Part One

My big vacation in 2006 was accompanying my sister as she took students to Peru. That was not the only place I went this summer, though. I made three shorter trips as well, each of which at least partially had a baseball theme. I continued following the career of my friend and former student, Brad Nelson. Brad has had his worst professional season this year. I had seen him playing AAA ball in Omaha and Des Moines earlier this year, but he had been demoted to AA Huntsville by the time I'd get around to traveling. In addition to Brad, another of my former students, Ben Geelan, spent 2006 playing in the semi-pro Northwoods League, ... [and] I managed to see a few of his games this summer, too. I also saw some of Brad's former (and hopefully future) teammates play when I had a pleasant getaway in Pittsburgh in August.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 2006 - Algona, Iowa to Clear Lake, Iowa

I gave a test in my Statistics class at Iowa Lakes tonight. As is often the case a couple of other times when I've given tests before going somewhere, I was more than a bit restless in class tonight. Most students finished quickly, but a couple took quite a bit longer than the others. I sort of twiddled my thumbs as I waited for them to finish. I really couldn't complain though. The class is scheduled to go until 9:00, and the last student finished a little before 8:00. I packed up the tests and was on my way quickly.

I had a fairly uneventful drive over to Clear Lake. They're tearing up highway 18 this summer, so it took a bit longer than usual, but things still went smoothly. I stopped at a new Wendy's that opened not long ago at the junction with I-35 where I picked up at taco salad. Then I went south about a mile to the Clear Lake Super 8, a dingy old motel with little to recommend it other than a low price. I checked in quickly and then went out again. I took a back way up to the airport to see if it was quicker than the main route (it wasn't) and then stopped at the Clear Lake Culver's for an overpriced but tasty caramel cashew sundae. Back at the hotel I watched a public TV feature on Woody Guthrie and a documentary on the Queen Mary 2, the newly launched largest passenger ship in the world. I was off to bed early, since tomorrow would be a long day.

THURSDAY, JULY 13, 2006 - Clear Lake, Iowa to Huntsville, Alabama

I was up at 4:30 this morning. The whole point of getting a motel was so I wouldn't have to be up an hour earlier than that to make the drive to the airport from Algona. As I hauled my stuff out to the car I noticed it was foggy, which was unusual in a summer that overall has been rather dry. That bothered me a little because years ago when I flew to Orlando out of Mason City, fog had goofed up the initial leg of the journey. I hoped for the best, though, as I grabbed a cup of coffee and a glass of juice just as they opened the breakfast bar. I was on my way right after 5:00.

I made the drive to the airport in about three minutes and parked right in front of the terminal. They're experimenting with free parking at MCW this summer, which was a pleasant bonus for flying out of there. I made my way inside and grabbed a seat near the check-in desk. The terminal was packed; it looked like it would be a full flight up to Minneapolis.

As usually happens in waiting rooms, most people (including me) had seated themselves so there were empty seats on either side of them. A very nervous looking woman surveyed the room and appeared to find me the least threatening person in the place. She asked if it would be okay to sit down beside me. I told her it was no problem, and she took a seat.

Northwest Airlink is the only airline that serves Mason City. Three times a day they shuttle planes between MSP, MCW, and FOD (Ft. Dodge Regional Airport). It actually costs exactly the same to fly out of either Mason City or Ft. Dodge (and both are cheaper than flying directly from Minneapolis), but the schedule at MCW is definitely more convenient. I'd find, though, that today flying out of FOD would actually have been the better choice.

At 5:20 they made an announcement that the incoming flight from Ft. Dodge had been delayed because of the fog. They would decide in the next twenty minutes if it would be too foggy for it to land at all, in which case they'd simply bypass Mason City and fly directly from Ft. Dodge to Minneapolis. There were apparently a grand total of four passengers who boarded at FOD (compared to about thirty waiting at MCW). There would be no problem taking off in the fog, but if it didn't clear, they couldn't land.

They officially cancelled the flight at 5:30am. We were told that passengers would have two options. We could either drive up to Minneapolis and make our connection, either on the flight we were scheduled on or a later flight. Alternately, we could be rescheduled on a flight out of Mason City tomorrow morning. Both of the later flights today were full, so tomorrow was the only option for those who couldn't get to MSP by car. We were directed to the podium to declare our plans. I rushed there and was second in line, while the woman who had sat down next to me was third.

Driving was not really a problem for me, since I had nearly a four-hour layover before my connection. The woman at the desk told me I would be refunded an amount equal to the round-trip fare from MCW to MSP. How they figure that fare, I have no idea-particularly since fares to onward points are higher from Minneapolis than they are from Mason City. Eventually my credit card was credited in the amount of $57.50. Given that parking alone is $48 in Minneapolis and gas was right at $3 a gallon, the refund probably didn't even cover my expenses for driving up there. At least I was able to make the connection, though.

The woman who had been sitting next to me had more problems than I did. She had a tighter connection, and her husband had dumped her at the airport, so she didn't have a car. She very tentatively asked if she could ride up to MSP with me. While my car is small, noisy, and not air conditioned, if she was willing to put up with it, I was certainly willing to oblige. When I went to Orlando that foggy Easter, I ended up hitching a ride with the president of NIACC, and this was obviously my opportunity to pass on his kindness. We placed her two large bags in the back of my Metro, and quickly we were on our way north.

We had an interesting conversation as we made our way up I-35. [My companion] was a fascinating person. She a very religious and moral person, but she was politically quite liberal-a combination you don't see a lot these days. The church she belongs to, the Evangelical Covenant Church, is a rapidly growing "born again" church, but it has a big mission emphasis, which is where the woman developed many of her views. She has a brother who works as a missionary in Africa, and her daughter is in the Peace Corps in Ecuador. That gave her a much more global perspective than most conservative Christians have. While her church is quite anti-Catholic and probably thinks that Congregationalists are going to hell, we actually had a surprising amount in common. She was surprised and pleased that I had just gotten back from Peru, and we spent much of the trip discussing the similarities and differences of Ecuador and Peru.

I had an easy drive until I actually got to the Twin Cities, which I hit just at rush hour (a little before 7:30). Things still moved well on 35-E, but when I exited onto state highway 77, everything came to a standstill. [My companion] had been hoping to make a 7:30 flight to Seattle, but it became clear when we slammed on the brakes that wasn't going to happen. Fortunately her destination, Seattle, had frequent flights. However she was hoping to meet her mother at MSP and join her for the trip. Mom would likely have to fly alone, and hopefully they'd gotten a message to her about the problem.

I dropped [the woman] off in front of the Lindbergh Terminal about five minutes after her flight was scheduled to depart. The clerk in Mason City had, however, also guaranteed her a seat on the 9:30 flight, and she was in plenty of time to make that. After leaving her I headed over to the Humphrey Terminal (where parking is two-thirds the price, though still extremely expensive) and made my way up to the fourth level of the parking ramp. I took the elevator downstairs and made my way down the long walkway that connects the parking ramp to the vaguely nearby light rail station. A train arrived before long, and I headed back to the Lindbergh Terminal.

While the light rail is not particularly convenient to the Humphrey Terminal, it is extremely well located at Lindbergh. It's beneath a parking ramp, and from it escalators lead directly up to the skyway security checkpoint which is halfway between the C and G concourses, the two busiest areas in the airport. A pleasant black woman checked my ID, and I made my way without incident through security and into the skyway-one of the easiest security checks I've had in a long time.

Had things gone as planned with the flight to Mason City, I'd probably have taken the train into the city to have breakfast. While that still probably would have been possible, with the delay of driving, it might have pushed time just a bit. So I decided instead to have breakfast at the airport, an affordable proposition since they now require all the concessionaires to charge the same prices they do elsewhere in the area. The nearest place that wasn't fast food was Chili's. That seemed an unlikely choice for breakfast, but it actually worked out quite well. In addition to bizarre Tex-Mex choices (which no one south of the border would eat for any meal, let alone breakfast), they offered a "classic breakfast platter" of ham, eggs, and hash browns-precisely what I would have ordered if I'd gone into town. They also had truly excellent coffee, and the price (just over $10, including tip) was reasonable.

On the way north [the woman accompanying me] had borrowed my cell phone to call her husband and let him know what was going on. I'd placed the phone in the cup holder of my car after she used it, and I realized while having breakfast that I'd left it there. (I'd also left my camera at home, a problem that couldn't be easily solved.) So I went back past security and took the light rail back to Humphrey, made my way up to level 4, and got the phone out of my car.

Since I still had a bit of time to kill, I decided to check out the Humphrey Terminal, a place I'd never been before. Whenever I've flown through MSP it's either been on Northwest or on a "Sky Team" airline like Continental, all of which use the mammoth Lindbergh complex. Every other airline (some you've heard of and many you haven't) uses one of just a dozen gates at Humphrey. This is a much more laid back facility, but it would also be a much duller place to wait for a plane. I just walked around a bit and used the restroom. Then I made my way back to the light rail station.

I didn't really want to embarrass or call attention to myself by going through the same security checkpoint twice in rapid succession, so I took the underground tram from the Lindbergh light rail station to the main terminal and used one of the primary checkpoints. The guy who was IDing people did a double-take when he saw I already had initials on my boarding pass, but he just initialed it again and let me pass. The line was a little longer here, but again I got through with no real problem.

Breakfast and backtracking to the parking ramp had used up most of the time before my flight. I got to the gate about fifteen minutes before they started boarding the plane. We departed essentially on time, and we had an uneventful flight down to Nashville. We arrived well ahead of schedule, but we spent forever taxiing. Indeed the runways at BNA (Berry Airfield at Nashville) are literally miles away and across a major highway from the terminal. I finally got off the plane about twenty minutes after we'd touched down.

Nashville is a small, boring airport. That surprised me a bit, since last summer I'd flown through Memphis. Memphis comes across as a much smaller city than Nashville, but its airport is a major hub. BNA isn't a hub for anyone, and even though Nashville is a major city its airport is remarkably similar to Des Moines. On arrival that was basically a good thing, because it made it easy to make my way down the concourse, through the terminal, and down to the rental car facility.

I waited a while for someone to show up at the Alamo desk. Eventually a girl arrived, and when she checked my reservation she asked if I wouldn't like "something roomier" than the economy car I'd reserved. I said "no" quite emphatically, since with gas at near record prices this summer, I didn't want to spend a dime more than I needed to. It turned out they had no "economy" cars in stock, so I involuntarily got a complimentary "upgrade" to the "compact" class. I was given the key and electronic door opener (a concept I still fail to see any advantage to) for a silver-colored Chevy Cobalt, a car I truly hated. In addition to the awkward door lock, it had a spoiler that blocked the view out the rear window. The car was quite cramped inside, yet it sucked gas like nobody's business-getting not much more than 20mpg-and was like a boat to park. The speedometer was marked off in 20mph increments, which made it next to impossible to determine exactly where standard limits like 55 or 70 were. About the only good thing about the car was that it accelerated quickly, probably the reason the mileage was so bad.

The rental cars at BNA are stored in an awkward little lot located on a steep hill behind the terminal. I found my assigned vehicle and had to gun the engine to make my way up the slope to the exit. The exit from the airport was strange and awkward. It was definitely the back way to the place. That was actually good, though, because it let out on Donnelson Road and Harding Place, the location of the motel I'd be staying at on the end of this trip. I was pleased to scope out that place (and find it was only 5 or 10 minutes from the airport) as I made my way to the freeway.

I exited onto I-24, an immense and incredibly busy interstate. While I was nowhere near downtown, the freeway was eight lanes wide, and it stayed that way as I passed through suburb after suburb after suburb. There was lots of traffic, but it cruised right along at almost exactly the 70mph speed limit. Eventually I crossed highway 840, the brand new "outer belt" they've built about forty miles out from the Grand Ole Opry. I-24 narrowed to four lanes there, and I entered Murfreesboro, which is essentially the end of metropolitan Nashville.

I turned off onto US 231 at Murfreesforo and followed an alleged "scenic route" south from there. I've traveled across Tennessee on at least four different U.S. highways now, and they're all pretty much the same. Far from scenic, they're basically suburban strips all the way across the state. Murfreesboro, Shelbyville, and Fayetteville are each twenty-five miles from the next on the map, and none of them appears all that big. They're essentially one big strip of a city, though. Coming from the Midwest, my brain thinks towns should have definite beginnings and ends. That's definitely not the case further east, though. It's only about 65 miles from Murfreesboro down to the Alabama border, but it took about an hour and a half to make the drive-with most of it on a four-lane highway. Only the final stretch around Fayetteville had anything interesting to look at (the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains); the interstate was far more scenic.

A lot of the problem is that virtually all southern towns are essentially suburbs with no real town there. They grew first from white flight and then from the influx of Yankees who came south in search of jobs. Today virtually everyone in Dixie lives in a housing development of some sort, and virtually all the business is on a strip like highway 231. Most of the towns do have a "historic center", though they're almost all tiny and there's not much going on in any of them. The strip is the happening place, and it doesn't seem to care where one town ends and the next begins.

There was a brief break in the urban sprawl just past the Alabama border. It picked up again about ten miles south of there at Meridianville, and from there it was fifteen miles of suburban development into Huntsville (itself a place that is more suburb than city-even though it's bigger than Des Moines). Highway 231 becomes Memorial Parkway in Huntsville, and I stopped at the corner of Memorial and University (though there's no college anywhere nearby that I know of) at a place called Books-A-Million. There probably are a million books in the enormous store, but there selection still seemed remarkably limited. Give me Borders any day.

I went west a couple miles on University, missing my turn-off and having to turn around. Eventually I managed to turn into the Comfort Inn, which had numerous signs saying it was soon to be a Quality Inn. That's not really a good thing (the mis-named Quality is definitely lower on Choice Hotels' totem pole than Comfort), but I'd stayed here before, so I knew what I was in for. I parked in front and made my way inside.

Choice Hotels has recently started participating in the Scrip program; that is, they sell their gift cards at a discount as a way of supporting the school. I'd bought some Choice gift cards and planned to use them to pay for my stay in Huntsville. The old man at the desk was perfectly willing to accept them, but his expression made it clear he'd never actually seen the things before. He asked if it would be all right if I got settled in my room and he called me once he had things figured out. That was fine with me, so I took the key and made my way to the room.

I turned on the TV to the game show network and listened to it as I cleaned up a bit. Eventually the guy from the desk called and said I could get my receipt whenever I wanted. I went down there and was pleased to see that Choice lists gift cards as just that on the folio, making it clear they were properly applied. (I'd stayed at a Fairfield Inn earlier this summer, where gift cards were listed as if they were Visa cards, making it difficult to interpret the folio and in the end screwing up the bill there.) 

I went down the street to a Walgreen's store, where I picked up some snacks and drinks as well as a couple of postcards. I also bought the Huntsville paper, where I learned that last night Brad Nelson had hit a home run and a sacrifice fly. That was not really a surprise. I don't think I could count the times I've just missed seeing Brad have an outstanding game. The very first time I saw him back in Beloit he had hit a walk-off homer in the previous game, and when I was in Des Moines Memorial Day weekend, where he hit two home runs while I sweltered through my niece's graduation-and I saw a game the following day where the best he could manage was a walk.

It was a little after 4pm when I got back to the hotel and collapsed in the air conditioning. I flipped on the Discovery Channel and watched one of my favorite shows, Cash Cab. This is a game show that takes place in a New York City taxi. While the cabbie drives them to their destinations, the customers answer a variety of trivia questions. If they get three questions wrong, they must get out wherever they are at that time. After Cash Cab ended, a show called How It Is Made came on. The concept of that show sounded interesting, but in reality the Canadian-made documentary was deadly dull. I suffered through rather encyclopedic treatises on the manufacture of doors and paintballs and the mining of diamonds. The only interesting segment was about newspaper publishing. It was fascinating to see just how different things are today than they were when we toured the Des Moines Register's plant back when I was a kid in 4-H.

Around 6:00 I left for the ballpark. Like everything else in Huntsville, Joe Davis Stadium is located on a tacky suburban strip, with little other than an Applebee's anywhere nearby. While it's not much more than five miles from the motel, it took about fifteen minutes to get there. I paid $4 for the privilege of parking in their lot (not that there was a choice to do anything different), claimed the complimentary ticket Brad had left in my name, and made my way inside.

I found the section where my seat was located. My seat was toward the middle of Section F, but I took a seat on the aisle in the back row. An usher scolded me and said I might have to move if someone needed that seat. I grunted a reply and kept my place. While I'd certainly have been willing to move, it would be most unlikely that the need would arise. The park in Huntsville rarely fills up, and this particular section is one of two that are mainly used for conp tickets. Being behind a screen, it's a lot less popular than the open sections where fans can catch foul balls. It does afford an outstanding view of the field, though.

When the Huntsville Stars started to come out of the dugout I made my way down a few sections to the aisle next to the dugout entrance. A different usher scowled at me, but I just stood there and nursed a drink while I waited for Brad to make his way out. It turned out he was one of the last to come out, but when he did he saw me and waved me down to the gate. We had a nice chat, and the usher seemed relieved when he found I actually knew a player.

I found out Brad would not be starting tonight's game. They'd been platooning him lately, starting him only when the opposing pitcher was right-handed. That's actually pretty stupid, since although he bats left-handed, Brad's batting stats are actually better against lefties than righties. It's also awkward (though very common) when a player has been struggling to make him take the bench, because it means he doesn't get the practice he would otherwise. I commiserated with Brad about not starting and conveyed my hope that he might at least pinch hit in the game. I wished him good luck and then made my way back to section F while he went out on the field for warm-ups.

I bought a hot dog and asked for a souvenir glass of pop. The guy at the concession stand didn't really understand my order and tried instead to give me a souvenir beer stein filled with Diet Pepsi. He asked someone else how much that should cost, only to find out it was impossible to get pop in a beer glass. What I actually wanted was what they simply call a large soda, which automatically comes in a Huntsville Stars souvenir cup. That cost $3, which makes it one of the cheaper concessions in professional baseball.

Brad's girlfriend ... was in Huntsville for a week-long visit, and she invited me to join her for the game. I felt a bit out of place joining her and the other wives and girlfriends, but it provided an interesting perspective on the game. ... The girls mostly spent the game talking about "girl things", in particular the lack of good shopping opportunities in northern Alabama. ...

It turned out Brad did not play at all in this game, which ended up being a frankly boring pitcher's dual. While I do like baseball, I must confess that it's much more interesting when I actually know the people who are playing. Most of the people Brad started out with are no longer playing professionally (something that makes Brad stand out, even when he is having a bad season), and I didn't recognize a single name among tonight's starters. The game did go fairly quickly, and the Stars ended up with a win-something very rare for them this season.

After the game I waited with the wives and girlfriends outside the clubhouse door. While I waited a kid was practicing fielding balls by throwing them against the stadium wall and dashing to wherever they would bounce to. Meanwhile a young Hispanic woman was hushing her small child (likely one of the players' children) who seemed tired and hungry. Eventually Brad came out, and we talked a bit more. Then I made an excuse and went on my way. I had no particular plans for the evening, but I certainly didn't want to be a fifth wheel. ... Brad's done a great job of entertaining me other times I've seen him, and there was no reason he needed to do so now.

I was wide awake and still a bit hungry when I got back to the hotel, so I went across the street and had a late dinner (chili, ham, and hash browns) at a Waffle House. The food was overpriced and not particularly good, but Waffle House is always a fun experience. After eating I made my way back to the hotel and settled into bed.

FRIDAY, JULY 14, 2006 - Northern Alabama (Huntsville & Birmingham)

I slept in until 7:30 this morning, which is quite late for me on a trip. When I had stayed here before there was a small continental breakfast available in a room off the office. Perhaps they still have that service, but I couldn't find it. That was no big deal, though, as hotel breakfasts rarely do much for me. I just showered and was on my way around 8:00.

I headed west on I-565, and eight-lane elevated monstrosity that is obviously some Congressman's gift to his district. I drove west to Decatur, where I turned south on I-65, the main road from Chicago to the Gulf Coast. I exited just a little ways south of there and had breakfast at a Krystal restaurant. Krystal primarily serves miniature square burgers, similar to those found at White Castle in northern cities. Unlike White Castle, though, they also serve a very complete (and very Southern) breakfast menu.

Ordering breakfast at Krystal was an exercise in choices. I got a laugh as I watched an elderly couple in front of me order, though I was glad they were there so I could learn the system. While most fast food places will have a set value menu, with substitutions only at additional charge, Krystal provides option after option after option. Each choice led to another decision, like a flow chart that finally yielded food at the bottom. I had the "classic diner breakfast", which was a platter of meat and eggs. I had to choose what meat I wanted (I chose country ham), how I wanted my eggs cooked (over hard), whether I wanted grits or hash browns (no question this Yankee would choose hash browns), what side dish I wanted (a biscuit with honey), and what beverage (coffee). There were also a number of potential add-ons, of which I chose orange juice. The whole meal was under $3, an amazing bargain these days. It was also most delicious, even if it did take forever to make my way through the flow chart.

As I continued southward, I noticed my gas was getting low. (I told you this car sucked gas incredibly fast.) I stopped into a BP station in Cullman, about halfway between Huntsville and Birmingham. The rather clueless middle-aged woman at the desk had obviously never seen gift cards before, but I managed to talk her through the process of redeeming it. I then got some more coffee at Jack's, a local fast food chain next door.

My destination today was Birmingham, one of very few places in the South that deserves the title of "city". While Birmingham's suburbs do sprawl on endlessly, there is a real city here. A real skyline, old factories, and brick rowhouses make the place seem more like Chicago or Philadelphia than Huntsville or Mobile. Birmingham was a real city a century ago, and it still comes across as an important place-much more interesting than most of the "urban" South.

What Birmingham isn't is an easy place to get around. It's built around several mountains where the mines that used to feed its steel mills were located. Because of the mountains there's not much in the way of through streets in Birmingham. My only map was from the Rand McNally atlas, and it showed only the most important streets. Once I exited the freeway, I just sort of ambled around until I found the places I wanted to see. Fortunately I was in no particular hurry. It took forever to get anywhere, but I had fun exploring the many parts of the city.

* * * * *

My [first] destination was one of Birmingham's most famous landmarks, the world's largest cast iron statue. Built for the St. Louis world's fair a century ago, the statue of the god Vulcan towers atop one of the mountains. There's a nice museum near the base of the statue that traces the history of Birmingham from its days as a company town for the steel industry through the civil rights movement and on into the present day. After seeing the museum, I went up in the glass elevator attached to the pedestal of the statue. The view from the top is very nice. I chose to walk down the steps of the pedestal, which I figured was much easier than walking up them.

I next made my way to the southeast part of the city, where I stopped at the Birmingham Botanic Center. While nothing spectacular, free admission made the botanic center worth a quick overview. It was hot, though, and the sprinklers everywhere made it very humid. I didn't dawdle, but I did enjoy looking at the flowers and trees for a while.

My next destination was by far the hardest to get to. I could see Sloss Furnace from the elevated freeway, but at ground level it took nearly half an hour to find a street that actually went to the place. I made my way across rugged railroad tracks and into this fascinating national historic site.

Sloss Furnace is an abandoned steel mill. It operated for most of the 20th Century and came into possession of the city of Birmingham when its operator went bankrupt. They in turn donated as a park ... (I'd bet so they didn't have to pay to clean up what was likely a toxic waste site), and today it is a monument to the industrial era. Visiting the place is free, and while they have guided tours, I found it easier to just walk around on my own and read the signs. It really is a fascinating place, the sort of thing my father would have loved. 

I headed back west to downtown Birmingham and drove around through the city's historic district. Most noteworthy there is the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a black church that was bombed as a reaction to the fight for civil rights. It gives some insight into how far the South has come in the past forty years that several times today I saw inter-racial couples , something no one would have even conceived of back in the '60s. Northerners often don't believe me when I say it, but really today race relations seem better in Dixie than they are up north. 

I headed northeast from Birmingham on I-59. This is a highway I'm very familiar with, though not this stretch of it. 59 runs from New Orleans to Chattanooga. When I was in graduate school, I'd often use the southernmost stretch of the highway to head from Hattiesburg to the Big Easy. It's about 250 miles from Birmingham to New Orleans, and if I'd had another day to play with I'd have loved to have gone down to Louisiana to check out what things were like nine months after the great hurricane. I gather New Orleans is in many ways a completely different place. ... eerily empty and almost totally under construction. While checking it out myself would have been interesting, it just wasn't practical on this quick getaway. So I headed the opposite direction, making a circle back towards Huntsville.

I had lunch at a Whataburger restaurant in Trussville Crossing, the place where Birmingham's beltway re-joins I-59. I then headed north through the mountains to Gadsden. I turned off there and entered another megalopolis that looks essentially rural on the map. Gadsden, Boaz, Albertville, and Guntersville form thirty miles of solid strip that runs from the mountains to the Tennessee River. U.S. highway 431 is four lanes through the region, but it still took about an hour to traverse the mess. At Guntersville I turned west on Alabama highway 69 (also four lane), which crossed through a pleasant rural area for the ten miles between there and Arab (AY-rabb). I turned north at Arab on highway 231 and made my way past the tobacco and corn fields that separate that city from Huntsville. My last stop of the day was at a dumpy little gas station in the middle of nowhere south of Huntsville. It was Vulcan brand gas, and after seeing the place's namesake statue earlier today, it seemed like an appropriate place to buy fuel. At $2.899 it wasn't the cheapest place I'd seen, but it wasn't the priciest either.

It was extremely hot this afternoon. Officially Huntsville's high temperature today was 99o, but my rental car had a thermometer on its dash that told me the outside temperature was 103o. I was certainly glad to be in a car with air conditioning, rather than my own base model vehicle.

* * * * *

I relaxed briefly at the hotel and then made my way back to the ballpark. I parked, went inside the stadium, and had a long chat with Brad before the game. A large part of our conversation centered on just how hot it was. My car thermometer still said 103o when I got to the stadium, and Brad said his vehicle registered a similar temperature. It was far from pleasant weather to be a fan at the stadium, and I couldn't even imagine being a player in a double-knit uniform with the sun beating down on the field.

* * * * *

Postgame fireworks meant there was a much larger crowd at the park tonight. The official attendance was around 8,000 in a stadium that seats around 10,000. That's certainly the largest home crowd I've ever seen Brad play before, and it may be the largest crowd anywhere (though Dayton, Des Moines, and Appleton, Wisconsin might challenge it). The crowd meant there was less choice of seating tonight. ... I went to the row where my assigned seat was located, but tried to space myself so I wasn't sitting next to other people in the heat. Unfortunately some family members of the Hispanic players showed up and filled most of the remaining seats in the row. I sweltered until about the fifth inning, when a front moved in and made things quite a bit cooler.

I had been intrigued by the souvenir beer stein they attempted to give me yesterday, and I decided today to have an overpriced beer and get one. That wasn't exactly the easiest process. In order to buy alcohol at Joe Davis Stadium, regardless of your age, you have to go to a special table and receive a wristband that says you're of legal age. That keeps the people at the concession stands from having to worry about carding people. The guy at the wristband table had never seen an Iowa license before, and I gather they must look quite a bit different from Alabama licenses. He spent quite a bit of time looking at it. I suppose I should be flattered that he didn't just give me a once over, see I was double legal age, and give me a wristband. It ended up taking long enough to be rather annoying, though.

I was sitting behind the main "clubhouse boy", who had the night off as another young man took care of the players' needs. His assistant came to him several times during the game asking how he was supposed to deal with different requests. The primary request was for "ice towels", literally towels filled with ice that the players put on their shoulders to cool off while sitting in the dugout waiting to bat. The new kid had obviously never heard of such a thing before, and the main guy had to explain what needed to be done and that he needed to get ice from the concession stands.

Brad did start tonight, and he had a very outstanding play at first base. It was one of those Sportscenter catches, where he practically fell into the dugout getting to the ball. At the plate he walked three times, which is not a bad thing but does nothing to help his stats. In about a week he'd be removed from the Brewers' forty-man roster, one of the biggest set-backs in a very frustrating season. There is still a lot of hope for his future, though. If he had gone to college, he'd likely be in his first year of professional ball now. He's way past that, and a good season next year would put him right back on track.

It started pouring in the ninth inning, and I got thoroughly soaked as I watched the final outs. I skipped the fireworks (as did most of the crowd) and again joined the wives and girlfriends by the clubhouse door. Tonight two parents were teaching their kids baseball skills. One was practicing pitching, throwing the ball at the concourse wall and using one of the cement blocks in that wall as a "strike zone". His mom served as an umpire, calling balls and strikes based on how close he came to hitting that cement block. Meanwhile a ways down the concourse a father was playing catch with his son, who seemed about as talented at baseball as me-that is, not at all.

Brad came out fairly quickly and we talked for a while as we waited for a break in the rain. It intrigued me that in AA, the players wear basically casual clothes off the field. Brad was in a polo shirt and cargo shorts, very similar to what I was wearing myself. In AAA he'd be fined if the coaches saw him looking so "sloppy" in public. The AAA players, practicing to be big leaguers, are required to wear suits or sports jackets when they go to or from the park. That's true even on the hottest days of summer.

David Burrow and Brad Nelson (photo taken earlier in the season when
the Nashville Sounds played at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha)

When the rain let up a bit, Brad told me to come over to his car. There he presented me with a Pepsi catcher's mitt the team had given out as a promotion a while ago. Two years ago he gave me a Pepsi fielder's glove, so this completes the set. He thanked me for coming down, and then we both said our goodbyes. I made my way back to the hotel and turned in fairly early.

SATURDAY, JULY 15 - Huntsville, Alabama to Nashville, Tennessee

I was up around 7:30 and checked out of the motel by 8:15. I drove east on U.S. highway 72, the main route across northern Alabama. I stopped in Scottsboro, the next place of significance east of Huntsville, where I had breakfast at a Huddle House restaurant. I then checked out the Unclaimed Baggage Center, where I picked up a couple of shirts and a gym bag. I've described the place in other travelogues, so there's no reason to go into detail here. It's certainly not a destination in itself, but if you happen to be in northern Alabama, it's worth a side trip.

I got some coffee at Scottsboro's Krystal and set off on my way again. I drove north to South Pittsburg, Tennessee ... [and then] set off west on I-24. If anyone reading this should have a reason to be in Tennessee, by all means avoid the scenic routes and limit your travel to the interstates. Not only are they much better highways, but they're much more scenic than the old roads. Interstate 24 between Chattanooga and Nashville is just about the most attractive highway I've driven on anywhere; it's right up there with the roads in Alaska. The highway weaves through the mountains and their foothills, with forests and meadows and commanding views of the countryside. Most of the time the time the two halves of the highway are not visible from each other. It's a really gorgeous road.

I got to Nashville around noon and pulled into the parking lot of the Motel 6-Nashville Airport, an enormous aging accommodation that has been maintained surprisingly well. One nice thing about Motel 6 is that it's easy to check in early. At a better hotel they're likely to tell you rooms won't be available until 3:00, but here people leave early in the morning, so there was no problem in getting a room at noon. I paid my bill (less than $40, including tax, about as cheap as any motel anywhere is these days) and made my way around to the back and up to the third floor. The room was basic, but perfectly adequate. Motel 6 never claims to offer luxury, but it's rare to encounter a problem there either.

After cooling off a bit in the room and calling Margaret (who was home and answered her phone this time) I set off west on Harding Place. "Place" to me implies a cul de sac, but in Nashville Harding is a major thoroughfare between four and eight lanes wide. It's one of the main shopping and restaurant strips in the city, and I stopped along it for some Italian fast food at Fazoli's. It struck me as pricey, but I guess prices have gone up everywhere lately-even though the government keeps telling us there's no inflation. (There isn't if you buy things like computers, but boy are things "real people" buy getting expensive.)

My plan this afternoon was to visit the Nashville Zoo, which was located about three miles west of my motel. I found the place easily enough, parked without any problem, made my way to the gate, and paid the $9.50 admission. I can't say I really got $9.50 worth of enjoyment out of the place, though. My car again said it was over 100o out, and while I never saw an "official" temperature, I can certainly attest that it was most hellish. The Nashville Zoo is almost entirely outdoors, and just walking from one exhibit to another was more than I really wanted to do. The animals, sensibly enough, were mostly hiding in shelters, out of the sun and out of view. I spent about forty-five minutes sweltering in the heat and then drove back to the motel and collapsed for the afternoon.

Late in the afternoon I made my way west again and ended up in a rather run-down area south of downtown Nashville. Oddly enough, this was intentional. I parked on the street and walked about two blocks to my next destination, St.. Patrick's Church. This is one of the oldest churches in the South. It looks like an old Victorian house on the outside, but inside it's a gorgeous Catholic house of worship. Saturday mass here was an interesting experience. The priest's name was actually Fr. Eric Fowlkes, but I took to calling him Father Bubba. Like most Tennesseans, he had an extremely strong hillbilly accent. He was almost certainly younger than me, and his casual air seemed more than a bit out of place in this historic church. He did a nice service, though. Today was an uneventful part of Ordinary Time, and the readings were less than memorable. He centered his homily around the gospel (Mark 6:7-13), which told of Jesus sending his disciples out and instructing them to take nothing with them but a walking stick. He noted that we in the modern world often get weighed down by material things and suggested we might figuratively limit ourselves to a walking stick as we journey in our faith.

This was the only Catholic church I've ever been to that made a point of acknowledging visitors. One reason I often go to mass while traveling even though I'm not Catholic myself is that most Protestant churches force visitors to introduce themselves, and in this attempt to be friendly they really make it very awkward to be a visitor. St. Patrick's actually made a nice compromise. At the end of mass the priest asked those who happened to be visiting to stand up. I rose, along with about a dozen other people. He didn't have us introduce ourselves or do anything more. He simply thanked us for coming to the service and wished us well in our travels. He also announced that the tradition of this church was to have adoration (prayer in front of a consecrated communion host) after mass and that those who didn't wish to stay should leave quietly. With that there was a mad rush to the door; I'm not sure if anyone at all stayed for adoration.

St. Patrick's was just a little ways south of my next destination, Greer Stadium. When I originally planned this trip, I purposely selected this weekend because both the Huntsville Stars and the Nashville Sounds were at home. That meant whether Brad was in AA or AAA at the time, I could see a home game. While I could have stayed in Huntsville to see one more game, I decided to come up here because I'd never seen a game in Nashville before. Brad had told me ahead of time not to expect much out of the stadium in Nashville, and he was certainly correct. When I wrote him later to thank him for his hospitality I noted that Greer Stadium was "pretty much a big, overgrown Beloit"-referring to obsolete Pohlman Field where he had played in A-ball back in 2002. The Beloit Snappers are now a Minnesota Twins affiliate; the Brewers now play A-ball in a brand new park in Charleston, West Virginia. Their AAA park is certainly nothing to write home about, though.

Greer Stadium's first problem is its location. It's in a neighborhood of warehouses and factories where gentrification isn't even remotely on the radar. The location gives it plenty of free parking, but there's not much else to recommend it. The stadium itself is a concrete shell that seems to literally be crumbling down. The concrete surrounds a rusted metal grandstand filled with faded blue plastic seats, most of which are permanently in the "down" position. The only noteworthy feature in the place is a guitar-shaped scoreboard (this is Nashville after all). Supposedly if a player hits the scoreboard, they win a free guitar from a local dealer.

The Sounds have tried for years to get a new stadium. Earlier this year they had gotten approval to build a new park downtown that would open for the 2008 season. Since then there have been funding issues, though, and now it looks like Greer will be the team's home until at least 2010.

While it's not much to look at, Greer Stadium is a fan-friendly place. That's something other AAA parks (most notably Des Moines) could take lessons from. Tickets are reasonable (ranging from $10 for the best seats in the house down to $6 near the foul poles), and with inexpensive concessions and free parking it's just about the cheapest AAA park I've been to (again I wish Des Moines would copy them).

The concessions at Greer Stadium are apparently leased out to area service groups. The one I patronized was staffed by a church that was raising money for its youth group. The have a wide variety of concessions here. If you can eat it without silverware, it's probably for sale at Greer. I stuck to fairly traditional ballpark fare, but I could have had such diverse selections as sushi and cinnamon buns. They also have numerous bar drinks, mostly mixed with Jack Daniel's whiskey.

The National Anthem this evening was dreadful. An overweight black woman "emoted" the song, warbling each note and stretching out the end of each line endlessly. It reminded me of an episode of The Simpsons where a ballpark anthem lasts a full twenty minutes. There's something that just seems anti-patriotic in calling so much attention to the anthem.

The game tonight was officially one for the record books. The papers reported the next day that three Sounds pitchers (only one of whom I'd ever heard of) combined to throw a no-hitter. While I don't mean to slight their accomplishment, they had a lot of help from the umpire. He called pretty much every pitch a strike, including one that almost hit a guy in the face. When a high, inside 
pitch is a strike, it's hard to get a hit. I saw eight different guys strike out on three straight pitches. To his credit, he called a close game both ways, but I can't say he called it particularly well.

The Sounds have an interesting tradition at the seventh inning stretch. In addition to "Take Me Out to the Ballgame", they play the Tennessee classic "Rocky Top" :

This was one of numerous "country" references during the game. Here in one of America's largest cities the biggest crowd reaction came when they played songs like "Cotton Eyed Joe" and "Thank God I'm a Country Boy". Tennessee is a weird place that way. Pretty much no one here actually is a country boy, but they all think they should be.

They gave out coupons for free White Castle "slyders" at the game because there had been at least ten strike-outs. Since Nashville is the only market in the country where White Castle and its clone Krystal compete, I decided to go to both places and compare their wares. It was easy to find a White Castle; one was just a few blocks south of the park. Krystal was another matter, though. Having not seen one on my way into town, I drove west on Harding Place to I-65 and then headed south from there. Before I knew it I'd come to highway 840, the beltway that is way south of the city proper. The beltway is almost totally undeveloped, and I followed it eastward for almost thirty miles through nothing but forest before ending up back in Murfreesboro. I then drove north on I-24, finally stopping at a Krystal about five miles south of the Motel 6. I will say that by the time I got to Krystal I was actually hungry again. ...And, by the way, for my money, Krystal is definitely superior in the little square burger business. Their mustard-covered burgers are tarter and less greasy than the northern competition.

I bought gas one last time at the Exxon station next to Motel 6 and then settled in for the night. I'd have an early departure tomorrow, and I wanted to get a good night's sleep.

SUNDAY, JULY 16, 2006 - Nashville, Tennessee to Algona, Iowa

I was up about 5:30 this morning and quickly showered and took my stuff down to the car. While I left at 6:00, I was far from the first person out this morning. It amazes me just how early Motel 6 patrons travel.

I drove back to the airport and found the rental return area with no problem. Unfortunately the return process in Nashville is complicated. That's because they have a central return area for all the different car rental companies. Since each company has different policies, the combined employees are slower at checking people in than the single company return staff found at most airports.

I made my way up to the ticketing area and attempted to use one of Northwest's self check-in machines. The machine recognized my reservation, but unfortunately it tried to check me all the way to Mason City, rather than just to Minneapolis. A man was monitoring the machines, mostly checking baggage for customers. He saw I was having problems and offered to help. I think he probably regretted doing that, because manual check-in ended up being a long, slow, awkward process. There was apparently a notation in my record that the segment from MSP to MCW had been cancelled, but he still couldn't get the computer to recognize that when issuing a boarding pass and checking luggage. Eventually his supervisor gave him detailed directions, and after spending about twenty minutes at the counter I was on my way.

Security was uneventful, and once on the secure side of the airport I had about an hour to kill. The only restaurant that was open was a Mexican place that mostly served what they called "breakfast quesadillas" (eggs, hash browns, salsa, and cheese pressed inside a flour tortilla). That really didn't sound terribly appetizing, so I instead opted for what they called a "breakfast platter", which included bacon, eggs, and a very stale biscuit. Nothing at this place was cheap. The breakfast platter was $8.99, and with coffee and tax my bill was nearly $12. The food wasn't very good either; this was unquestionably the worst meal I had on this trip.

About the time they should have started boarding, they announced there was "a minor mechanical problem" that would create a slight delay. We ended up boarding about half an hour later, roughly the time the plane was scheduled to take off. The flight was entirely full, and I was seated next to a very obese woman. Fortunately I was on the aisle, so I had a bit more room than I otherwise would have. The flight to Minneapolis was uneventful, and we arrived essentially on time.

I had checked the gym bag I bought at the Unclaimed Baggage Center, which I'd filled with various souvenirs. I made my way to baggage claim but had a long wait before anything from out flight started to be unloaded. Indeed they put two other flights on the designated carousel before anything from Nashville showed up. Fortunately mine was among the first bags from Nashville that came out. I grabbed it and made my way to the light rail station. I finally left the Humphrey parking ramp about an hour after landing in Minneapolis.

I made my way down 35-E to Burnsville, where I stopped at a Kwik Trip for gas. It was hellishly hot as I headed southward, and I stopped again at a Dairy Queen in Fairbault, partly for a bite of lunch but mostly to cool off. From there I had an uneventful ride home, arriving in Algona mid-afternoon. It was a pleasant getaway, and a nice way to break up the summer.

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-2006 davidmburrow@yahoo.com