DC/Alexandria

I left home around 7:45. I've done this drive enough times now to know that the southern stretch is always easier than the northern part. Usually Fredericksburg is where traffic slows to a crawl. This time, the drive up took 2 hours and 45 minutes and the traffic didn't start until I got to around Woodbridge. 

My first stop was the Old Towne Farmer's Market. After the financial shit unloaded on me this past Wednesday, I wasn't intending to buy much. But I do enjoy farmer's markets and in a great little neighborhood like Old Towne, it seemed like a worthwhile pursuit. 

For produce, I got one poblano pepper and two heirloom tomatoes. The strange part was that the heirloom tomatoes and this one stand were only 50 cents more than the regular tomatoes. At $3.99/pound, it seemed like a good deal. I think the poblano will go into my baked penne. I also snagged a cinnamon morning muffin, basically a cinnamon sugar donut in the shape of a muffin. Had to get one pastry!

Then it was onto Frank Pepes pizza, for a taste of New Haven in DC. I did my usual: white clams, bacon, and roasted peppers, which surprised the waitstaff, they had never seen the combination. But it's so good: the sweetness of the peppers, the crunch and saltiness of the bacon, and the silkiness of the clams. 

I stayed at the Holiday Inn on Eisenhower St. What was so cool, besides the free parking, was that the hotel was literally right next to the King St station on the Yellow line of the DC Metro rail. I arrived at 12 and I wasn't surprised that my room wasn't quite ready yet. So I let my phone charge while I did some blogging. Of course, there was no working outlet in the business center so I had to plug my phone in across the lobby and keep a keen eye on it from a distance.

So I left for downtown DC, and it was so much faster taking the Yellow line instead of the blue. After getting off at the Navy Yard stop, the Bullpen bar was right across the street. Now the weather forecast had promised rain around late afternoon and the Mets Nationals game was scheduled to start at 4 pm. So I was going to the game not expecting to see the whole thing get played. But it didn't matter because I knew I would get to see some friends and meet a couple of former Mets. Howard Johnson and Ed Lynch, who played for the Mets during the 1980's. Both incredible guys, super engaging. Ed Lynch even opened up packs of 1989 baseball cards, and he'd tell stories about random players on the cards. We learned about everyone from Gary Pettis to Dwight Evans to Tim Crews to Claudell Washington.

Unfortunately, the rain delay did happen in the top of the 3rd inning, but the rain had been falling steadily since the first inning. Joey Lucchesi had no ability to grip the ball and his pitches were flying all over the place. I was terrified of ex-Met Trevor Williams, I figured seven shutout innings was the likely scenario. Now the rain was expected to go until about 7 or 8 pm. But I knew if that happened, the game wouldn't end until 9 or 10 pm and I wouldn't be able to get dinner in Alexandria. 

So with the front of my jeans soaked by the rain, my phone losing battery, and not wanting to wait 3-4 hours, I got on the Green line for two stops before transferring to the Yellow. And I really wanted to check in, take a hot shower, and change clothes. Unfortunately, that took a little longer than anticipated. When the front desk clerk asked me to insert my card for incidentals, I did a double take. My eyebrow raised as I noticed someone else's card was still in the reader. So we had to cancel the transaction, except the computer was now frozen because of the inserted card. Then, the front desk moved me over to other other machine and fill out the paperwork. It took about ten minutes to get the job done. But but but, they did give me a free breakfast for the trouble and I'm willing to bet I was far from the only one who received one of those paper slips.

My room was located on the 6th floor, about halfway up the building, with a view of the train station and the highway, And the double queen bed room was kept clean. Very comfortable and organized, I had no issues. It felt so good to jump in the hot shower and let my soaked hoodie and jeans dry overnight. I was so glad I packed an extra pair of tapered Levi's for the evening!

For dinner, I walked to Ted's Montana Grill, right across the street. I've always been a Ted's fan, but I hadn't been to one in many years, since the nearest one to me is about three hours away. But any restaurant that starts your meal with a bowl of thick cut dill pickle slices makes me happy. The staff was a little disorganized, I had three servers over the course of my meal. But they were certainly nice. I started with a cup of bison chili, I needed something hearty in my stomach after all that rain. And I definitely added the full package of oyster crackers, since those jalapeno slices were really hot! The bison bacon cheeseburger with grilled onions was excellent, along with the side of 50/50 fries and onion rings. I don't know why horseradish sauce works so well with onion rings, but it really does. Oh and I might have finished off a second bowl of pickles.

I didn't have a drink with dinner, but I was in the mood for one cocktail, so I walked about 6 quiet blocks east to Tacos & Tequila, obviously a Mexican restaurant. I would've been open to having dinner there too, I like that they have taco cards with about 15 options or so, and you can just mark whichever ones you want. I ordered a smoky margarita which was made not only with tequila, but mezcal as well. Now I had heard of mezcal, but I admit, I didn't know much about it. Well, it definitely was the dominant flavor in this margarita. And it's more than 50% ABV, so it's quite a bit stronger than tequila. I drank it, but I'm really not sure I would ever order a mezcal drink again, it went right to the sides of my throat with a touch of burn. The neighborhood was a little strange, just a quiet part of Alexandria, mostly made of office buildings but it feels like the area has a lot of potential for more commerce.

On Sunday, I woke up without an alarm around 7:45 am. I thought about going to the gym, but I didn't feel a physical workout was what I really needed. I decided to do some reading, specifically Tim Tebow's Shaken. After about 45 minutes of trying to build my mental life, I headed six floors downstairs to redeem my free breakfast. I had bought along my water bottle to fill it up...only to find out the hotel did not have a water fountain. Not even in the gym. That is a major knock. But the front desk did give me a free 16 ounce Dasani bottle, which I guess was the least they could have done.

OK, anyway back to breakfast. The dining area was quite crowded. There was even a group of 10 or 12 people from China right next to me. I swear I saw one guy with a hat that said "Make China Great Again." I'm not even sure if that was a serious hat or sarcasm. And I ordered a three egg omelet, and I'll say this, with the size of that omelet, these eggs must have come from an ostrich. I got it with bacon, cheddar cheese, spinach, mushrooms, and tomatoes, and it was great. I also really liked the potatoes o'Brien and a few dashes of Tabasco sauce made them even better. I could have done without the generic wheat toast, however.

And then the waitstaff tried to say the paper only was good for $15. I said ok, sure, and no problem, in about as dismissively as I possibly could. I wasn't going to pay a single cent. After all I've gone through in the last four days, there was no way in hell I was paying a dime. I discreetly placed the paper under the plate, walked to the elevator, and headed back to my room to clean up and pack. 

With some time to kill, I drove to the Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria, which I think used to be the now defunct city of Potomac. It's a very plush area, with a little bit of commerce. I admit I wanted to stop in the coffee shop and get a chai. But right now I have to be careful with my spending. I have a savings goal in mind between now and December and every decision affects that.

I parked underground and walked over to Old Towne Community Church. I wanted to be in church on this day. It was a small congregation, maybe 50-60 people, but they were super friendly and receptive. And the pastor noticed my Mets shirt, and we talked baseball for a few minutes before the start of the service. Really a good experience.

If the choice were mine, I would have walked around Old Towne a little longer and had lunch before making my way home. There were several ideas I had, including Mia's Italian Kitchen, which serves an 18 ounce meatball. But I'll have to hold off on that. Instead, I stopped at Potbelly on the way home for a big Mediterranean sandwich. I got home at 4 pm, immediately ran the laundry, and headed out to play to straight volleyball matches. Always on the move.

Detroit

I woke up around 4:00 am to catch my first of four flights on that Thursday, from Norfolk to Washington DC. Of course I got there about an hour early, because the Norfolk security line is incredibly unpredictable. Pretty smooth flight, no drama with the boarding pass, it was emailed to me about 2 hours before the flight. 

In DC, I felt like breakfast, so I hit up a sit down tavern and had a great egg white and turkey sausage sandwich on an English muffin. I especially enjoyed the flavor of the turkey sausage, I wondered if I could somehow replicate it. I just drank iced tea, I've never been a big fan of bloody marys, coffee liquers, and other breakfast cocktails.

I boarded the flight to Detroit and was given seat 11A. Turns out I was upgraded to 1A in first class. And of course I had probably the gayest flight attendant crew I've ever seen. I won't get into details, but let's just the way they talked, and the type of humor couldn't be ignored. I'm not getting into a whole thing here, but these guys were at work and they should have been a little more considerate. I did order a screwdriver and it was pretty good while listening to a Dateline podcast. Something about true crime.

We landed 20 minutes sooner than expected. I was excited, I was thinking maybe I could snag an earlier bus to downtown. So our gate was on the far end of the terminal and I had to walk to the middle to exit, which took a good five minutes. I then had to go up three floors via escalator, walk over a jet bridge, then take an elevator three same three floors down to get to ground transportation. And as I walked over the bridge, I could see the 261 bus and it was ready to pull out. I got downstairs just in time to be too late. So i had to wait an extra 30 minutes to leave. But hey, I was the only passenger on the 11 am bus. I wish he could have just asked me where I needed to go and just taken me there. 

I got the next bus 30 minutes later and it took an hour to get to Woodward and Clifford, about two blocks away from Comerica Park. but I still arrived around 12, giving me about an hour before the game. The stadium does not appear high but the playing surface is a good amount of height below street level, I guess the thinking was to not overwhelm the skyline with a baseball stadium. 

I always appreciate a ballpark with statues to pay respect to the past and Detroit had 6 for players like Ty Cobb, Willie Horton, Hank Greenberg, and Al Kaline. When I entered the park in the right field corner, there was also a statue dedicated to the late Ernie Harwell, the long time broadcaster. 

For food, I went with a couple of steak tacos and an Atwater City Juice beer. Both excellent.

My seat was the front row of the upper deck behind home plate, which is usually my favorite. Justin Verlander was making his pitching debut for the Mets, and as he's a former Tiger, the crowd was pretty into it. And speaking of the crowd, it must have been field trip day. If it wasn't for those kids, the stadium would have sounded like a cemetery.

Verlander gave up back to back homers in the first inning and that's all the Tigers would need. The Mets had no offense again, they let Eduardo Rodriguez look like Sandy Koufax in his prime, getting shut out over eight innings. And I love Brandon Nimmo, but when you get caught stealing in the ninth innings, down two runs, with one out...that's a purely stupid baseball decision.

I got the bus back to the airport, which was another hour. Not wanting to hang around downtown made that decision easy. I had three hours to kill so I went over to theairport's Atwater Brewery, plugged in, and had an amazing burger and a couple more brews. I even chatted with a guy named Chris, who was a really good dude. 

The gate for Charlotte was slammed. I figured they would email me my boarding pass, which is the standard operating procedure at most airports now. But I didn't get one, and after nearly all the passengers had boarded, I went to the desk. Much to my horror, they told me they had called my name several times but I had not responded. I never heard them! So they had given my seat away, but one woman for whatever reason, had to get off, I think due to a connection issue. So I got her seat! I was so lucky! Suffice to say on the connecting flight, my eyes were zoned in on the standby board. I eventually got home about 12:30 am. 

So let's recap the numbers. My travel day lasted 21 hours, the game lasted a shade over two hours. I took 4 plane rides...and my team got only 3 base hits. Such is the plight of the 2023 New York Mets.