Indian Territory

The rain ended in early afternoon and I headed for Cleveland in a cloud of doubt. I went to the wonderful MLB approved site for the Indians and was disappointed as usual. The MLB sites are horrible and offer no useful information at all. I was trying to see if there was RV parking near the park. Next, I tried the Regional Transit Authority. “RV? What’s an RV? Never heard of such a thing let alone know how to park one.” The fine representative gave me a number for Progressive Field, home of the Indians. “RV? What’s an RV? Never heard of such a thing let alone know how to park one.” The fine representative gave me the number of the parking vendor. “RV? Is that like a bus? We can park your bus-like RV for $50, it’s not too close to the ballpark but we can do it.” I gave up.

I drove to Cleveland and pulled Shirley into the second parking lot I came to. It was right across the street from the park. The vendor was happy to sell me two parking spots which is the normal price.

Progressive Field was one of the last parks built before Baltimore and San Francisco built the first retro parks. The ballpark is very nice and the downtown setting is quite attractive. By some stroke of luck, I ended up sitting in a section under the second deck overhang. This was very lucky since the rain returned in the 8th inning and soaked the place pretty good. The game was an inter-league game between Cleveland and Cincinnati and was billed as the “Ohio Cup.” The Indians are not a very good team and did not improve during the day. They lost to the Reds 7-4.

I sat with a very nice couple, Jessi and Brian. They live in the Cleveland area but are Reds fans.They are both doctors; Jessi is in the infectious disease field and Brian gave up family practice to become a medical researcher. They are both graduates of Ohio State. Brian is a die hard fan and kept score while listening to the Cincinnati play-by-play broadcast of the game. Jessi has been indoctrinated on the game so she is able to substitute as scorekeeper when Brian is indisposed.

I mentioned that different ballparks have their “traditions.” The Indian’s “tradition” is to play “Hang on Sloopy” and during the four-beat pause following “Hang on Sloopy, Sloopy hang on” the crowd fills the pause with “O-H-I-O.” Kind of corny but the crowd was really into it.

I slept late Saturday and didn’t get on the road until 10:00. I had the pleasure (NOT) of driving on the Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois Tollways. I paid well over $25 in tolls, with some booths being only ten miles apart.I was really confused by paying toll to drive on the Dan Ryan Expressway which had the express lanes closed. Shouldn’t the Expressway toll booths have been closed also? Usually an expressway means limited on and off ramps. Not the DRE, in one section there were 5 ramps within one-tenth of a mile. It took 30 minutes to travel 6 miles on the expressway. Glad it wasn’t a normal freeway, I might still be in Illinois. I finally made it to Wisconsin and the roadways were nicely surfaced and had excellent scenery. I even saw some mountains. After a 540 mile day, I called it quits in Osseo. I looked at the running total of miles on the GPS and Shirley has logged over 10,000 miles so far. She’s a good girl so I am going to let her rest tonight.