Hey, hey its fall and that means playoff baseball…too bad the Twins are out.

Bottom dweller #1: Minnesota Twins
So the Twins have the worst record in the AL. They are trying not to reach 100 losses. They are currently 60-95, 29.5 games back in the AL Central, 7.5 games behind Kansas City…the next worst team!!! And they are playing their AAA Rochester team. Ack! Boo! I have 3 Twins game in 9 days, 2 down (Saturday with Byron and Paula & yesterday with work) and 1 to go (Monday with Alice and Bill). They won yesterday…the first game they have won in like 2 weeks = Awesomeness.

Bottom dweller #2: Minnesota Vikings
I know it’s early by the Vikings are 0-2 and at the bottom of the NFC North. They have had 4 great quarters…too bad they were the first half of each game. They were leading both of those games but somehow lost them in the second half. We got the see the melt down this past Sunday with Byron and Paula. Byron surprised Paula with tickets. She was very surprised…she thought we were going to the apple orchard. HAHAHAHA.

Bottom dweller #2: Minnesota Gophers
They are 1-2. Hopefully Coach Kill (ya, that is seriously his name) won’t suffer anymore seizures during a last minute scoring drive. :-(
On a positive note, the Minnesota Lynx (WNBA) is in the second round of playoffs and the NBA is still locked out so we don’t get to be tortured anymore with another bottom dweller team.

Also this week…
As mentioned above Byron and Paula visited last weekend. We went to a Twins and Vikings game. Byron is seriously cursed….he has never seen a win for the home team at any pro event he has attended. We also went to the Mall of America and rounded out the night at IKEA. Fun! Wednesday we went to Chanhassen Dinner Theater for their production of “Hair Spray” with Mom and Jeanne. It was great! I love that musical.

Mission for this weekend: Recover from this nasty cold.

We have been home now for 4 days. We eventually got on our original flight from Newport News, VA to Atlanta…it took off at 5pm. By that time most of the original people on the flight had found other flights so our plane was pretty much empty. The comforting thing is the mechanics that fixed the plane were from Atlanta so they were on our flight back. It is comforting that the guys who fixed the plane had enough confidence to fly in it. What a plus! We even gave them a round of applause. Weird. We got plenty of snacks, peanuts and pretzels and cookies, oh my! We had a 2 hour wait in Atlanta for our connecting flight home. We eventually got home at around midnight. What a long day! All told it took us 14 hours to get home. I see now in an email that Delta has compensated us for our delay with 2,500 miles. How nice of them…snicker.

The trip was pretty much a success. Delaware was surprisingly cool. I liked the state capitol grounds and the Fort. The rain sucked but we were in Atlantic City which is so dumpy outside that it didn’t matter that we were inside most of the days. Ocean City was a huge let down. I was expecting gorgeous beaches and beautiful weather. Instead we got very cloudy, rainy and kind of cold weather. And the beach was awful and the hotel was old and stinky. Yuck! The only silver lining with Ocean City, MD is that the weather was so crappy that making the decision to drive 2.5 hours to Baltimore for a baseball game was easy. I really enjoyed the drive and the game, best of all we got to cross another ballpark off our list. North Carolina’s outer banks were nice, the northern part anyways. I can’t wait to visit there again to see the southern side of the outer banks…the place I really wanted to go but couldn’t because of Irene. It wasn’t the best trip but it was still a good one.

Since we have gotten home, I have done absolutely nothing. I haven’t worked out except for the 30 minutes of tennis I dragged Eric into on Tuesday. I haven’t actually cooked a meal at home yet either. It is going to be a bad month on the fitness spectrum.

I’m really looking forward to this weekend. Byron and Paula are coming up tomorrow. We have a Twins game Saturday afternoon. I haven’t been to a Twins game in ages... For various reason we have only been to 4 this year. With my summer concerts, Eric’s surgery, vacations and family events we haven’t had much time for games. That will change...I will be going to 3 games in the next 10 days! Too bad they suck badly now and are probably going to have 100 losses. What a dismal year!

Usually at this time of year we are either in the hunt or have the division so we can look forward to playoffs. That isn’t the case this year. I can only look forward to next year. Thankfully MLB released the 2012 schedule yesterday. I have so many road trips planned in my head right now. Recently I was telling Eric I wanted to go to Cincinnati and Pittsburgh to see their stadiums. The 2012 schedule is very kind to me because shockingly the Twins play back-to-back series in both of those towns in June. Sweet! Can you guys guess where my annual road trip will be?? Ha Ha I thought so.

As we bring this trip to a close we are fortunate to get to spend more time in lovely Newport News, VA. Our flight has been delayed over 6 hours because of a mechanically problem and the part is on the 4:00 flight from Atlanta. Oh the joys of flying with Delta. They rescheduled our connecting flight for 9 PM getting to Minneapolis at about 11 PM. We got food vouchers for a whooping $6. How generous of them. So we are sitting at the only restuarant at the airport to use our voucher and wait. Yippy!

What an amazing sunrise this morning. I'm glad I woke up for it. Check out my pictures for 9/10 to see the many pictures I took. This morning we walked around the beach but the waves were crashing too hard to actually go swimming. :-( We took a dip in the pool before heading out for the day.

First stop of the day was at Wright Brothers' National Historic Site. We got to see where flying began. Very cool! Tons of exhibits to look at, a replica of their flying machine and the hill where it all began. I took a tumble at the monument...and worst of all Eric got it on tape. So much for showing off for the camcorder.

After that we made our way back to Virginia. We stopped at History Jamestown, the first surviving English Settlement. It was interesting. After that we drove the Colonial Parkway to Yorktown Battlefield. It is where Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington during the Revolutionary War. It was very interesting to see all this history.

We are relaxing at the hotel after a great meal at Smokey Bones BBQ. Tomorrow are going home.

Kill Devil Hills, NC

I got really friendly with the mascot.

Yesterday was a great day. We saw more of the Maryland countryside. We crossed the beautiful Chesapeake Bay Bridge. We saw some of the flooding as a result of Tropical Storm Lee. And the Orioles beat the Yankees. I became close friends with the Orioles mascot. First he tried to kiss my hand (click here) and then he gave me a hug (click here). It turned out to be a nice day, outside of the spotty showers and 100% cloud cover. It didn't rain for the game so that makes a good day. After the game we made our way back to the beach. We stopped for some good steak and drinks along the way.

Today we started our return trip down south through Maryland and Virginia. We crossed the Chesapeake Bay/Bridge again. It is a 2o some mile bridge/tunnel across the bay. It is consider one of the Seven Engineering Wonders of the Modern World. But it isn't cheap...$12 toll...ouch! We stopped at Fort Story Base to see the Cape Henry Lighthouses. Unfortunately we can't climb them now as Hurricane Irene had her way with them and they were too damage. But I got some nice pictures of the outside. Entering the base was an interesting expense. In May we went to the Naval Air Station in Pensacola and we got right on with no searching. At Fort Story they searched the whole car!

After that we drove down the coast of Virginia, entering North Carolina. We drove down the start of Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Hwy 12 is still damage so we couldn't go down to the Bodie Island Lighthouse. It was damaged by Irene too. We were able to go to Fort Raleigh though so that was cool. After some dinner we did another round of mini golf. It was such a fun course. To start we had to ride a "train" to the start on the mountain and than made our way down the course to the finish. Very cool. I had 2 holes-in-ones but some how I still tied Eric...hum...

Well it is day 5 of our trip and I'm ready for the rain to go away. Yesterday was a good day we got up early and headed south to the Cape May ferry. We got there in time for the 9:30 ferry. The ferry takes about 80 minutes and cuts over 100 miles off the trip.

We drove down the coastal highway through Delaware and Maryland to the Assateague National Seashore where you can see wild horses on the beaches and marshes. They were beautiful. Check out my pictures.

After checking out the beach we head back into Ocean City, MD for some lunch at the Dumser's Drive-In. I definitely suggest it. Awesome food and apparently good ice cream. I had strawberry shortcake. Yum! Our hotel is on the beach but the beach is awful. I got spoiled in Alabama and Myrtle Beach. But maybe the beach is suffering from Irene? I'm not really sure. We couldn't go into the ocean as the surf was atleast 6 feet high. Not happening! We spent some time in the hotel pool and hot tub. After relaxing a bit we went and played some mini golf...27 holes! It was fun...mom had 2 hole-in-ones!

Today is a dismal day with showers in the area. We are currently heading to Baltimore for an Yankees/Orioles game. Tickets were cheap so we thought why not?

Well after two days in Atlantic City I can safely say I never want to go back. Our hotel was nice but everything is expensive and way too glitzy. I finally won some money to cover our losses. The city is a dump. That's why I call it a vegas ghetto. We found an interesting irish pub for lunch. The food was good and cheap but the atmosphere was...well...interesting.

We just crossed an awesome bridge from Delaware to New Jersey. It was cool! We are on our way to Atlantic City, NJ.

Yesterday we flew from MSP to Newport News, VA. We got in our Jeep Compass and away we went. We drove through Norfolk and went across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. Very long and expensive...$12!!!! We went through VA and MD to Seaford, DE. We ate at a Friendly's resturant. The burgers were good but chocolate lava cake filled with caramel and top with hot fudge was fantastic.

Our hotel was interesting the first room they gave us wasn't cleaned. My first clue should have been the empty case of Bud Light bottles, the messed up beds and towels everywhere. Gross! They gave us a new room and all was fine.

This morning we drove up to Dover, the capitol of Delaware, and checked out the capitol building. A very historic town since they were the first state. From there we drove up to Delaware City to catch a ferry to Fort Delaware, a civil war prison camp. It was interesting with costumed characters. They even fired an actual Civil War cannon!

That's about it from here...somewhere in New Jersey...