I checked on parking and was told that there was parking available at Camden Yards for buses and RVs. Cool beans. I got Shirley disconnected from Cherry Hill RV Park and drove up to Baltimore, about 30 miles north. The exit for parking was a snap and there were not only signs but people in orange vests and waving orange flags directing traffic to the general parking area. The street for general parking coursed through a pretty shabby industrial area. As I headed toward the ballpark I saw another set of orange-clad flaggers enthusiastically waving me onto a side street. Thinking they were the bus and RV parkers and City of Baltimore/Oriole employees or at least agents for the parking company, I, of course, followed their direction. Silly boy. I got siphoned into a scary area with limited turn-around opportunities. Once committed, I was committed. I ended up paying for two parking spots which is pretty normal at ballparks. Unfortunately, Chris and Andy’s Parking “Company” charged $20 a space. Man, did I get ripped. Not only did I get ripped for the money, I still had to walk ¾ of a mile to the park!
The game was interesting because there were as many Red Sox fans as there were Orioles fans in the park. It guaranteed that no matter how a play turned out, half the crowd was cheering.
Sunday was another Little League Day so there were 6,000 kids parading around the playing field. What a great experience for them. This was about my fourth Little League day but the Orioles provided some real class. As the future big leaguers went by the dugout there were six or seven players high-fiving them. At no other park did the players interact with the kids. Kudos to the Orioles.
The National Anthem is special in a few of the parks. In Atlanta they shout “and the home of the Braves.” In Baltimore they shout “O’s” (for Orioles) during the “O say does that star spangled banner yet wave” portion. It is kind of funky but cool at the same time.
I had good luck with the draw again and had great seatmates. Ellen and Chris are from central
Jersey but try to get to as many games in Baltimore as they can. They are both huge fans of the Orioles and baseball in general.Ellen was quite the strategist and really understood the nuances of the game. Chris was obviously a good teacher (or maybe student?) and was great at explaining some of the strategies that developed. Chris did confess that he was also a big Cubs fan but cheered mightily for the O’s.The game was very good and ended up tied at the end of nine. This was the first extra inning game of the odyssey and it was on a Sunday afternoon with a layover day following. Perfect timing. The Sox failed to score in the top of the 10th and the O’s got a runner to second base which brought 2nd baseman Ty Wiggington to the plate. Wiggington was having a great day with flawless fielding and made a brilliant base-running play that allowed the Orioles to score a run earlier in the game. Fittingly, Wiggington got a hit and drove the winning run across the plate. Half the throats cheered, half moaned. The lowly Orioles had swept the mighty Sox. There are no photos of me at this game because the temp was 85 and the humidity was 56 (or much higher) and the white sweat rings on my shirt were not very photogenic.
Monday was sight-seeing day so I used the Metro system to go into D.C. It sure is nice to have a functioning transit system. I have been to D.C. before so this time I got to be selective on my sight-seeing. I chose to go to the National Gallery of Art and it was fascinating. The West Building was huge and had two floors of magnificent art. I saw sculpture by Rodin, Degas, Guadin and countless others. There were paintings by da Vinci, Renoir, Matisse, Picasso (The Tragedy is spectacular, by far my favorite Picasso), Toulouse-Lautrec, Manet, van Gogh and countless others. The Monets were fascinating because they were very distinct from a distance and became vague as one got closer. There were quite a few Cezannes and it was interesting seeing how his style changed from very heavy, dark single subject works at the start of his career and became light and colorful as he entered his Impressionist days and then went back to a heavier style again at the end of his career. Listen to me, suddenly I’m an art expert. There were also some great paintings by American artists; Homer Winslow (hated them, they featured dead animals), Whistler, and portraits by John Singleton Copley and Gilbert Stuart.
The East Building is relatively new (1978) and was designed by I. M. Pei of Louvre design fame. It houses the more modern and contemporary pieces and had a collection of photographs by Allen Ginsburg titled “The Beat Generation.” He took some great story-photos with a second-hand Kodak he bought for $13. The photos were hand-captioned by Ginsberg showed the history of not only the Beat Generation but how we got to the “Hippie” generation. These photos were the highlight of the East Building. The lowlight of the East Building was the Tower which housed seven black-on-black works by Mark Rothko which were accompanied by a musical piece specifically written for the Rothko paintings. I tried hard to understand the message of the media but it was way beyond the capabilities of my fuzzy brain.
I was really surprised to see that flash photography was allowed in the galleries. I had my camera with me but it seemed sacrilegious to take pictures.
This trip has allowed me to see two galleries so far; the Ft. Worth Museum of Modern Art featuring an Andy Warhol exhibit (a somewhat sick man), and the National Gallery. Tomorrow I hope to see The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, The National Archives, and the Vietnam Memorial (again. I’ll probably cry this time, too) before I see the Washington Nationals against the Braves and get back to the REAL purpose of this odyssey.
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