Oh Heavenly Day

At about 5:30 last evening, I was in heaven.

That’s because I was sitting in the warm evening breeze with my daughter’s head on my shoulder, watching the Montreal Expos take batting practice… the smell of popcorn and barbecue, pizza and hot dogs, wafting through the stadium, a nice, cold beer in my hand, and Jimmy Buffett playing on the loudspeakers. Heaven, I tells ya.

Pepperkat and I joined forces with Cableman to make a day (and then some) out of it. After an early pit stop at Panera, we were headed down the highway, rockin’ out to a mix CD I got from MJ last summer.

On the way, we stopped at the Mall at Millenia to ogle the electronic goodies at Bang & Olufsen, Sharper Image and Futuretronics (not to mention the toys at Williams-Sonoma). Why not? We had time to kill. Or so we thought…

Apparently, the Red Sox coming to town is a bigger deal than we anticipated. Besides the obscene amount of construction taking place on I-4, Cleveland’s spring training complex at Winter Haven was packed. The best we could do was berm seating. But they were only 5 bucks, and we were actually at a spring training game! We downed a hot dog and split a bottle of water (3.25 for water??), and settled in for an afternoon of sun and relaxation. We found a nice tree to park our butts beneath, struck up conversations with the other cool folks that were there, and enjoyed the few glimpses we got of the Sox destroying the Indians.

We were out in the sun without hats, so we stopped into the souvenir shop to get some ball caps. Darn the luck. The Cleveland folks don’t sell Red Sox gear. (They must have been sold out. Heh.) So, we were forced to wear Indian caps. This was not to Pepperkat’s liking…

Determined not to show up late to the next game on our schedule, we split early from there and headed over to Lakeland and Tiger Town. We showed up 2 hours early, and it was great. We got fabulous seats, watched the Expos take batting practice, ate barbecue and relished in our general lack of being at work/school.

When the game started, the announcer said:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Lakeland, Florida. For your information, here are some game time temperatures. In the home town of our visiting Montreal Expos, it is a balmy 28 degrees. Downtown Detroit, Michigan, reports a game time temperature of 31. And here in Tiger Town, it is 79 degrees. Enjoy the game!

I have the rest of the pics that we took before the batteries in the camera died at Solonor’s Photoblog.

NOTE: If in the fourth inning you decide to fight the crowd and leave your seat to get a strawberry shortcake, the vendors will bring them around to your section about 2 seconds after you make it back.