the dock and dipped our feet in the water for a while before heading back down. With hunger setting in, we made it down and back to the car in record time. I think it took us about 3 hour to hike to the top and less than an hour to get down! For dinner we stopped at the Woodstock Station Brewery for some microbrews and burgers. You have to bring your appetite to this place… the burgers were over a half pound and served on hoagie rolls! But, it was just what we needed after a long day on the trails. That night we relaxed at our place and Travis and Jon packed up for an early trip to the airport the next morning.
Just want to say, thanks guys! It was awesome to see you and to spend some time together. We hope you both had as much fun as we did! We crammed a lot of activities in during their visit, and yet there were so many we didn’t get to yet. Maybe next time! It was great having them out here… we always love having visitors. Hint hint to the rest of you! ;o)
