Pizza, Wings and Stranger Things 2019 Day 11

[wizzo]

Day Eleven – 21st August 2019

THE INDEX IS HERE

I was awake shortly after 7am this morning looking for cheap Rays tickets. Knowing there was a lunchtime game today I’d talked the family into going again. This was no mean feat given that Lynn doesn’t like sport of any sort really and we were going to watch the Buccaneers in a couple of days’ time but over the years even Lynn has warmed to baseball (it’s the beer and food really). My search for tickets was fruitless good seats were still expensive so I decide that we would just get tickets at the park and go and sit in the out-field in the hope of a home run ball instead. We’ve always sat behind home plate in the past and it will be good for the girls to get a different appreciation for the game at the other side of the field.

Anyway, back to today, it’s basically a beach day with some sport. So knowing that we were headed to the ballpark at lunchtime we were up early and into IHOP by 8am.







I don’t expect you to remember but Lynn and I got ‘Split Decision’ for about the 12,000th time each. You can’t mess with perfection! Lauren got Nutella crepes and Maddy got stuffed French toast. The photos below are from this morning but in future trips I really might as well just use previous years’ now!











My noted only say ‘Beach till 11am’ here so you will have to make do with a selection of photos. Oh hang on…..there’s only one!




I think you’ll all agree that I’ve excelled myself there with the photos and videos from three hours at the beach! 😊

Don’t worry we go back to the beach later and I appear to have captures a little more than this morning!

Shall we go to the ballgame then?



As you can see outfield tickets were soon secured for this 1:10pm game against the Seattle Mariners and our view looked like this.





As always with Rays games, there were plenty of seats! To be fair they had a good season this year and made the playoffs but they just don’t have the support in St Pete and may well move soon.

We narrowly missed a ball during warmup that ended up a couple of rows away. For a second I thought it was coming straight for me but it ended up with some college students behind us.

The Rays starting pitcher was a pitcher who was previously with my team (Pirates) and since leaving has improved immeasurably! That’s sport I suppose. So it meant I had an interest in seeing him pitch and he pitched well, particularly in the opening innings. Beers were drunk, hot dogs, corn dog nuggets and popcorn were consumed, and life was good.

Photos 14 to 24 (Not 23)























We narrowly missed a home run ball later in the game too. It sailed over our heads and the same college kids scampered over the seats to get it. Luckily for us they were nice lads and gave their earlier ball to Lauren and Maddy so they came away with a genuine MLB souvenir.



The game itself was the best game we had seen at Tropicana Field it was tight all the way with the Rays keeping in front until the top of the 9th inning when they went behind for the first time in the game. Just as it looked liked they had blown it they rallied in the bottom of the 9th and won in exciting fashion on a walk-off wild pitch (I haven’t got time to explain that if you aren’t a baseball fan).

It was a great end to the game and although the roof didn’t come off it was the loudest we’d ever heard ‘The Trop’

We headed home and were back at the hotel shortly after 5pm. We headed straight back to the beach. Queue better photos…..







In recent years Maddy has become obsessed with finding clams on St Pete Beach. Not massive clams, tiny clams. She’s bloody good at it too. If you’ve ever seen the Disney short ‘Piper’ you will recognise these little fellas. She scoops them up and watches them wriggle back into the sand (out of the way of the sand pipers that watch her do it!)







As the sun was beginning to set we headed back to the room for showers, beers on the balcony and then down to Bongos.





We were still full of ballpark snacks in truth so instead of ordering meals we had a table full of shareables instead. It was lovely (particularly the clam chowder – Sorry Piper! )













The end of another fantastic day. Let’s face it, if a day has beer and sport in it, it’s always a good one! We sat and watched the sun go down. More beers before a night cap of a Strawberry Daiquiri for Lynn and a Mudslide for me.













Tomorrow – Two beaches, one Mad Fish

[darbs]

Lovely day and beautiful weather by the look of it!

[FLAFantastic]

My kind of day! Perfick!

❤

[jobelly]

We had the same day as you that day other than the trip to the baseball, it really was perfect beach weather!

[Milner]

Lovely day.

[margyloveswdw]

Great day!

[mick]

Lovely day and great photos

Joan