We woke up in Indianapolis to a lovely summer thunderstorm. We decided to forego the free breakfast (not sure what I was thinking, given that my favorite flavor is “free”) and stop for coffee on our way out of town. We knew that we had to get to Cleveland in a hurry, because we had tickets to the Guardians game at 4:05, so we packed up, loaded the car, and got on our way.
Terry offered to drive and I took her up on it so I could crochet. The weather on this drive was not our friend … torrential downpours along the way, which meant that the drive took awhile. We finally got to Cleveland and found our hotel – my least favorite hotel of the trip, but close to the ballpark. By the time we managed to get the car unloaded & the fish settled in the hotel room, it was already after 4:00.
Not realizing that the hotel was only a few blocks from the stadium, I ordered a Lyft. That was an experience, as I watched the little dot representing the driver going in circles around the corner from the hotel for about 15 minutes - and once he picked us up, he drove around the ballpark instead of just letting us out at the first gate we passed – suboptimal, since we were running late!!
Fortunately, the weather helped us out with a rain delay, so we didn’t miss the start of the game. As with every other park, one of our first stops was the team store to search for pride items and the Guardians did not disappoint, with pins, stickers, hats, and t-shirts. Terry’s favorite was a t-shirt that showed up on the receipt as “Guardians of Pride”.
We looked for some traditional ballpark food – hot dogs – and found a vendor tucked in a corner that was selling Cutwater Mango Margaritas that were AMAZING! Of course, that meant that we had 3 before we left the ballpark. We also ended up sitting in front of a family of three who were very friendly! I asked if it had been a giveaway day (everyone was wearing Guardians bucket hats). They told me it had been and asked if we had missed it – when I explained we had driven into town that day and were running late getting to the game, the dad very kindly gave me his hat!
Since we had discovered how close our hotel was to the ballpark, we decided to walk back to the hotel. Along the way, we saw a cute restaurant with an outside seating area and decided to stop for dinner … probably not the best choice! Terry ordered a margarita (that she sent back) and I ordered a steak that was so undercooked, I sent it back once and it was still hard to eat (and I generally like steak close to rare).
The funniest part of this day, though, is that we remember nothing after ordering dessert and coffee at dinner!
Comments