Tour of Ballparks - Episode 4: Tropicana Field, St Petersburg, Fl

Our tour of ballparks continues. This time in Florida. I was here in St. Pete about 10 years ago for work and I really liked this little town. I’d mentioned it to John several times as one of the places I wanted for us to go together.

This year is our 23rd anniversary on 9/23/2023. It’s one of those dates when you look at it and think when will that happen again? We decided to pick a place to go and celebrate. I whipped out my phone, did a little google search and found that the Tampa Bay Rays were at home on our anniversary. It was a sign!

I casually suggested we go to Tampa for the weekend and catch a game. We could visit another stadium and have a lovely weekend getaway. John was agreeable though he did make it clear that my anniversary dinner was going to be a ballpark hotdog and I thought, this just keeps getting better! 

It’s almost the end of the season and it’s exciting down here because the Rays are in the hunt for a playoff spot.

You can’t really tell, but the sign says Tropicana Field. For those hip fans, it's called “the Trop” and it is the only domed stadium in Major League Baseball that doesn’t have a retractable roof. Of course, it wasn’t designed specifically for the Rays. It's a multi-purpose stadium but it's been home to the Rays since 1998.

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The inside of the dome. It’s one of the worst stadiums in baseball. The white ceiling makes it difficult to see the ball when its popped up high. It's also one of the smallest stadiums in terms of capacity and yet, you never see anyone seated in that upper deck. The stadium has an interesting layout. The odd numbers sections are on one side of the field and the even numbers on the other. We were in section 145 and those folks across the field were in section 146.

As a side note, if the ball hits any part of the catwalk up in the dome, it’s an automatic home run. You'd think that would be a strategy.

The Tampa Bay Rays played the Toronto Blue Jays. (Jays at bat, Rays in the field). As luck would have it, we sat next to some Canadians who were Jays fans. Nice people. It was interesting talking to them.

The bullpen is along side the first and third baseline. The pitchers are just sitting there totally unprotected! John says that’s how it used to be back in the old days. I would not want to be sitting there when a foul ball was hit in that direction. But maybe that's how they make the bullpen pay attention to the game.

The requisite selfie. We had great seats in the outfield. The first batter hit a homer and it came straight at us. While everyone else was trying to catch the ball, I was ducking. We were very close to the players. One kid kept yelling at Harold Ramirez (outfielder for the Rays) and when Ramirez finally turned around, the kid asked, "Will you sign my baseball?" Harold nodded and the kid left happy. I don't know if Ramirez actually signed the ball but I was surprised he would even interact with the fans.

They have an aquarium where they have stingrays. You can’t really tell but in the upper right corner where the crazy kid has his hand in the water, there are two of them. I thought this was a thing like how the Miami Dolphins have a Dolphin tank at their stadium. But no, the Rays were not originally called the "Stingrays" so I'm not sure why they have stingrays at their stadium. Maybe that's just a Florida thing. The team was originally the Devil Rays.

Another little nugget of info: The Rays chief rivals are the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. I guess because they're in the same division. Who knew?

As it turns out, it's a good thing we went to the stadium this year. The Rays are getting a new stadium soon. Now we have to go back!

Yum! My chili dog at the ballpark! It did not disappoint. As a side note, the Rays won, 7 - 6 in the 9th inning after blowing a 5 run lead. What a fun time and a great game!

And now for the rest of the trip...

We stayed at the Hampton Inn on Beach Street - which is an excellent location. It's about a block from the water. Everything was within walking distance. Our room had an actual balcony that overlooked Beach Street. The balcony on the upper floor in the middle of the building is our room. 

A view of the St. Petersburg skyline. We came out Wednesday night. On Thursday, it’s was very quiet downtown. It was almost like we had the whole place to ourselves.

Chillin’ as we walk along the bay wall. The weather is beautiful. The other thing that I like about this place is how walkable this area is. We didn't bother to get a car. We walked everywhere, which was great.

We walked over to the Dalí Museum. This was a cool little place featuring the works of Salvador Dali.

I liked this painting because Dali painted himself into the scene.  It’s called the Ecumenical Council.

This is my favorite painting.  When you look at it in person, it’s a nude woman and a shape of a cross.  It wasn’t until I took the photo that I realized it was an image of Abraham Lincoln. Brilliant!

There's Tampa, across the bay from St. Petersburg. It's a cool skyline. To get to St. Pete, you have to drive across this cool bridge, right over the bay. I love a good bridge.

Tampa/St. Pete is about where Orlando is in terms of location (a little further south) except that Tampa/St. Pete is on the Gulf side. I had to look at this map several times to get a perspective on where I was!

St. Pete Pier. I thought there would be more stuff out here. It had great potential but perhaps structurally, there's not a lot of room for much more than what's there.

On the pier, there’s a little beach and a playground. Then at the end, there’s a big building where there’s a snack bar, a restaurant and a bar. There’s also an area at the end of the pier where people can fish.  There were lots of people fishing.

This was what I really like. The view. That’s Tampa Bay. The photo doesn't really do it justice. It's very calming to watch the water. 

A little bit of night life.  Appetizers at the 5 Buck Drinkery. Central Ave (aka 2nd Ave) seemed to be where all the locals hung out. We sat outside one night and watched this older fella hit on all the women that walked by. Then he tabbed out of this bar and went on to the next. It was funny!

An after dinner walk in the park. All the trees were lit up. It was beautiful. Some of the trees were ginormous and had to be hundreds of years old. Luckily, St. Pete has not taken a direct hit from a hurricane since 1921 (Knock on wood!).

The next day we walked to Sunken Gardens. This place is a throwback to the 70’s. I could have sworn I’d been here before with my parents.

It was a cool arboretum like place. One of the docents was the granddaughter of the original owner. And they had real pink flamingos.

The cheesy souvenir sign. It was a cool little botanical garden and right in the middle of the city!

The park across from the hotel was right along the water. It was so cool. We walked out there several days (and evenings).  There were several benches out there where we would just sit and chill.  People-watching out there is pretty good. I could spend a good amount of time right here on this bench.

It was a fantastic trip until "going home" day. We got up early as our flight was at 10 am. This was such a beautiful sunrise. The colors are amazing. 

We got in the Uber and just as it pulled away from the curb, we got a text that our flight was delayed 2 hours.  Rats!

Then when we got to the airport, another text. Delayed 2 more hours. Double Rats! We finally took off about 7pm.  I'm just grateful we got home! Still, it was a great trip. We had lots of fun and would love to go back.

Thanks, St. Petersburg!  Hope to see you again soon.

Escape From the Heat Part 2 - New Mexico

The second week of our escape we decided to try some place we hadn’t been in a long time: New Mexico. We landed on Santa Fe as our home base because we had been there before, giving it a slight advantage over other places we considered.  We rented an apartment in a quiet neighborhood away from the tourist attractions but close enough to get there quickly.

One thing I hadn’t remembered about Santa Fe was the lack of parking. There is no place to park in downtown that’s free. And, parking is limited so if you’re headed down there on Friday or Saturday, go early. 

We thought it would be warmer there than Colorado. No. It was mid-80’s and just beautiful.

It’s not as walkable as Colorado, but there were trails. You just had to drive to them, at least from where we were staying. But the food! New Mexican is a far cry from Tex-Mex.  Way better in my opinion.

Speaking of the food…we got into Santa Fe about dinner time on a Saturday. We thought we’d go to this restaurant that we passed called Tomasita’s. The parking lot was so crazy busy that we aborted. We considered settling for Chik-Fil-A, which seemed like blasphemy. Luckily, John saw the sign for this place and pulled into the parking lot. It wasn’t a madhouse so we weren’t expecting much but at least it wasn’t fast food. Welcome to Los Portrillos. Holy moly! These are Christmas enchiladas with shredded beef. Delicious!

John had enchiladas suiza. This was amazing. When he ordered it, I made a face.  I’d only had the Lean Cuisine version of this dish and it was terrible! I think you could throw a stone in New Mexico and hit a great number of good restaurants in this town.

The rail yard is a pretty happening place. It’s been revitalized with hip apartments, shops, bars and restaurants. It used to be the train depot…and kinda still is.

The train still runs but it’s the commuter train now. Back in the day it was the Atchison, Topeka, Santa Fe Railway. This was the only rail line that went all the way to Chicago on its own tracks.

It started out as freight. Then in the first half of the 20th century, it became a passenger rail, introducing a dining car.  This also spurred the creation of the Harvey House restaurants that were strategically placed along the railway stops. More on that later. Meanwhile, today, this caboose is at the end of the park. It’s on a walking trail that we walked almost every day.

Our first trail walk was in the desert. While it was kind of cool, it was also a little eerie. No shade, no sounds. We could have been killed out here and no one to hear us scream so, after the first walk, we moved our walks to the rail yard park.

Did you know that Santa Fe was the capital of New Mexico?  I did not. Among the things we “collect” (ballparks, presidential libraries..), we also collect capitals. Santa Fe is the oldest capital city. The Capitol building is called the Roundhouse. It’s the only round Capitol in the country.

We went in for a visit. It’s free. It’s like an art museum in there. The first floor has the gallery for both the senate and the house. There’s not a dome but the skylight reminds me of the dome in Austin.

A view across the rotunda. You can see some of the artwork across the way.

An example of some of the art. It’s not all religious art. A lot of it is regional but it’s all great.

After being thwarted on our first attempt to go to Tomasita’s, we tried again…at 4 pm on a Tuesday. It was not dead but we got in.

Worth the wait. I got carne adovado which was slow roasted pork in red chile. Whoa kids!

John got the Monday blue plate, which was a pork tamale and a cheese enchilada in a blue corn tortilla.  They also brought us sopapillas. I wish I had two stomachs (although, if I kept eating like this, I would but it was soooo good)!

After that meal (which I didn’t finish, just for the record. I took it home for lunch the next day), a walk was in order. We were rewarded with this beautiful rainbow.

Albuquerque:

On our first day off, we decided to drive to Albuquerque. If you are a Looney Toons fan, you’ll remember that Bugs Bunny was always lamenting the fact that he should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque. I wanted to see what it was all about.

The city is known for its balloon festivals. It also sits on the old Route 66. I’d like to drive that someday.

Anyway, it was about an hour or so to drive from Santa Fe. The whole way looked like this. Nothing but desert and mountains. Actually, that’s what most of the drive through New Mexico looked like.

We started with the Albuquerque Botanical Gardens. It was very peaceful and relaxing. We saw kids there on a field trip and lots of families just enjoying the beautiful day.

One of the exhibits was the Children’s Fantasy Garden, which had all these mazes and tunnels.

When you came out of that maze, you saw this dragon. I thought it was cool.

They had a whole town with a replica of the Santa Fe railway. There was even a train derailment, which I thought was funny but only because no one was hurt.

Lots of families were picnicking or reading around the pond. There was a concession stand that sold, among other things, beer. Weird.

This was the Japanese Garden and Koi pond. 

After the Botanical Garden, we went to Old Town or Plaza Vieja. This is San Felipe di Neri. The church was built in 1798 and is still an active parish. There’s a museum on site but you have to call as it’s run by volunteers.

Plaza Vieja. The city of Albuquerque was founded in 1706 as a community of farms and ranches.

Lunch was another amazing place called Little Anita’s. This is carne adovado enchiladas. John got the cheese version of the same thing. Yummy!

And in case you needed the restroom afterwards…Not sure if you can read the sign but it says "Old Town Loo". I’ll wait.

The next stop was the Albuquerque Museum. They had this cool exhibit by photographer Danny Lyon.  This was one of his photos that I like a lot.

This was another gallery on New Mexico history. During the railroad boom days, Shorty Parker’s saloon was basically this barrel under which, he kept bottles of whiskey. It’s was an excellent museum and admission was only $6! 

We enjoyed our time in Albuquerque. Real estate there was a lot more affordable than in Santa Fe. I would consider going back there and spending more time. I'd like to go during the balloon festival, maybe.

Santa Fe:

Our last day in New Mexico was spent in Santa Fe Plaza. It was difficult to find a place to park on a Friday around 11-ish. We finally found a spot about two or three blocks from the Plaza.

This is the Rosario Chapel built in 1807. It sits inside the Rosario cemetery.  Unfortunately, I couldn't go in.

This is the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. Santa Fe has some beautiful churches.

It was not my day for churches, though.  This was the second one that I went to visit. This one we couldn't go in because of a wedding. I was at least able to take a photo. And, I was able to light a candle for my mom.

This is the Loretto Chapel. Originally known as the Chapel of Our Lady of Light, it was built in 1873.

The story is the choir loft was built in such a way that a staircase would have taken up too much of the floor space, thus limiting the seating. The Sisters of Loretto prayed a novena to St. Joseph, the Patron Saint of Carpenters.  On the last day of the novena, a carpenter showed up with only a hammer and a carpenter's square.  He built the staircase using wood not native to the area and then left without thanks or payment.

The staircase has two complete 360 degree turns with no center pole for support. According to the web, the entire weight of the staircase rests on the bottom step. It's called the "Miraculous Staircase". Whatever the truth, it's beautiful. It is no longer an active chapel. It's a private museum.

Next was lunch at another little hole in the wall that we found by accident. It was called Los Magueyes. John got this chile relleno and taco. He said it was the best chile relleno he's ever had. Those are not my thing but I had a bite and it was delish! And spicy!

I decided to get juevos con chorizo. It was so good. It was better than my local favorite at Rosa's Cafe and that's saying something! Mine was delicious but John's lunch was haunting him the rest of the day.

The Palace of Governors was built in 1618 and served as the residence and seat of government. Lew Wallace, who was the Governor of New Mexico in the 1870's wrote the book Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ while serving in this building.

Route 66.

The Palace of Governers is now the New Mexico History Museum. We spent a better part of the afternoon there and we could have stayed longer! Earlier I mentioned the Harvey House Restaurants along the Santa Fe railway. Fred Harvey created these restaurants to support the passengers on the trains along the Santa Fe railway.

He opened the restaurants with young women as servers. The women couldn't be married as they all lived in a dorm-like setting. They had to wear this uniform and follow a long list of rules. But, it gave young women a safe way to be independent and to travel. His was the first chain restaurant.

This is the courtyard for the Palace of Governors. It's so cool to me to be in this place that has so much history. They were changing exhibits so the rooms were empty. I wish they'd kept a few rooms as they had been while it was the Palace of Governors.

Looking out to Santa Fe Plaza from the Palace of Governors.

This was a water well that is in the courtyard. A lot of the buildings in Santa Fe are made of adobe. It makes the area look very poor but it is not. Santa Fe is a very artsy-kind of town. In the Plaza they have tons of art galleries/shops and restaurants. The houses are surprisingly expensive.

This sculpture of a rabbit is $2,500. While I like it, I don't like it that much. But these types of sculptures are everywhere.

We got up early on Saturday for the long drive home. Santa Fe is a great place for escaping the heat of a Texas summer. The weather is beautiful, the food is amazing and there's of history here to keep you busy. Being here has whet my appetite to learn more about the history of this part of country. 

Goodbye, New Mexico!  See ya next year.