Gwinnett Braves

 

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In the morning, I went back into Auburn, to walk around campus a bit and get a hat.  Very pretty campus, but boring football stadium. Just concrete from outside.  Onto the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site(not much) to the Tuskegee Institue NHS (George Washington Carver museum, nicely done).  Horseshoe Bend NMP, the site of Andrew Jackson’s battle against the Creek Indians(one of the last stands before the whites ran them off their land) was well done.  I’ve seen a variety of battlefields over the past couple of years, and it always amazes me how small they are.  I couldn’t imagine 5000 people there, let alone there at war.  Yikes.

So onto Gwinnett. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while, since my cousin Russ and his family live nearby.  So I met up with Russ and Brandon(age 8), and we got to the game just in time.  The stadium was average, nothing special.  Although it did have a 20 ft retaining wall behind LF, which didn’t allow for any lawn seating.  But plenty in RF, with a nice view of the bullpens.  It was great to see Russ and Brandon, and get to see a game with them.  Russ sure had fun.  He was up to no good, and talked to the MC, who does the between innings entertainment.  He told him about my trip, so I got announced about during the break, and my face on the big screen sitting next to the MC.  I didn’t have to answer any questions, but it was cool.  The Braves won.  The hat, as with other Braves’ affiliates, was a knockoff of the Braves’ tomahawk.  Kind of boring.  It was great to finally have someone to watch a game with!  Almost home…

Montgomery Bicuits

 

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Hitting the road, I jog off the direct route, to go through Florida for a few miles.    Upon coming into Montgomery, it is a nice city.  It has some good architecture downtown, at least around the capital where I went. I also saw MLK’s church.  It was a 2:05 game, and I was a little early, but headed to the park.  Right away, I liked it.  From the outside, it doesn’t even look like a stadium.  It looks like the old railroad station that it once was.  Going inside, there is nice wide concourse, and all the Biscuits (yes, that is there name) employees said “Hi, welcome”  The stadium didn’t really have a view of the skyline, bug it had a functioning train line within homerun distance out left field.  The rightfield wall also was odd, having a semicircle coming into the field.  The suites were also in the train station, so they looked unique from the field.  It also is a fun hat, with a biscuit peeking out from behind the M.  The game was good, with Montgomery winning 3-2.  There was hardly anyone there though, which was unfortunate.  It seems like it would be great if they had a full crowd.

Going on to my State park, I figured I would have a relaxing evening, but on the way there, I heard an Auburn baseball game on the radio.  Coincedentally, my campsite was about 5 minutes from their campus.  So I went to the game.  I got a ticket free from a passing motorist, which was good since it was packed.  This was an elimination game for the College World Series for Auburn, which was hosting their regional.  I had never been to a college baseball game before.  College baseball is not nearly as big up north.  But this was one of the most exciting games I have ever been to.  A back and forth game between Auburn and Clemson.  Auburn ended up getting a homerun in the ninth inning to win it, 11-10.  As you can imagine, the crowd went crazy.  The stadium was nice too, had a green monster type short leftfield. So add another game onto the list! 18 in 17 days so far.  Must have been karma from the rainout yesterday.

Huntsville Stars

 

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Well, I had some bacon and eggs, closed up camp and went on another cave tour.  This one had the cool formations.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to go on the ‘Wild Cave Tour’ where you actually have to have a helmet and headlamp, and their are size restrictions due to tiny passageways.  Maybe next time.

At Piggly Wiggly, I found Dr. Wham! great name, although Dr Pig would’ve been great too.  I am up to 4 Drs now.

Mileage: 94164

Tent down: 4:17

Tent up: 7:22 (There is dirt in the end of the poles that make it harder to stick on the corner pins)

So Huntsville.  Hopefully there are better parts than I am driving through.  A lot of commerce.  And not sparkly stuff either.  And the stadium fits in with that analysis.  It is there.  It is functional.  It is boring.  Huge though, can seat a lot of people.  Yesterday was a rainout, so today was a double header that started at 5, and had two 7-inning games.  I got there at about 5, and for the majority of the first game, there were 150 people there.  Weird  by itself, then add a big stadium and it is creepy.  I sat down the left field line for a while, and had 8 sections to myself.  I decided it was too far away, I think I could scrounge up another seat somewhere.  I got some food(a good Philly cheesesteak) and walked towards behind the first base dugout.  Right on cue, a foul ball gets hit over my head, bounces off an empty seat and comes down near where I am about to sit.  Thank you very much, almost a legit foul ball!  Now I just need to get one while it is still moving.  The in-game entertainment was spotty, the sound system fritzy and their big screen was turned off.  Weird game.  Nice classic hat though.