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Zachary's Birthday Trip Gallery |
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July 22, 2005 - For Zachary's birthday, we gave him a baseball ballpark gift. He had to choose which team he wanted to see and we would try to make it happen. He tackled it like a research project, reading about each park and team. Then he graphed each teams score. As each team was eliminated, he pulled their flag from the map. The top five were: St Louis (as this is the last year to see their park), Kansas City, San Diego, Boston, and Yankees. However, as all the St. Louis games were sold out, we went to the second team - Kansas City. This worked out great, as Kansas City was his favorite team last year.
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| When we arrived at the Holiday Inn at about 1am Saturday morning (Kansas City time), we were greeted with an air conditioner failure in many rooms of the hotel. So they sent us east about 7 miles to the new Hilton Garden Inn. So, this is where we spent our first night - and the air was nice and cool in our room. Another benefit to this is that we were able to discover many restaurants and shopping establishments, including the Independence Center in the nice little city of Independence. This is where we purchased Zachary's KC jersey.
Not used to the time, it took us awhile to get going in the morning. We slammed down some breakfast at the hotel restaurant (Zachary made his own waffle) and we headed for the Kauffman Stadium tour. We loaded up everything in the car to "move" back to the Holiday Inn.
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First stop on the tour, KC's personal hall of fame. Zachary knew no one and Eric just a few. By the end of our trip, Zachary knew of George Brette - but thought he was dead (...not yet at least).
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Kansas City is home of the Negro League's hall of fame and they hosted the KC Monarchs. Zachary received a light lesson on segregation, as it did not register. We heard that one of the Monarch legends was a one of our games that weekend.
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Now to the more tangible artifacts... The KC dugout. Zachary had fun here. Our tour guide (Majorie) is a college student and an extreme baseball junkie - put me to shame. In addition to the tours, she ushers the games - we saw her when we ran the bases on Sunday.
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View of home plate from the dugout.
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Let me out!!!
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Heading down the dugout stairs, we head to the warmup area.
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This area is air conditioned. During the game, the dugout might be empty as EVERYONE was warming up - I think not. Talk about cowards running from a little 101+F heat with humidity. Zachary had fun pitching here.
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This area was MUCH larger than the area provided for the visitors.
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And Zach kept pitching...
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View from home plate with its protective covering.
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Heading to the visitor's dugout. Zach's head is hot and itchy. Keeping his hat on presented a challenge at times.
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View of the park from the visiting bullpen.
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Zach pitching in the bullpen, until he felt that he was bit by something. No bite mark found though.
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Off to the interview room.
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Zachary had fun here. First he told about his game and then he started making noises (animal I think) into the live mike. Unknown to Zachary, the push of a single button, and the "pig" (I guess) noises could be broadcast anywhere.
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"Yes, I really did not like how they pitched around me..." Zach's press conference continues. This photo is proof that Eric was on the tour as well.
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| In the pavilion, they have a hot tub and dedicated food court area. The tub has a good view of the ball park. It was full on the Saturday night game but remained empty for the Sunday day game.
Do you know how tempting it was to push Zachary in... Boy, what self-restraint!!!
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The press room.
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Zachary is getting very tired from all the walking, the heat and the fact that it is difficult to translate these static objects into a real picture for him. Here, he could not comprehend the importance of the seat he was in. Eric, however, did comprehend and had a blast.
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The score keeper. This is where the hits, runs and errors are recorded and displayed for all to see (and possibly booo).
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The Kansas City Royals radio room. This is the mike (with cough button) by which the great plains listen to the Royals.
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Another view of the radio room. Zachary is tired - but we were able to see this flag from the field during the game, which was cool.
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The tour is over. Before heading to the hotel to recheck-in, took a picture of Arrowhead Stadium, where the Kansas City Chiefs football team plays. It was very clear from our stay here that the Oakland Raiders are not loved at all - this feeling was shared by our tour guide. Though the Royals are in town, KC is a football town.
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Kauffman Stadium.
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| After dumping our stuff at the hotel, we drove back to Kauffman Stadium to get autographs. This was the last time we drove to the stadium, as we were in walking distance.
Zachary's first autograph was by Jason Frasor, relief pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays.
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His last autograph was by Vernon Wells. We could not wait for these players in the shade and Zachary (though he did a great job in trying to be aggressive) just could not compete with 300 pound 30 year old fans. He said "Two's enough". So we took off for Independence to get some lunch.
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For lunch, Zachary chose Buffalo Wild Wings. We had a blast choosing our BBQ sauce flavor. Then we were able to chow in an air conditioned room while watching the St. Louis vs Cubs games (this was the game we would have been at) as well as lumberjack games and car racing. Boy, was lunch rough!!!
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Walking to our first game. Note, we now have KC hats, which we received from the tour.
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Pregame pose as players warm up.
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Now, off to the shade until the game starts. Zachary almost got a ball here.
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Off to the kids area. The lady over Zach's head works there and always recognized us where ever we were. I guess we really stood out.
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Swing and a miss.
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Okay, now I'm ready.
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Will it clear the fence??? Close!
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Wack!!!
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Time to run the bases.
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What!!! No slide!!!
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We made it to our seats in the 2nd inning. We had unobstructed seats, sitting on the fence in right field. The fountains were fun to watch through out the game.
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A foul ball came close to us. The ball boy gave it to Zachary.
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Other than falling apart in the 5th, KC had a great game. Zachary was quite bummed that he came so far to see them lose. But we had fun rooting for KC.
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After the game, we found a play structure at the park. Enough of that sitting in the sun - time to play!!!
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Hot dog - $5
KC Jersey - $40
Dragging your child to a foreign land in sweltering heat - $priceless.
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A Zachary photo as we head to the hotel.
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| The next day, we are back at the park. Our hotel room was hot last night, so we requested another room (3 nights, 3 rooms). The 3rd room was the coolest in temperature.
Notice that Zachary is now sporting the hat and jersey, which we purchased at the Independence Center. This must have done the trick, because his batting was far superior today. Nothing cleared the fence, but many came close.
Notice that there is no line behind Zachary. Today, we went first thing (2-hours before game time). The day before, we waited in line an hour!!!
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Running the bases one last time - this time much faster.
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Safe!!!
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Time to field some balls.
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Both days, this guy had the wet towel over his head.
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Off to pitching: 31, 34 and 35 mph. Zachary correctly guessed his last pitch speed and won a prize. 35 mph was the same speed he threw at the SF Giants stadium. The guns MUST be calibrated, right!!!
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Taking some swings at fast-pitch (35 mph). Yesterday, he was not used to the speed of delivery and barely touched the last ball. Today, he made contact or hit almost every ball. Three of the hits could have been for extra bases. Eric tried some hacks at the 55mph cage next door.
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Back to the Royals, Zachary is watching some pitchers warmup with long tosses.
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Sitting in the shade, before heading to our sunny seats.
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The KC mascot SLUGGERRR was awesome.
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Tired, but would not admit it :-)
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In our seats immediately behind home plate (4 rows back on the isle). This boy said "play ball".
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We really liked these seats. We could almost hear the managers talk about where they would eat after the game.
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Our view.
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Game over, we came from behind and won. Great game!!!!
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Photo of us all decked out.
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Not many people were at this game. But we had a blast. Eric purchased a huge lemonade for Zachary and told him what once it was gone, he could have a snow cone. Zachary's eyes bugged out in disbelief. But he drank it in 4 innings. He spent the rest of the game eating the huge snow cone. I guarantee that Zachary did not get dehydrated.
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Afterwards, we were able to run the bases.
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On your mark, get set, go!!! Zachary's biggest issue was that he wanted to run full speed, but there was just too much traffic.
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One final pose from the field and stadium!
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After the game, we had some time to spare. In looking at our choices, Zachary chose to go to President Harry S. Truman's house. It was quite lovely.
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Definitely a lot of parking space.
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Zachary's photo.
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This home was a few blocks away and was built in the early 1900s. This 4/5 bedroom house was one of the prettiest homes in this neighborhood. They were asking $189,000. Eric almost choked as this is a down payment in San Francisco.
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Time to eat. We found a Rain Forest Cafe on the other side of the city. Zachary became excited, as he would now be able to go to another state: Kansas. On this trip, he has already added Colorado and Missouri. The 8 states he has been in (in correct order): Arizona, California, Washington, Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, Missouri, and Kansas.
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Proof to Tina that we actually went to a mall.
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A photo at the Rain Forest Cafe. Zachary and Eric agree that San Francisco's was nicer. But this had a different setup and it was easier to see all the animals do their tricks.
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Returning to Missouri.
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Downtown Kansas City - on the Missouri side.
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Exploring - taking the Broadway bridge north towards Iowa. This is by a little airport. Freight trains and tracks are everywhere.
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The muddy Missouri river, as they affectionately refer to it. Later, we played catch on the banks, threw in rocks, touched the river (to say we had), watched a centipede at a safe distance and watched about 30 bats fly around and eat up a bunch of bugs.
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| The other side of down town Kansas City as viewed from the Missouri river at sun set. Our next stop was to return to the hotel, pack and sleep. Eric got up slowly at 4am (2am San Francisco time) and Zachary at 5am so as to make our 7am flight, which we did.
It was a wonderful trip. Tina and Renee met us at the curb and took Eric to work (now, was he productive?). A tired and energetic Zachary drove Tina nuts at home. But after 24 hours, we all settled down to our normal routine, whatever that is.
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