Shoptaw Family Vacation 4: The Grizzlies Game

It's been a heck of a long day by this point, and if it weren't for the fact that I was meeting up with some of the Clubhouse crew at the Grizzlies game, I might have thought about crashing in the hotel room. No time for that, though, as we dropped our Cardinal stuff off in the room, grabbed the keys and the directions, and headed for Illinois. Meron and Sarah, like they did when Benjamin and I went to the stadium, stayed at the hotel. It was the first hotel Meron had been to with room service, so that's what she did for dinner as a special treat.

My friend and URL member Mike was working as an intern for the Gateway Grizzlies this summer. The Grizzlies are an independent league team in the St. Louis suburb of Sauget, Illinois. (Interestingly, this meant that Benjamin made it to Illinois before Meron did, since she'd never been there until our travels the next day.) It seemed like the best place to meet the moderating talent of CardsClubhouse.

We follow our directions carefully and have no problems finding the stadium. Most of the gang is already there and have grabbed up the picnic table reserved in Benjamin's name, so David meets us at the gate, gives us our tickets, and leads us to the table. You can see our view in this picture:


Dana (msredbird51) was already there, hanging out with David and his family. Dana is dating Mike, so she did a lot of the arranging for tickets, etc. Not too long after we got there, the Big Guy, Wayne (Roark1138), the site creator and owner, appeared with his family.

Here they are, in their glory. (Well, David and Wayne, at least. Dana told me in no uncertain terms a picture of her better not appear up here.) David first, then Wayne.

We had a great time talking, eating, somewhat watching the game. It was pretty sticky and hot at the beginning of the evening, but a storm must have skirted the area, because the breeze picked up and the temperature dropped to reasonable levels. Between that and the cloud cover, it was the coolest I'd been all day, at least outside.

We even called Deb (NJCards), who was supposed to join us but got stuck with some BBQ thing. Benjamin played with one of David's son who had three small plastic caps and, using a water bottle top, was playing the "cap dance". Benjamin would keep guessing where the top was and loved it when he got it right.


After such a long day, though, we couldn't stay for the whole game, and the boy and I left around the fifth inning or so. Got in the van, got our directions and headed back for St. Louis in a routine (by now) experience. Um, not so much.

See, the last line in my instructions said "Get on I-70 ramp." While this seemed strange to me, I thought perhpas there would be a road off of that to get to the Sheraton's parking garage. Not so much. This, of course, is the whole reason I print out instructions, so a low-level panic hits me as I get back on the interstate, heading away from my hotel.

The next exit looks familiar, though (turns out it was the one I used to start our trip to the Grizzlies) and I take it. At the end of the ramp, though, it's decision time. Right or left. I choose left. Almost immediately I see a Hampton Inn, so I swing in to get directions. A security guard at the Hampton tells me I need to go straight down the street I'm on and I'll it it. Fair enough. I make the left turn eventually and head down the road.

What she didn't tell me (and probably didn't know) was that most of that street was blocked off for some sort of street fair. So I followed the traffic, looking for a cross street that would take me over the block I needed to go.

Once I did that, though, I saw that the street was blocked off that far as well. So I had to loop around a couple more times before I went far enough one way to cross the blocked-off street and get around to a street that would take me to the Sheraton. It wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, but it didn't do wonders for my mood, let me tell you.

What was helpful was that Benjamin fell asleep before all of this excitement, so I didn't have to listen to him ask me where we were going or get scared (if he would have). I roused him when I got back to the hotel and got him down to the room. Meron changed him into his pajamas and told him to get into the bed. This is as far as he got:

So, after being up for close to 20 hours, with blisters on my feet from all the walking, drenched clothes from all the sweating, and one worn-out kid, the day in St. Louis came to a close. Totally worth it! A great time, on the whole, and we are thinking about taking a family vacation up there one of these years.