Veterans Day: Who Will Stand // Bloggers Unite

Today is Veteran's Day. I've been fortunate to never have a family person who served in the military other than an Uncle in WWII who served state side.
But lately there are so many serving, you can't help but meet many who do have friends and family serving.

Let's take some time to Thank those who are and have served.



Also, check this site out too.

Veterans Day: Who Will Stand // Bloggers Unite

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B

Red Sox vs the Washington Nationals 6/23/09

Last Tuesday was my husband's birthday. Our son-in-law had obtained two tickets for that night for the Boston Red Sox vs the Washington Nationals. They asked if we would like to go as a birthday present for him. I could go along too.

So, as I told about yesterday, we took the train to DC so we could see the game Tuesday.

If you read the post you know about the Metro accident in DC. (Actually, you need to be hiding under a rock if you live in the US to not know about that whether you read my post or not) My daughter lives about 30 minutes (according to Google maps) from National Park. Hmm... try 1 and 1/2 hours! We missed the first two innings. The score was 1-1 when we got there. So she dropped us off and went back home. (only to have to come back at the end of the game) We have a great daughter! Fortunately, neither her ride back home nor picking us up and returning again were that bad. The lack of Red line service sure did mess up traffic. We were, however, able to do some sightseeing as we crawled along. We saw the back of the White House, the Capital, Washington Monument and lots of other famous buildings.

It is common for the Red Sox to draw lots of fans on the road. I would guess it was about 50-50. Certainly by the noise maybe more or maybe Red Sox fans are just louder. Up to the 7th inning the score was very close. Then the Sox got to former Sox pitcher, Julian Tavares. Tavares is one of my favorite former pitchers. A really likable character. The final score was 11-3.

The attendance was a record for the Nationals (only to be broken in each of the next two games in the series)



We had great seats in the President's Club. Between home plate and the Red Sox dugout. And right below us was Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. White shirt and full head of gray hair. We watched as he talked with many people who came by to say hello.




The National's Park is really nice. There are lots of things going on. So much so, it is sometimes hard to watch the game. The score board is huge and it takes several innings to find all the information available.



I guess you can tell that we had a good time. The Sox won the game on Wednesday before another record crowd. They lost on Thursday, again to another record crowd. The National's owners really like to have the Red Sox and other good teams come to town, except for the fact that they are having a loosing season.

When we were leaving the park, being on the third level, all down elevators were full coming down. One of the employees directed us to get on when the elevator stopped going up and come back down. So we pushed to the back and went up. More got on at each level until we reached the top. Then two more squeezed on. We recognized them, Don Orsillo and Dave Roberts. They were doing the play by play for NESN (New England Sports Network) The Boston broadcasters.
Fun to see them in person. They often talk about how they quickly get out of the ball parks to head home after the games. Dave Roberts made "The Steal" in the 9th inning of Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS against the Yankees. The Sox went on to win the ALCS and the World Series. First since 1918. They made their quick exit before we could see any more of them.

So, off we went to meet our daughter and go home (local home) after another great day.

B


www.bevsjewelry.com and www.bevsjewelry.1000markets.com

Amtrak trip from Boston to DC

Monday, we took my grandson off to his last day of school. Then my daughter dropped us off at the railroad station and we were off to visit our oldest daughter near Washington, DC. The trip was very relaxing and seemed to go by quickly even though we were a half hour late. The ride along the NE corridor from Boston, MA to DC is fun to watch. The shore line in CT is full of moored sail boats, marshes, bridges and other picturesque views.

As you get close to NY City the landscape changes to buildings both industrial and residential. You do no get to see the skyline of the city as you go under it mostly. I took lots of pictures along the way.

Next big city was Philadelphia. We used to live in Downingtown, PA. Way back in the late 60's we went into Philadelphia on the 4th oh July. At that time, on the 4th, they opened the elevator so you could go up in Wm Penn's statue on top of City Hall. At that time, they did not allow any buildings to be taller than Wm Penn's statue. Boy has that changed! I wanted to get a picture of the statue because it certainly has been dwarfed! Taking a picture from a moving train is fun at best and this was a challenge. Trees got in the way, buildings got in the way of our view of the Philadelphia skyline. So I took lots of pictures. I think I got at least one of Wm Penn, small though he may be now.

If you look very closely, you can see City Hall with the statue of Wm Penn on the top on the very left of all the buildings.

The second part of this story is that soon after we went up, they no longer allowed anyone to go up in the tower. Probably because they had to take several "runs" to get all the way up to the top floor. It included asking several people to get off. My husband was one who climbed up to the floor above to allow the elevator to come up all the way. The view was great, however! But we were not surprised when they stopped.

Next came Baltimore and the next contestants for the Super Nanny show boarded. Enough said, you can fill in the blanks for yourself.

My daughter was waiting for us as we entered the main part of the station in DC. Then we had to find her car. Up one set of escalators, then another set that looked like it was going up to the sky. That was not the case as there was another set of equal height. Yep, we were on the top floor.

It was then that we found out that one Red Line Metro train had rear ended another train several hours before. The result was an extra mess in normal rush hour traffic. Many people were walking. Long story short, it took us a long time to get to our daughter's house. We eventually found out that 9 people were killed in the accident and has messed up DC's traffic for several days while the NTSB investigates the accident.

We then had a nice dinner, talked and caught up on the family news and off to bed.

B

www.bevsjewelry.com and www.bevsjewelry.1000markets.com

Wordless Wednesday