St. Louis

Hello, faithful followers! It's only been two days, but it feels like it has been an eternity since the last time I've written. After leaving Cincinnati on Tuesday morning, Ryan and I drove to St. Louis for the Cardinals night game against the Phillies. We got into St. Louis a few hours before game time, so we parked near the stadium and then walked around the city.

Busch Stadium is absolutely gorgeous. We first saw the stadium on our way into the city from the highway, and it immediately caught our eyes. The red brick stands out, but not so much that it looks out of place. After we parked, we walked up to the stadium and snapped a few photos. We knew we had a lot of time before the gates even opened, so we walked the few blocks down to the river to see the famous Arch. From a distance, the Arch looks pretty big. And then you walk up close to it, and it looks absolutely massive. Seriously, it's huge. When we walked over the grassy hill and saw the base of the Arch, the people standing next to it looked like tiny ants. I snapped a bunch of photos, and we walked under the Arch to the river bank. It was flooded! The stairs leading down to where the river normally was were completely covered.

After checking out the Arch, we made the trip back up towards the stadium, and decided to make a pit stop to grab some food before entering. We found a sports bar near the park, and decided that was our best bet. I had the best bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich ever, and Ryan got some sort of fish and "chips," even though there were no chips, only french fries. Okay, maybe it wasn't the best ever, but it certainly tasted that way since it was really only our second real meal.

Once we finished eating, we walked to the stadium and entered. Ryan wanted to stop at the store and get a team jersey, so we went inside. You really can't imagine all of the silly things they sell. I guess people will buy anything with their teams logo on it. After the store, we made our way around to the third base line, and walked down to field level. We watched as the likes of Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, and Shane Victorino take some BP swings, and then moved over to the first base side, where we watched Chase Utley field some grounders. Utley was keeping his injured hand behind his back, and was only using his glove hand to field the balls. We thought about staying in the seats we had found, but we were both extremely hungry, so we walked up to the concourse level, and the ushers were in their places, so we couldn't go back. Once we bought some food, we rode the escalator all the way to the top, thinking that our Section 503 tickets were going to be the highest in the stadium. Little did we know, however, that the stadium only had four levels. We found a map, luckily, and realized our seats were in the second row on the first level in the outfield!

We had a beautiful view of the field, and there were even a few few balls that made it pretty close to where we were seated. It was a shame to see Jamie Moyer exit the game after only one inning of work. It was by far the best pitching match up we were scheduled to see (Moyer vs. Carpenter), but it turned out to be an exciting game anyways.

When the game was over, we took one last lap around the stadium, and then exited towards the parking lot. Getting out of the city wasn't bad at all, however we had a very long drive ahead of us. I started behind the wheel, and just as we made it outside the furthest reaches of St. Louis, it started to downpour. I mean, I've never seen rain or lightning/thunder like this before. With my wipers going full throttle, and only traveling at maybe 20 mph on the highway, I still could barely see ten feet in front of the car. To be honest, I only stayed on the road because I put the white line directly below my tire, and just watched that. Thankfully the hard stuff didn't last long, and once it was over, we started making good time towards Minneapolis...