[It's pretty late and I'm tired, so no pictures today]
We started the day off in Cleveland with an early wake up call for the kids so we could get moving for our drive to Williamsport. The boys have been watching the Little League World Series each year, and for this trip I had planned on passing by Williamsport on the way home right near the end of this year’s World Series. We stopped by Williamsport last year, but it was after the Series had ended. I had looked up the schedule of games before we left on our trip, and the schedule for today called for a game at 4:00 and another at 8:00. The 4:00 game was to be the international semi-finals, and the 8:00 game was the US semi-finals. Most years getting into these games is no big deal. The tickets are free and it’s just first come first served if you want to sit in the stadium. However, this year was different.
Turns out that a team from nearby in Pennsylvania was still alive and would be playing in the 8:00 game. Normally, there are probably no more than 10,000 people at the games at this stage of the tournament. But since the PA team was really a home team, they have had huge crowds at each of their games. One game had over 41,000 people there. I read on the Little League web site last night that they decided to change the seating policy and actually give out tickets for the stadium. The catch was that they would be handing them out between 12-4 at the Little League Museum, which is adjacent to the stadium. Problem was, we were about 300 miles away in Cleveland, and there was no realistic way we could be there by noon. I figured they would sell out of the 4,000 or tickets well before we got there.
We got on the road around 9:15, and headed out on our way to Williamsport. Like I said, the estimate was that the drive would be around 4 hours, but that assumed no traffic and no stops. No traffic was possible, but unlikely, and no stops was not even remotely achievable. This another of those really boring drives. When the GPS lady says "Drive 181 miles on I-80" you know you are in for a boring ride.
With the totally expected bathroom breaks, it did in fact take us a little under 5 hours to get to the museum, and we were stunned to find out that they still had tickets available. We drove into the parking lot, rolled down my window and told a guy we needed 5 tickets and he gave us 5 tickets. These were not seat specific tickets, but were for Section 4, whatever that meant. We were thrilled.
We had some time before the first game, so we decided to do a little hurricane shopping, and found a Wegmans so we could buy some water and non-fridge or freezer foods, in case we lose power during the storm. At this point we still planned on going to Philly, at least for a day, and were not sure if we would be able to go shopping when we got back.
We stocked up some stuff, and headed to a gourmet lunch at a Subway shop. To make it even more gourmet, we ate in the car on the 5 minute ride to the parking lot. We parked our car and gathered our raincoats and umbrellas and hopped on the short shuttle ride to the stadium. The security at the stadium was tougher than any professional stadium we have ever been to. I had some water bottles in my bag, and they made me get rid of all of them. The other day in Cleveland I brought in at least 2 bottles that we drank during the game. Oh well.
We got in to the complex right around 4:00 when the first game was starting (Venezuela vs. Japan) and went into Section 4 to find some seats. We didn't have to go into Section 4 for this game, since they had told us that after the first game they would clear the stadium and only then would the tickets be needed. Turns out Section 4 only has benches, no seats. We watched the game for a few innings, but it wasn't that exciting of a game, so we went out into the complex to see what else was there.
Outside the stadium they had a bunch of baseball skills games that the kids could play, so they did that and had fun. We had realized that our camera battery had died, so at this point Debbie took the shuttle back to the car to charge up the battery for a short time while the kids and I stayed in the complex. We got slushies that they boys had seen on TV while watching the games, then went back into the stadium to watch the end of the first game. This time we went into the section that had the nice seats, and found a great, shaded spot to watch the end of the game, and Debbie joined us shortly thereafter.
At some point, Debbie looked out into the crowd and asked about what looked like a large line forming. She wondered if this was the line we would have to wait on to get back in for the 8:00 game. So I went out to investigate. Unfortunately, it was the line, and it was growing like an amoeba on steroids. I decided to go wait on the line while the first game was wrapping up, leaving the others in their seats.
To say this line was long would be like saying Manute Bol was a little tall. It started near 1st base behind the stadium, wrapped around to center field, then snaked at least 5 times back and forth. I got to the end of the line at around the middle of the 3rd snake. I stood there not moving while they cleared the stadium after the game, and Debbie and the kids stayed near the stadium. It's really hard to explain the chaos that happened next, but basically when people started moving there was confusion near the stadium, and Debbie was able to get Ethan into the stadium alone (I had given Debbie one ticket when she went back to charge the battery, but I had the other 4 with me in line, far from where they were). Ethan went in and picked out a spot on a bench for the 5 of us, and ended up enlisting some nice people around him to help him save the seats. Meanwhile, I started to move slowly in my line. All the while this was going on, Debbie and I were texting back and forth, and I was texting Ethan to make sure he was OK (I could actually see him from my vantage point). Debbie was hanging out near the entrance and evidently made friends with the guard, who told her to get me down there and we could just go in. So she texted me to get off of the line (which I was a little nervous about) and to come down. I followed her instructions, found the three of them at the gate and we simply walked right in. Still not really sure what happened, or why, but we found Ethan and sat down to get ready to watch the game.
The PA fans outnumbered the CA fans probably 30-1, and since there were about 31,000 people at the game, I felt a little bad for the CA fans. But you couldn't help but root for the local kids. The only issue we had was that none of us had eaten dinner, and we were kind of sardined into our seats (Brian did not enjoy the game much because of the overwhelming crowds and the fact that it was hard to see from our seats. He decided that he liked watching the games on TV much better). So, Debbie and Brian went out to scope out the food situation, only to shortly text me that if the kids wanted souvenirs they needed to do it now since the shops were closing. Ethan took Amanda and they met Debbie and Brian at the gift shop. After buying their stuff (I frankly have no idea what they bought) they came back to the seats to watch the game.
The PA team was the Cinderella story in the tournament, while the CA team was the power house team that was upset in the game before and probably was mad to be in this game instead of waiting for the winner of this game. The game itself moved pretty quickly, since both pitchers were very good. The CA pitcher was better, and only gave up 3 hits I think in 5 1/3 innings (he had to be removed due to pitch count issues). CA ended up winning the game 2-0, thus ending the Cinderella dreams of the local kids.
We walked back to our car this time, but due to the crazy number of cars and the small streets, it took us over 30 minutes of just sitting in the car before we even moved. When we finally got out of there, we had about a 20 minute drive to our hotel. Since the World Series was here, there were not any rooms in Williamsport, and the only hotel I could find was a Holiday Inn Express in New Columbia. I feared that this would be another Red Roof Inn experience, but was pleasantly surprised to find what looks like a renovated hotel, with decent sized rooms (bigger than the Hampton we stayed in).
The issue we face now is what to do about Hurricane Irene. It looks like it will hit Long Island late on Saturday into Sunday and Monday. If we go to Philly, we would have to drive back through the storm, which is not a good idea. Plus, the storm is supposed to hit Philly also. On the other hand, it sounds kind of nuts to be driving back ONTO an island that is going to get hit by a huge storm. I want to get home to put some things inside (chairs, grill, etc.), but I am not sure if we aren't better off driving west instead. Problem there is how and when do we get home? Ethan is supposed to have soccer tryouts starting on Monday, and if the storm isn't quite as bad as expected, I don't want to be in Pittsburgh or somewhere and then need to get home. My guess is that in the morning we will head home, after stopping someplace to get some batteries and flashlights.
Thus, this may be the last blog post of this summer. If it is, I hope you enjoyed following us on this ride. We had a lot of fun, even though it was a shorter, and different kind of trip than last year's journey. If we do another trip next year, stay tuned for more blogging.
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