Hank Aaron Stadium definitely reverses the trend that new stadiums are improvements over old ones. I don't know what "the Hank" replaced, but surely it was not as strange as this place. You get the feeling this stadium is upside down. The luxury suites are at field level, with the box seats built on top and back from them. That means everyone except the very richest guests are a long ways away from the action. Moreover, unlike most minor league parks, there's almost nowhere you can get close to either dugout; interaction with the players is minimal at best. The players probably like that, but it's annoying for a fan who came 1500 miles to see a game. Another annoying feature is that the concessions are all at ground level, right behind the luxury suites. The suites presumably have waiter service, so it really doesn't matter that the concessions are convenient to them. What does matter is that they are extremely inconvenient to most of the fans. If you want something to eat or drink, you have to walk downstairs to a concourse that has no view whatsoever of the game. There's not very much interesting on the menu here, either; it doesn't go much beyond hot dogs, pretzels, and other standard ballpark fare. Prices are high for the minor leagues, and even though I had skipped lunch, I didn't have much to eat at the game, either.
* * * * *
The game was nothing special, either. I've seen some very good minor league games, but that would not be the case on this trip. This was again a pitcher's duel, and I almost always find pitching battles boring. I'm not a big fan of multi-homer blowouts, either. I like the sort of game where lots of balls go into play and you get to see the guys on the field show what they can do. The Stars lost this game 1 - 0, mostly due to an error by Rickie Weeks. Brad went 1 for 4 at the plate and had a couple of good catches--not an outstanding game, but nothing embarrassing.
One of the nicest features of this game was the National Anthem. A young girl played a truly stirring rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" on the violin. The seventh inning stretch was less memorable. Like far too many parks these days, instead of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame", they sand "God Bless America". I have nothing against the Irving Berlin standard; I just don't really think it belongs in a ballpark.
The main entertainment at this game was provided by the Shriners, who put on a mini parade between the fourth and fifth innings. They went around the warning track in little go carts, blaring horns and ringing bells as they drove along. There was apparently to be a three-hour Shriners parade in downtown Mobile the following morning, which this was supposed to get us in the mood to attend.
In the 9th inning I made my way down to the luxury boxes and noticed there was a small section of field level box seats right next to the visiting dugout. An usher glared at me as I waited there for the last couple of outs, but he didn't kick me out. After the game Brad came up to the edge of the dugout, and we chatted for quite a while. I don't remember a lot of what we talked about-the biggest thing was probably a sarcastic comment that the Stars were staying right downtown where they would be lucky enough to be right on the route of the Shriners parade. (I could easily tell Brad hoped it wouldn't be so loud that he couldn't sleep through it.)
* * * * *
Brad thought I'd be in Mobile for one more day, but I had to head back north. He was almost apologetic that I had missed his "good" game earlier in the week and that he'd done only adequately in the games I'd seen. Actually, that wasn't much of a surprise. I sometimes wonder if I'm not a bit of a bad luck charm when I go to see Brad. Only once (when Beloit played at Peoria a couple years ago) have I seen him hit a professional home run, but there have been lots of times I was there just before or just after he had an awesome game. On this trip it was both. He had been all over the papers when I got there, and I'd find out that this weekend he'd have another couple of outstanding games. I saw what I came to see, though. I saw Brad, and I saw that he had improved a lot from the miserable season he had after the injury a year ago and was back to playing like the way he was capable of doing.
* * * * *
I started the day by sort of driving around aimlessly, and I'd end it nearly the same way. I had hoped to find a grocery store where I could pick up some Community coffee. This coffee and chicory mix is the staple of New Orleans. I love it, but it's only available affordably on the Gulf Coast. I knew that if I could find a supermarket in Mobile, they'd have the stuff at a reasonable price. I drove more than ten miles along two different strips in suburban Mobile. In Iowa I'd have surely found a Hy-Vee or a Target super center that was open twenty-four hours. Here, though, if there were any supermarkets, they closed up shop before the game was over. Eventually I gave up and made my way back to the motel.
* * * * *
I checked out of the Econolodge and was on my way at 5:25am Central time. I had three states to cross, so I didn't have much time to dawdle. I headed north on I-65 and pretty much just followed that highway all day long. The first stretch was definitely the most lonely. The interstate runs 170 miles north from Mobile to Montgomery, with almost nothing in between. I crossed Mobile Bay and the surrounding swamp on a spectacular bridge, and then made my way through the low forest land of southern Alabama. There was almost no traffic, and I spent most of the time flipping through the radio dial. I never knew there could be so many different religious radio stations. I had at least two different opportunities to be saved, and there were even a couple of stations that had some serious discussion about religious issues. Besides Christian radio, the other choices were oldies (mostly early '80s music) and country. Surprisingly I didn't encounter the raving talk radio lunatics that I remembered from my college days in the South. None of the radio stations was exactly interesting, but it helped the time pass as I made my way north.
I stopped for gas at a Chevron station in Prattville (pronounced more like PURT-ul), just north of Montgomery (min-GUM-ree). While there I bought coffee and an ice cream sandwich that served as my breakfast for the day. It was a five minute stop, and I was on my way again.
Past Montgomery traffic increases, and there are cities fairly frequently. It's less than a hundred miles from Montgomery to Birmingham, by far the largest city in the state. Unlike most Southern cities, Birmingham comes across as a real city. It has a real skyline, and you get the feeling people actually live and work in the city proper, rather than just in the suburbs. I liked Birmingham, and if I ever have a reason to be in Alabama again I'd like to come back here and check the place out at my leisure.
The signs past Birmingham say "Huntsville", though I-65 really goes nowhere near there. It instead goes to Decatur, about 20 miles west of Huntsville and 70 miles north of Birmingham. From there it's just a short hop on to the Tennessee border, and another hour and a half to Nashville.
It amazed me as I drove along just how varied the landscape was. The southern end of Alabama was the same swamps and scrubby pine forest I remembered from Mississippi and Louisiana. Montgomery is the westernmost of the string of "piedmont" cities that extend through the tobacco belt eastward to Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, and Richmond. North of Montgomery you enter the Appalachian Mountains. Birmingham is right in the heart of the mountains; the iron and coal that could be mined nearby were the source of its steel mill roots. The mountains continue north toward Huntsville, pausing momentarily at the Tennessee River valley. In Tennessee itself, the Appalachians give way to rolling hills (the region from which "hillbillies" get their name), which continue all the way north to the Ohio River valley at Louisville. Most of southern Alabama is forest land, with almost no agriculture. Around Montgomery I saw some farms, mostly growing tobacco and cotton. There was also cotton up by Huntsville, together with some corn and soybeans. Tennessee was primarily forest, but every once in a while there would be truck farming or a few scattered tobacco fields. Kentucky was even more forested than Tennessee, with only a little pastureland here and there.
From Montgomery I drove about three and a half hours north to Cornersville, Tennessee (what a creative name), about halfway between the Alabama line and Nashville. I bought gas there and had lunch at a Subway sandwich shop. I made my way through Nashville (one of the most annoying cities to drive in I've encountered anywhere) and through a mess of construction in northern Tennessee. In Kentucky I again hit good roads, with the highway mostly six lanes wide for the rest of the ride to Louisville.
The trip from Mobile actually went very quickly. It's about nine hours of driving time, and with just two quick stops it was mid afternoon when I arrived in Louisville. My reservation tonight was at the downtown Clarion Hotel. It took a little doing to find the place (mostly because downtown Louisville has almost exclusively one-way streets), but eventually I did. I had chosen the Clarion because again it was essentially free. I am a member of Choice Hotels' frequent traveler program, which lets you accumulate points toward free stays. Last fall and winter, when I did a lot of traveling, they had a special incentive where every two stays earned a free night. I chose to redeem one of those nights for a two-room suite at the Louisville Clarion.
While it was certainly worth the price (free), I won't be rushing back to this hotel again. The hotel used to be called the Doubletree Suites, and becoming a Clarion appears to be trading down. It's old, but not historic (probably built around 1960), and it hasn't been especially well maintained. Except for the king-sized bed, almost all the furniture in my room looked like original equipment, and it all definitely showed its age. The elevators creaked and groaned and seemed to take forever to move one floor. The restaurant appeared to be closed for the weekend, leaving limited choices anywhere nearby.
Then there was the location. Downtown Louisville is trying hard to gentrify, but it definitely hasn't made it yet. I had chosen this particular hotel (rather than a Quality Inn or Sleep Inn in the suburbs, which would have also been free) because it was within easy walking distance of Louisville Slugger Field, the brand new downtown ballpark. The walk was one I was willing to make in the day time, but I purposely left the game at the seventh inning stretch so I wouldn't have to walk it after dark. En route to the stadium I passed a liquor store, a blood donation center (conveniently next door to the liquor store), three pawn shops, a soup kitchen, a St. Vincent de Paul thrift store, a salvage yard, several seedy bars, an emergency medicine walk-in center, and a parking lot that seemed to be prime real estate for the local homeless population. (That this parking lot is where my car would have been had I driven to the game made me feel better about walking.) There's slightly more traditional business in the other direction, but all of downtown Louisville comes across as very rough. When I can, I enjoy walking around the neighborhoods near motels where I stay. This was not a place I felt comfortable doing a lot of that.
I did make my way to the ballpark, and I quickly found it was the jewel of downtown Louisville. Unlike Mobile, Louisville has what a modern ballpark should be. It's surprisingly small (probably seating around 6,000), but its brick façade fits well into the surrounding neighborhood. Everything is squeaky clean, and the park has everything you could possibly want. The only thing it lacks is a pleasant view. Instead of overlooking the river or the skyline or perhaps a pastoral bit of forest, Louisville Slugger Park looks out at the interchange of I-64 and I-65. All the traffic coming and going is actually kind of interesting to look at, though-making a diversion at the duller points in a game.
Another thing you can't help but notice is that absolutely everything at the ballpark in Louisville has a sponsor. Not only are there the standard billboards in the outfield, but they ran actual commercials on the video scoreboard. Every part of the game also had a sponsor. The starting line-up was brought to us by one company, the first pitch by another, the national anthem by yet another. Companies also sponsored each strike out, each home run, and the seventh inning stretch. Pretty much anything that conceivably could have a sponsor was sponsored. I don't quite know what to think of that. I'm not a big fan of commercialization, but obviously all that corporate money helped them pay for a beautiful ballpark. In my mind, the two are sort of a wash.
The concessions in Louisville are overpriced, but excellent. Almost any food you could want is available, if you're willing to pay double what it's worth. I had a $4 hotdog topped with grilled onions and spicy mustard, but I could have enjoyed anything from slow-smoked barbecue to Japanese marinated chicken. I also had a diet Pepsi, but I could have sipped fresh squeezed lemonade, a variety of beers, or assorted mixed drinks (mostly made with local bourbon).
The most annoying thing at this game was the entertainment between innings. They had a sort of daredevil juggler who juggled such things as knives and chain saws. He appeared four different times during the game. The first three he had a cordless microphone that obviously had either a wire or a bad battery (from experience, I'd bet the latter). The sound kept cutting in and out as he went through his speech. It was annoying to listen to, and he wouldn't shut even when the pitcher was done with warm-ups and the batter was ready to hit. When he returned for the fourth appearance the sound problem had been fixed. Unfortunately, that meant we needed to actually hear what he said. It was a droning inspirational message to kids about trusting Jesus, staying in school, and keeping off drugs. It might have been more inspirational had he not been throwing chain saws in the air as he rattled it off.
The music here was all done on an old-fashioned Wurlitzer organ (or perhaps a very good synthesizer imitating that sound). After the moving violin last night, we had a very upbeat National Anthem tonight, with bubbly flourishes after every line. That sound worked better for "Take Me Out to the Ballgame", and I was pleasantly surprised to hear both the old baseball song and "God Bless America" at the stretch.
The game I was here to see tonight featured the Louisville Bats (which appears to refer both to the bird-like mammals and to "Louisville Slugger" baseball bats) and the Indianapolis Indians. Had Brad been promoted to AAA this year, he would have been playing for the Indians. Earlier in the season he had hoped that might happen because his best friend in baseball, shortstop J.J. Hardy (the second round draft pick the year Brad was selected in the fourth round), played for that team. ... In three years, they've only spent about one month playing on the same team (in Huntsville last August); J.J. has almost always been one level ahead of Brad.
I've never personally met J.J. Hardy, but everything I've heard--whether from Brad or anyone else--makes him sound like both an outstanding athlete and a really nice guy. Frankly, he sounds a lot like Brad.
Unfortunately, I wouldn't be meeting or seeing J.J. on this trip either. The shortstop suffered a serious injury last spring and has spent almost the entire season in Phoenix recovering. (Phoenix, if you haven't guessed it yet, is where the Milwaukee Brewers are headquartered.) ... Hopefully he will be playing next year, and he and Brad can play together at the AAA level.
If they are together in AAA, they probably won't be playing for Indianapolis. The Indians apparently don't want to renew their contract with the Brewers, so the AAA team will likely be moving elsewhere. According to Brad, the most likely bet for a new location is New Orleans. That would be good news for Brad's fans back home, because New Orleans plays in the same league as the Iowa Cubs and the Omaha Royals. Even Oklahoma City isn't all that far away. Indianapolis, on the other hand, was the closest city in the International League to Algona. That league also includes places like Charlotte, Pawtucket, and Ottawa. The other likely candidates for a new AAA team would be Charlotte and Vancouver. Given those choices, I'm definitely hoping it's New Orleans. [UPDATE: In the end, the Brewers chose to move their AAA team to Nashville--also part of the oddly-named Pacific Coast League.]
On the field tonight there were two familiar names. The first was Brandon Gemoll (guh-MOLL), a utility player (he was in right field tonight) who was drafted the same year as Brad (but being a college player, is four years older). I met Gemoll in Beloit and also saw him play first base last year in Huntsville. He's a good player, but ... unfortunately ... they appear to be using him in Indy as a fourth outfielder and a pinch hitter. ...
The second player was Dave Krynzel (KRINN-zul), a centerfielder who played with Brad in Huntsville last summer (he was the first round draft pick in 2000, the year before Brad went pro). Krynzel has moved steadily through the minors, and he's on course to be a major league superstar. He's a fun-loving guy who's also an outstanding ball player. Tonight he made two catches two almost superhuman catches and threw a strike to the catcher from deep center field to turn a sacrifice fly into a double play. ...
I left around 8:00, right at the seventh inning stretch. It was still light as I walked back, but the sun would soon be setting. Since all I had eaten at the ballpark was a hotdog, I was still a bit hungry. I made one last walk downtown, this time heading to a White Castle restaurant about two blocks north of the hotel (passing two more pawn shops, a tattoo parlor, an adult bookstore, and the main police station en route. White Castle was having a promotion involving some movie I'd never heard of (that appeared to be based on the premise of a couple of inner kill time at White Castle), but I didn't bother participating. I took a sack of "sliders" back to the hotel and downed them while watching "Cops" on TV. Then I settled into bed, watched a bit of the Olympics, and enjoyed a restful night.
I woke up fairly early and was ready to leave around 7:00. In the lobby of the hotel they had an "Au Bon Pain" (of the good bread) counter where they sold overpriced coffee and pastries. (It always amuses me that cheap motels serve free breakfast, while "full service" hotels don't.) I picked up a cinnamon scone and an item they called a cheese croissant-even though it wasn't shaped like a crescent, but rather like a long john. I then set out for the last "real" day of the trip.
I headed northward on I-65 through extreme southern Indiana. The only other traffic was a handful of trucks, one of which bore a sign on the back advising me to "start the week off right-attend the church of your choice". I couldn't help but think that it was a bit hypocritical for a trucker who was working on Sunday morning to advise me to go to church. Perhaps he was Catholic and went to church last night, though that's not very likely in this part of the country.
My first destination this morning was Seymour, the "small town" where rock star John "Cougar" Mellencamp grew up and still lives. More a small city than a town, Seymour has around 20,000 people. While I am a Mellencamp fan, I was more interested in the place because a good friend of mine from grad school also grew up here. I spent about fifteen minutes driving around town. It's a pleasant place that reminds me a lot of Mason City. While it's 45 miles from Louisville, Seymour definitely comes across as a northern town. The residential neighborhoods are full of modest wood frame homes on small, well kept lots, and the downtown area features substantial brick buildings. The main drag (U.S. 50) is mostly a strip from the '60s, but it's closer packed and better kept than the equivalent would be just a little ways further south. There are a number of assembly industries, plus an enormous Wal-Mart distribution center (older than, but similar to the one in Mt. Pleasant). I could see why John Mellencamp likes his hometown, yet I could also see why Sandra found it boring.
I bought gas and coffee in Seymour, and then headed eastward for a leisurely trip down U.S. 50. Here, too, it was clear that Indiana is a Midwestern (or perhaps eastern) rather than a southern state. As in the south, the highways are lined with far too many "rural" houses that really come across as one endless suburb. The big difference, though, is that beyond the houses in Indiana are fields. The homes themselves aren't farmhouses, but this is farm country. In the south the same homes are carved out of the forest, which gives a much more hemmed in feeling.
There was surprisingly much traffic for a Sunday morning, and I was driving straight into the sun. Even so, it was a remarkably pleasant drive. After about an hour I was in a series of old industrial cities along the Ohio River (Aurora, Lawrenceburg, and Greendale) that have grown into suburbs of Cincinnati. I soon turned off onto I-275, the Cincinnati beltway, which at its west end in Indiana is positively rural. I entered Ohio, and before long I was passing office parks and shopping malls.
I stopped for breakfast at a place where I could definitely tell Cincinnati's location on the border between north and south. Right at the exit was a Waffle House (the definitive Southern diner), but my destination was the Canadian baked goods chain, Tim Horton's. From Cincinnati it's probably about the same distance to Atlanta and Toronto, the homes of those two chains. I had a delicious cinnamon roll, together with some "bottled in Canada" orange juice, and I also bought a box of "Timbits", the doughnut holes that are Tim Horton's trademark.
I turned onto I-75 and drove through a mess of old smokestack industry to beautiful downtown Cincinnati. That phrase sounds sarcastic, but it's really quite true. Unlike Louisville, downtown Cincinnati really has gentrified. People actually live in the restored rowhouses, they shop in an assortment of "real" stores, and they work in mostly financial jobs in the downtown skyscrapers. I exited at 8th Street (Exit 1-F, which tells you something about what the interstate is like downtown), headed south to 7th, and drove east to an underground parking ramp beneath a condominium building on the north edge of downtown.
While I made fun of the trucker whose sign had given me advice earlier, in fact I had planned all along to attend church today. I walked about three blocks to the Cathedral of St. Peter in Chains, a gorgeous old Catholic church. It would have been fascinating to visit this church a century ago, when the surrounding rowhouses were full of immigrant families and the pews were likely full for every mass. That's definitely not the case today. Nowadays the surrounding rowhouses are full of yuppie singles and childless couples. Even if they do attend church, they can't possibly bring the numbers needed to fill the enormous sanctuary. I was at 11:00 mass, normally the biggest service at any church, but this big downtown cathedral had a congregation smaller than what I've often seen at my little church in Algona. There were no more than a hundred people on hand, and even though they had roped off the back two-thirds of the pews, the worshippers still look scattered and few at the front.
What they lacked in worshippers, though, they made up for in incense. The altar boy (who looked to be of college age) incensed the altar area, but then the priest marched all over the church, pouring smoke everywhere. He spent the entire opening hymn incensing the church and then released more smoke as the gifts were presented. There was so much smoke that it was literally hard to see all the way to the front. I felt like I was at a questionable college party (where they were trying to cover up one smell with another) rather than at church. I wonder if the priest might not have an allergy that made it hard for him to smell. I can't imagine why he'd go so overboard, otherwise.
While I am a member of the United Church of Christ, I normally visit Catholic churches when I travel because they are much easier to visit than Protestant churches are. This church, today, was the exception. First, like far too many Protestant churches, they had a "happy minute" at the beginning where visitors were supposed to introduce themselves. I like to worship at church; I don't really see it as a social occasion, and it's especially awkward to be asked to visit with people in a church I don't know. There were also some local traditions that were different from standard procedure at mass (like standing rather than kneeling when people go up for communion). It didn't help that today was the Feast of the Assumption, a Marian celebration that is perhaps the most Catholic of all the holy days. While historians and church scholars tend to focus on the sacraments and clerical celibacy when they talk about the differences between Protestants and Catholics, it seems to me that beliefs about Mary are really more central. Mary's conception, life, death, and afterlife are central to Catholic belief, while Protestants see her as little more than some woman who happened to be Jesus' mother. To me it's irrelevant whether Mary's body was taken directly into heaven before decomposing or not (to me the soul is what heaven's about, not the body), but that belief is the center of the Feast of the Assumption.
The closing hymn was "Hail Holy Queen, Enthroned Above". You may remember the number from the movie Sister Act:
Hail holy queen, enthroned above:
Oh, Maria!
Hail mother of mercy and of love:
Oh, Maria!
Triumph, all ye cherubim;
Sing with us, ye seraphim;
Heaven and earth resound the hymn:
Salve, salve, salve regina!
That movie starts with a choir of sisters singing the song at a funereal pace in a huge church with few worshippers, much like this one. After Whoopi Goldberg transforms the choir, they sing the same hymn in gospel style. I like both versions of the hymn, and I liked how the organist treated it today, too: strong and stately. The song kept playing in my head all day long.
There was more incense at the recessional, but eventually the priest made his way to the back. I went in peace, not only to love and serve the Lord, but also to clean off my glasses and finally catch a breath of fresh air.
After church I walked about a mile and a half across downtown Cincinnati to Great American Ballpark ("Great American" is an insurance company), home of the Cincinnati Reds. I was pleased with the parking selection I had made. Up by the cathedral, I could park all day on a weekend for just a dollar. Near the park I would have paid at least $10, and I could have paid $20 if I wanted.
Great American Ballpark is a lovely facility. It looks out over the Ohio River, with the scoreboard designed to look like the smokestacks on an old riverboat. It has all the amenities of the best modern parks and compares well with Camden Yards, Jacobs Field, or the Ballpark in Arlington.
One of the best features of the park was that the seats were not green. Almost every modern park is filled with green box seats; it often seems as if that's the only color of seats they make these days. In Huntsville (whose team colors are red, white, and blue), they're replacing the old red and blue seats with new seats that are green. I'm not sure why the architects are so in love with the color green, but all the new stadiums are filled with green plastic. Well, the Cincinnati Reds have a red stadium. I was struck at how bright the red seats looked, compared to the deep forest that makes a lot of other stadiums look very dark. It fits the team, and it gives some nice variety.
There's surprisingly little advertising at Great American Ballpark, but they make up for any revenue they lose there through their concessions. The food here is absurdly overpriced, and souvenirs are even dearer. ...
This was probably the most interesting game I saw on this trip. There was a lot of action, and the score shifted back and forth. I was in the park for about three hours and in the process managed to get a nasty sunburn on my thighs. It was still not hot (indeed, still record cold), but it was a clear, sunny day--the kind when a sunburn sort of creeps up on you.
I walked back to across downtown and then drove to the east end, where interstate 71 runs northeast to Columbus. Another advantage of parking by the cathedral was that I joined the interstate well away from the stadium, so I didn't have to worry about postgame traffic.
My final destination in Cincinnati was another place I had heard about on Food Network, Graeter's ice cream. The original Graeter's is located near downtown, but is closed on weekends. I went to a suburban location in the chain, where they serve the same delicious treats. Graeter's essentially makes homemade ice cream in mass quantities, and it enjoys a well-deserved reputation as some of the finest ice cream anywhere. After scanning the flavors, I chose to have a waffle cone with black raspberry chocolate chip, and it was truly out of this world.
I drove back downtown, tunneling under the area by the stadium, and then crossed the Ohio into Kentucky. Traffic was very heavy, but it moved along fairly well. Just past the beltway I made an awkward exit (crossing two lanes of traffic that were entering from the beltway) onto Donaldson Road, the same road I had taken when I first left the airport. I bought gas one last time (so I could leave the car with a full tank), and then checked in to the Cincinnati Airport Econolodge, using my final $50 redemption certificate. I don't think the proprietor (yet another young Asian man) had ever dealt with one of the certificates before, but I could see him doing the math in his head-figuring out that he's actually come out ahead, since the room cost only around $40, even with tax.
The Econolodge was a rambling place with two long, narrow buildings. I was clear at the end of the far building, which I think was intentional. That location was well away from both the highway and the airport, so I had comparatively little noise and was able to get a fairly good night's sleep. This was probably the second nicest motel I stayed at-still nothing special, but noticeably better maintained than the Louisville Clarion.
I had dinner (country ham) at a Waffle House across Donaldson from the Econolodge. Another customer left as I came in, and a couple entered shortly after I left. The whole time I was there, though, I was the only customer in the place. I entertained myself by listening to the waitresses (there were three) and the cook complain about their lives.
Back at the motel I re-packed, just barely managing to get everything to fit in the same carry-on and backpack I had brought out with me. ... I watched a bit more of the Olympics and then the local news. The big story was that a toddler was missing from an apartment in a housing project. I had passed that very project just as I entered I-71 leaving downtown, so I listened with more than detached interest. Apparently the mother was napping in the late afternoon (about the time I would have gone past there), and when she woke up, the child was nowhere to be found. Police had fanned out all over the neighborhood, but as of 11pm, no one had found the kid. I included him in my prayers as I headed off to sleep.
There's really no other way to say it: this was a long, boring day.
I was up before 7:00 and got a bit of exercise by walking along Donaldson Road. There's nothing particularly interesting about this strip, other than that down here where no one cares about zoning, I passed a church next to an oil change place next to a house next to a school.
I had coffee and danish in the motel lobby and watched the news on TV. They had finally found the missing child, alive and well, in a park about a mile from the housing project. He had been missing for about eight hours when they finally found him, but everything seemed to be fine now.
I checked out and drove about four miles west through thick fog to the airport. The fog had condensed on the car windows, and I had to wipe things off before the woman who checked me in could scan the barcode. The woman seemed to think that the mileage was high (I had put over 2,000 miles on the car driving to Mobile and back), but the contract had unlimited mileage so that wasn't a real problem. I mentioned the problem with the engine light, and before the shuttle bus had left, a technician came up and drove the car off for servicing.
I checked in quickly at the Delta ticket counter and then made my way to security. There was a long line at security, one of those lines that snakes through an endless tape maze. A man in front of me asked a guard how long the wait was, and he accurately estimated it as a little over half an hour. I was in no hurry at all, so the line was probably a good thing.
Even with the security line, I was again impressed with the Cincinnati airport. There's a wonderful variety of businesses (like a Borders bookstore) on the concourses that made it easy to pass time while I waited. While I didn't use them, they also had dozens of computers you could use to access the internet for a $5 fee.
The food in Cincinnati is also the most reasonably priced that I've seen at any airport anywhere. I had breakfast at McDonalds, paying about $3.50 for a value meal, just slightly more than it would have been outside the airport. In the same food court there was a Gold Star Chili counter with prices lower than what I paid at Skyline the first day of this trip.
Like most airports, CVG has computer screens at each gate. Instead of just listing flight numbers and departure times, though, these give detailed information on the boarding process (like which rows will be boarded in what order-for some reason Delta boards from front to back, instead of from the back like most airlines do-and when boarding will start for this particular flight). People who are flying standby or who have been rescheduled from another flight can also double-check on the monitor that their seat assignment is confirmed. The one odd thing about the system, though, was that at this international airport, everything was in English.
I entertained myself by watching the monitor go through its cycle and then finished reading Moneyball. By then it was about time to board.
Flight DL 12:54 left Cincinnati around 11:05. It was scheduled to take an hour and fifteen minutes, but we land in Milwaukee at 11:01-so you could say we landed before we departed. I checked in quickly at the Midwest desk and made it through security in almost no time, so it was still only about 11:30 when I made it to the concourse. Unfortunately my flight for Des Moines wouldn't be leaving until 3:50, so I had over four hours to kill in one of the dullest airports in America. I had already finished reading my book, and I finished browsing the newsstand and gift shop in no time. I made three separate trips to the lone restaurant (which served a surprisingly wide variety of foods), plus a trip to the Starbuck's coffee bar. I wrote my postcard to Brad, bought stamps, and mailed it, and still I had tons of time left to kill.
I spent the greatest amount of time reading through today's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. I think I must have read every single word in the paper-and, for the most part, nothing was happening in Milwaukee today. The most interesting thing that was once again Brad's name was mentioned in the sports section. He had gone 2 for 4 with a home run yesterday in Mobile, a far better showing than the game I saw.
Every Midwest Connect flight leaves Milwaukee from gate B-52 (like the Vietnam-era bombers), a double-sized waiting area at the far end of the concourse. Every ten minutes or so they'll call a flight for boarding, directing the passengers to "descend the stairs and approach Door X" (where "X" is actually replaced with a letter between A and F). They clarify the door letter by using a phonetic alphabet, so a typical announcement would say "Attention Passengers. Midwest Connect is delighted to announce boarding of flight 2698 to Rhinelander. Rhinelander passengers should descend the steps and approach Door B-bravo. Door B-bravo for flight 2698 to Rhinelander." They were "delighted" to announce every departure, and it amazed me just how many second-rate backwoods towns had airline service--presumably thanks to Kimberly-Clark.
Finally around 3:30 they were delighted to announce the departure of flight 1905 to Des Moines. I descended the steps and was the first in line at door D-delta. They walked us out to the smallest plane I have ever been on. It was the sort of plane I'd expect to fly to Rhinelander, but it seemed very small to be flying from Milwaukee to Des Moines. Made by Beechcraft, the plane seated 19 (nine rows of 2, with a row of three straddling the aisle in the back. There was no toilet and no overhead space for carry-on baggage. What's more, they didn't allow planeside baggage checking, like they do on many small planes. I managed to fit my carry-on in the coat closet and my backpack under the seat, and I was thankful to be at the front of the line. I don't know what they'd do if several people had large carry-ons.
I sat in Row 2. In Row 1 they had a woman ("Kari") who was being trained to be a pilot. Because of her, they kept the cockpit door open through this flight, so we could see all the controls. We could also see that the pilot (her nametag said "Synde", which I assume is a bizarre spelling of the name I know as "Cindy") and first officer ("Jermaine") had to literally walk over the controls to get to their seats.
There was no stewardess on this flight. Jermaine walked through the plane to make sure we had our seat belts on and then played a recording of the safety instructions. He also announced that the seat belt light would be on through the entire trip (which, given that there was no toilet, didn't really matter). The plane was extremely noisy when the propellers started up, and it vibrated a lot on take-off. Once we were in the air, though, it was a fairly smooth flight. We landed in Des Moines ahead of schedule, around 5:15, and I was pulling out of the parking lot in my own car by 5:30.
I had dinner tonight at Fazoli's in Ankeny. I had at one point thought of eating the first night at the very first Fazoli's, which happens to be in Lexington, Kentucky. Skyline Chili seemed preferable to that, though, but hearty Italian food seemed a good way to end this trip.
I listened to the rest of The Oldest Rookie as I made my way back northward. On my way into Algona, I made a point of driving past the Nelson house, where Brad's parents have erected an enormous baseball-shaped planter in the front yard.... I made it back home around 8:30 and began to unpack and settle in for the upcoming school year. ...
The background music on this page is R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion", which seems an interesting alternative to Christian radio.