Sorry about the lack of posts over the last two weeks. On the first Liz and I flew into Dallas and spent the evening with a friend of mine from high school. We were able to catch up on how each others families are doing as well as reminisce a bit. On the second, Liz & I drove from Dallas to Houston to see our sisters, Becky and Sam (inside joke will be explained in a later post). We learned that Texas is GREEN! I always pictured a lot of dusty oil fields and some cotton farms but never guessed Texas was green and beautiful. We also learned that the U2 song “Where The Streets Have No Names” was written about the city of Houston.
When we made it to Houston we were very relieved to find out that we still had a hotel room. We were told before we flew down that the hotel would be calling people to cancel reservations to accommodate Hurricane Katrina victims. I would say that more than half of the people in our hotel were from Louisiana. I was nice to see how many different things this hotel did for them.
Saturday, the third, Becky and Sam took Liz and I to the Kennedy Space Center. We had a lot of fun and I learned a lot of things I didn't know about NASA and life as an astronaut. Then we went to Minute Maid Park to witness St Louis Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter face off with Roger Clemens and the Houston Astros. I have been looking forward to this since Liz bought the tickets back in February. {Liz looked for tickets in St Louis, Chicago and anywhere else she could but tickets had yet to go on sale. Oh well! It worked out better this way anyway.} We had great seat in the club level (second deck) on the third base side. Clemens went five innings, gave up 2 runs off 4 hit struck out 2 batters and threw a wild pitch. He was lifted for a pinch hitter in the bottom of the 5th because he pulled a hamstring. It was too bad too because it was a close game, and a great game because Carpenter pitched a complete game to pick up his 19th victory with the 4-2 victory.
My favorite part of the game was in the top of the 7th. I decided to go get some ice cream, cotton candy, and a bottle of root beer. The stand I was at was behind home plate so of course I got my stuff and stepped inside the glass door that separates the field from the concession area. So the Cardinals 2nd baseman was with two out and a guy on second. He hit the ball out to center and everyone in the section was cheering until the center fielder dove for the ball and missed it. Then only I was cheering as the Cardinals scored the go ahead run. This woman, who was with her husband and two kids, stood up turned around and glared at me. "You get out of here" she said as snotty as she could. The security guard noticing that I had the wrong colors on asked me if my seat was in the section. I told him no, I just wanted to see how the inning ended. He asked my to either return to my seat or to stand behind the glass as I was being disruptive. He kicked me out the his section! I thought it was great because this had never been done in any stadium I have ever been in. So I returned to my seat as the Astros intentionally walked Pujols. Oh to be a Cardinals in Houston.
Becky, who works for the Houston symphony, picked up tickets for the four of us to see the "Divas of Broadway" show on Sunday. I knew very few of the pieces that were preformed but it was entertaining, and I enjoyed it.
We flew back to Minnesota on Labor Day and we spent this weekend at a wonderful Bed and Breakfast in Duluth for Liz's birthday. More about that in my next post as I need to end so I can take my wonderful wife out to dinner. Happy Birthday Lizzie. :) I love you