Blog
Nashville, November 19-22
I’m writing this as I fly out to Rome if you want an indication of how far behind I am on these recap posts and how busy these last few weeks have been. Anyway, Nashville - this trip was actually a backup trip for a trip to New Orleans that never happened the weekend previous to this.
Beers 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
Cocktails 🥃🥂🥃🥃
Hot Chicken 🐔🐔🐔
Ramen 🍜🍜
Breweries 🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻
Flights ✈️✈️
#hotchickenrun
I’m writing this as I fly out to Rome if you want an indication of how far behind I am on these recap posts and how busy these last few weeks have been. Anyway, Nashville - this trip was actually a backup trip for a trip to New Orleans that never happened the weekend previous to this. Why Nashville? Why not Nashville? Plenty of history, breweries, and, most importantly, hot chicken. Coincidentally, this weekend was Rock 'n' Roll Nashville and the half marathon would be the perfect tune-up for my marathon in Pisa on December 19.
Let’s talk about the hot chicken… I had three different versions but I’m going to focus on the two Nashville heavyweights. Between Prince's Hot Chicken and Hattie B's Hot Chicken, it’s hard to choose a winner. I felt Prince’s had better flavor but that Hattie B’s was better executed. Gun to my head, I’d probably go with Prince’s but I’m not all too committed to that choice. Sorry if you were hoping for a definitive verdict here but if you want one, just do a hot chicken bang-bang!
Of course, there would be ramen - after all, I did have a race to carbo-load for, though that only explains the first bowl. But the other one at Black Dynasty, a “secret” ramen joint inside a Bearded Iris taproom? Their Turkey Miso Paitan was the best and most interesting bowl of ramen I’d had in some time.
The standout meal was a branch of a place I’d been to before in Charleston but to say that that Butcher & Bee and the one I dined at in Nashville were the same would be nuts. Some similarities, sure, but totally different restaurants owing to the use of local ingredients and different chefs at the helm. Whatever the reason, while I liked my meal in Charleston, I absolutely loved the one in Nashville.
Okay, food’s done - let’s talk about the beer. Boy, is there a beer scene in Nashville. I made it to nine breweries but I think there were still a few more I could have hit with some more time and stomach capacity - there’s only so much room for everything, even with flights or half pours! Of the nine(!), if I had to pick a favorite, it’d be a toss-up between Southern Grist and Bearded Iris. Only one of those has a pop-up ramen shop in it so that may nudge Bearded Iris ahead… at least until Southern Grist adds their own dynamite ramen pop-up.
The Race
Unlike a marathon, I don’t really think too hard about what goals I want to hit for a half marathon but I definitely wanted to beat my PR of 1:49:58 from 2014(!). The conditions were pretty good for that to happen with a starting temperature in the mid-30s and clear skies. Also, the course was pretty flat though there were definitely some hills and, as I would be told several times by pacers, a big one around mile six.
I started a few seconds behind one of the 1:45 pacers but quickly caught up to him which had me feeling pretty good... until I fell off the pace after a hill. The funny thing is that I was still going under 8:00/mile which meant the pacer was going faster than his prescribed pace. Sure enough, I eventually caught him after four miles and then passed him for good in the sixth mile. I knew I had 1:45 locked after a u-turn where I didn’t see the pacer on the other side until 30 seconds after I’d made the turn. At that point, I went for it, wanting to see just how much I could get under 1:45.
I finished the race in 1:42:52, a new PR by over seven minutes! As far as tune-ups go, this was as good as it gets, four weeks out from the Maratona di Pisa.
The List
Restaurants
Prince's Hot Chicken
Shokku Ramen
Liberty Common
Butcher & Bee
Another Broken Egg Cafe
DeSano Pizzeria
Hattie B's Hot Chicken
Breweries
Bearded Iris Brewing
Southern Grist Brewing Co
Living Waters Brewing
Crazy Gnome Brewery
Smith & Lentz
Yee-Haw Brewing Co.
Czanns
Fat Bottom Brewing
TailGate Brewery
Coffee
Crema Coffee Roasters
Places
Belmont Mansion
Cheekwood
Houston, October 28-November 1
I made a visit to Houston late last month to visit my brother and his family; more importantly, I got to see my nephew for the first time in nearly two years!
Beers 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
Cocktails 🍸🍸
Meats 🐄🐖🐓🦆
Seafood 🦞🦀
Breweries 🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻
Flights ✈️✈️
#AstroworldButNot
I made a visit to Houston late last month to visit my brother and his family; more importantly, I got to see my nephew for the first time in nearly two years! What a difference from the last time I saw him in 2019 - where he was quiet and reluctant to play with his Uncle Gary, this time around there were no issues getting him to do stuff with me. In all honesty, the kid absolutely wrecked me (but in the best way possible), wanting to play with his toys all the time. When my original flight home on Sunday was cancelled and I was rebooked for Monday, I’m sure the kid just thought that he’d get one more day to destroy me… which he did, but in the best way possible! Love the kid.
Thankfully, there were a bunch of breweries for me to find some quiet solitude when I needed a break. If I had to pick a favorite among the six I visited, I’d go with Urban South - HTX. They had an absurd number of beers available to pour and it wasn’t all IPAs either as they had a variety of sours to choose from. I’ll also give Brash Brewing a shout as they had decent beers on tap but probably the best physical space, indoors and outdoors, of the breweries I visited this time. I mean, how often do you get to have a beer with a skeleton as your drinking buddy?
No trip to Texas would be complete without barbecue and with Truth BBQ, I had some damned good barbecue. As I did in Dallas, I made sure to try the turkey if it was on the menu, reasoning if you’re gonna make turkey at a barbecue joint, it’s gotta be good - and it was! Another standout meal was at Rosie Cannonball - great food, stellar cocktails, and excellent service.
I’d really gotten into Japanese Breakfast (Michelle Zauner) after she’d released her memoir, Crying in H Mart, earlier in the year. Then they released their next album, Jubilee, and I really got into them - one of my favorite albums of the year. When I saw that they’d be in Houston when I was, I made sure to block out Saturday night so I could see them at White Oak Music Hall.
And what a show it was. Zauner’s voice was ethereal, light, and airy, yet still strongly soaring above a phalanx of instrumentation. Zauner also has a command of the stage and, consequently, the audience as she energetically bounded about throughout their performance. This was my first show in a GA pit since the pandemic and it felt cathartic to just be on the floor of a medium-sized venue, just soaking it all in.
Japanese Breakfast at White Oak Music Hall
The List
Restaurants
Southern Yankee Crafthouse
Truth BBQ
Hai Cang Harbor
Pho Ben
Rosie Cannonball
Golden Dim Sum
Breweries
Southern Yankee Crafthouse
Urban South - HTX
Buffalo Bayou Brewing Co
Eureka Heights Brew Co
New Magnolia Brewing Co
Brash Brewing
Coffee
Agnes
Bars
The Raven Tower
Concert Venues
White Oak Music Hall
Chicago, October 8-11
Ah, Chicago Marathon, we meet again.
Beers 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
Michelin ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Ramen 🍜🍜🍜
Cocktails 🍹🍹🍹🍹🍹
Breweries 🍻🍻🍻🍻
Flights ✈️✈️
Transit 🚇🚌🚕
#WindyCity262x2
Ah, Chicago Marathon, we meet again. But before we did, I actually had to, ya know, get to Chicago and that alone was quite the adventure. Scheduled to depart at 6:45 am, DL556 was delayed to a 7:45 am departure at 5:45 am, only to then be delayed to an 11:30 am departure at 6:15 am. Hilarious. At this point, everyone was scrambling to change their flight to an earlier one and by the time I got onto the app while everyone rushed to the gate agent, the next available flight was for 10:15 am. Fine, whatever, better that than the11:30 but still not great.
With my flight rebooked, I debated going home for a few hours and then coming back - it was 6:30 am now and I wouldn’t need to be back to LGA until 9:30 or so. As I walked back to security, I detoured to the Sky Club to see if I could get any help getting onto an earlier flight but I wasn’t a member so they couldn’t/wouldn’t do anything for me. Again, fine, moving on; next up was to maybe find a Delta rep at a counter but it was too early for it to be manned so I picked up a black phone to wait to speak to an agent.
So now I’m on the phone, listening to some lovely hold music when a Delta rep makes her way to the counter. It was barely 7:00 am and it normally would be unmanned for a little while longer but a similarly delayed customer got her to look into options for rebooking her flight. As she’s being helped, I position myself to be next in line while staying on the phone, cord extended as far as it can go, just in case someone on the phone would beat out the IRL agent. No surprise here, I ended up hanging up the phone so I could speak to the agent at the counter.
The first thing the agent did was to ask me for my boarding pass. As I handed it to her, I made it a point to address her by name which I had to strain to make it out from her badge as it was off to her side. After scanning my boarding pass, she saw that my original flight had been delayed and that I had already rebooked myself for 10:30 am so she asked, maybe wondering, what more she could do for me. I asked if I could be put on standby for the 8:05 am flight, figuring it was worth a shot. She thought so too so she put me on it and now I figured I might as well ask how far down I was on the standby list. She told me there were 18 people ahead of me and I laughed ruefully, knowing there was zero chance I would get off the list.
This was when something awesome happened for me. The agent told me should would “do something nice” for me and changed my 8:05 am standby to a confirmed seat. Daaaaaaamn. I thanked her, told her I loved her, and booked it back to the departure gate as it was now 7:15 am and the flight was going to start boarding in 10 minutes.
End of story, right? Nope. This flight was oversold so while my confirmed seat may have jumped me ahead of standby, I’d still need some luck in the form of a no-show or someone taking an offer to be voluntarily bumped. The latter seemed like a non-starter as this flight was full of fellow Chicago Marathoners who had zero intention of missing this flight. Now I’m standing by the gate agent as they call boarding group after boarding group as they keep upping the offer all the way up to $1000 and still no takers. This entire time I’m schmoozing the guy and he keeps checking the flight for me, finally landing on a likely no-show. He kindly offers me the $1000 if I’m willing to wait for the next flight but I politely decline and then he gives me the seat for the no-show. Thanking him and my lucky stars, I gather my bags, grab the seat confirmation, and get onto the plane.
The Race
The training for Chicago started off rough with back pain and PT for it in June but by mid-July, I was back on track. By the time I finished my third and last 20-mile long run, I felt like this had been the best marathon training season I’d ever had. This was reinforced with a PR by over four minutes at the Bronx 10 Mile, two weeks out from the marathon.
After that PR, I came up with my three goals for the Chicago Marathon. Here were the goals:
PR: Sub-3:50:52
Sub-3:50:00
Sub-3:45:00
With two weeks to go, I felt really good about hitting all three of those goals. Then I saw the forecast for race day the Monday before and it was lows in the mid-60s with highs in the mid-70s. That forecast would only get worse throughout the week, peaking with lows in the low-70s and highs in the low-80s. As tempted as I was to re-adjust the goals, I figured I’d trust the training and bank on having trained in a traditional NYC summer.
I started the race with every intention of following the 3:45 pacers but I actually started a few feet behind them so that meant a quicker than expected first two miles to catch up with them. After that, it was just running a consistent 8:35ish mile, doing as much as I could to stay below the pace through the first half so as to bank some seconds for a decent cushion as it got warmer. When I hit the halfway mark at 1:51:21, I’d built a solid 69 second cushion. That’d come in handy because it definitely got warmer and the sun started to peak out from behind the clouds a little more than it had the first two hours of the race.
Honestly, there was very little drama in this race. Mile after mile, I kept churning out miles close to 8:35 though most were above the mark but that’s what the first half cushion was for. The only potential problem was the ol’ IT band barking after 23 miles but it stopped bothering me less than a mile later. I just kept telling myself “trust in the training, trust in the training” like it was my fucking mantra and shut everything else out. By the time I hit Michigan Avenue for the last few miles, I knew I was in good shape to hit some goals. But just how many goals?
I finished the marathon in 3:44:21. I crushed all three of my goals. This was my second time running Chicago and this was now my second time setting a marathon PR running it. I love this race.
Everything Else
The standout meal on this trip was at Mako, a Michelin-starred Japanese sushi omakase restaurant. This was some of the best sushi I’ve had in some time, certainly since I was last in Japan in 2019.
Another great meal was at Moody Tongue, a two Michelin-starred restaurant/brewery. While the food was spectacular, their beers were aggressively okay - fine to go with a meal but nothing worth bringing home.
The two days in town leading up to the race, I carbo-loaded the best way I know how - with ramen. Of the three bowls I had, my favorite was at High Five Ramen. The bowls I had at Kizuki Ramen & Izakaya and RAMEN-SAN were also excellent.
The List
Restaurants
RAMEN-SAN
Moody Tongue
Kizuki Ramen & Izakaya
High Five Ramen
Mako
Breweries
Moody Tongue Brewing Company
Haymarket Pub & Brewery
Cruz Blanca Brewery
Pilot Project Brewing
Bars
Clark Street Ale House
The Aviary
Beermiscuous
Coffee
Caffe Umbria
Marathon Splits
Half Splits
| Split | Time |
|---|---|
| Half | 1:51:21 |
| Finish | 3:44:21 |
5k Splits
| Split | Time |
|---|---|
| 5K | 25:55 |
| 10K | 26:40 |
| 15K | 26:35 |
| 20K | 26:27 |
| 25K | 26:28 |
| 30K | 26:49 |
| 35K | 26:56 |
| 40K | 26:35 |
Mile Splits
| Split | Time |
|---|---|
| 1M | 8:08.8 |
| 2M | 8:18.7 |
| 3M | 8:31.7 |
| 4M | 8:32.5 |
| 5M | 8:32.3 |
| 6M | 8:35.7 |
| 7M | 8:28.8 |
| 8M | 8:33.0 |
| 9M | 8:41.9 |
| 10M | 8:38.1 |
| 11M | 8:32.2 |
| 12M | 8:30.5 |
| 13M | 8:22.1 |
| 14M | 8:24.7 |
| 15M | 8:35.5 |
| 16M | 8:36.1 |
| 17M | 8:37.0 |
| 18M | 8:40.2 |
| 19M | 8:36.0 |
| 20M | 8:47.8 |
| 21M | 8:37.4 |
| 22M | 8:37.8 |
| 23M | 8:38.1 |
| 24M | 8:47.3 |
| 25M | 8:32.9 |
| 26M | 8:38.6 |
Reykjavík, August 19-23
For the first time in 563 days, I got on a plane and left the United States of America.
Beers 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
Breweries 🍻🍻🍻
Cocktails 🍹🍹🍹🍹🍹🍹
Ramen 🍜🍜
Hot Dogs 🌭🌭
Foodstuff 🐓🐑🐄🐖🦐🦞
Baked Goods 🥖🥯🥐
Museums 🏛🏛🏛
Runs 🏃🏻♂️🏃🏻♂️🏃🏻♂️
Flights ✈️✈️
#reykinat41
For the first time in 563 days, I got on a plane and left the United States of America. That was the longest I’d gone without traveling to another country since going nine-plus years from 2004-2013. For my inaugural international trip (with a new passport, to boot!), I settled on Reykjavík even though I’d been there before. That familiarity wasn’t an inconsequential factor in my choice of destination; it didn’t hurt that Iceland had done a very good job with vaccinating their residents. All in all, i felt incredibly comfortable going back there.
The weekend I visited was supposed to when they held a marathon but it was cancelled a few weeks before the trip. I had planned on running that one as my second 20-mile training run for Chicago. August in Iceland is ideal running weather as the temperature never leaves the 50s with the only complicating factor being precipitation. I ended up doing my long run following most of the marathon route with a 70% chance of run only to never encounter a single drop. Glorious. The only real impediment to my runs was the fowl traffic.
Last time I went, I did the a bus tour of the Golden Circle. This time around, I opted to see South Iceland. There were waterfalls, glaciers, and a black sand beach - all of it was breathtakingly beautiful. Seeing it all in one day was a lot with a few 30-60 minute stops sprinkled throughout a 10-hour out-and-back bus ride. It’s just enough time to take in the beauty of it all but it could feel rushed at times.
Speaking of beauty, let’s talk about the food in Reykjavík. There are a lot great restaurants in the city, some of which are Michelin-quality. The standout meal on this trip was dinner the first night at Sumac Grill + Drinks, a place that served Middle Eastern cuisine made with fresh Icelandic ingredients. Everything about this meal was excellent between the cocktails, the food, and sitting at the bar, talking to the chef throughout the night. Reservations go quickly here but if you’re rolling solo or just a pair, a spot at the bar across from the open kitchen is the pro move.
Standout meal 1a would go to dinner at Matur og Drykkur, which was originally intended to be a post-marathon celebratory tasting menu tour de force. This one was a more traditionally Icelandic though gussied up and modernized, of course. I had lamb multiple times during this trip (it’s easily the most plentiful of the land-based animal meats) and the lamb served here was the best I had the entire trip.
One last note about the food in Reykjavík - there’s actually decent ramen to be found! I had two bowls of ramen and while one was merely decent (wouldn’t go out of my way to go there again), the other was a great bowl that I would have gone back to if they had been open on Sunday. The TANTAMEN Nº11 at Ramen Momo, the combination of a great broth and house-made noodles, was delicious.
Ramen Momo TANTAMEN Nº11
No discussion about eating (and drinking) in Iceland is complete without talking about the cost. You’re gonna pay a lot for just about everything. At least with the drinking part, there’s plenty of happy hours to be found, starting as early as noon each day with most going from 4 pm to 7 pm. If you’re gonna go for some alcohol, happy hour is the time to do it. The price of food is more or less gonna be what you get so it actually makes more sense to work meals around where you want to go for drinks.
The List
Restaurants
Ramen Momo
Sumac Grill + Drinks
Skal!
Messinn
Matur og Drykkur
Hi Noodle
Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur
Grandi Mathöll
Lava Restaurant
Coffee & Baked Goods
Sandholt
Reykjavik Roasters
Brauð & Co.
DEIG workshop
Bars
Skúli Craft bar
Session Craft Bar
Frederiksen Ale House
Jungle Cocktail Bar
Breweries
Barion Bryggjan Brugghús
Bastard Brew & Food
RVK Brewing Company
Museums
The National Gallery of Iceland
Reykjavík Art Museum Hafnarhús
The Culture House - Museum
Denver, July 2-5
For the long holiday weekend, I took my longest flight during the COVID-19 pandemic, flying from LGA to DEN.
Denver City Farmer’s Market
Beers 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
Breweries 🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻
Games ⚾️⚾️
Flights ✈️✈️
Ramen 🍜🍜🍜
Doughnuts 🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩
Museums 🏛🏛
#milehighbeersandbaseball
For the long holiday weekend, I took my longest flight during the COVID-19 pandemic, flying from LGA to DEN. I’d only been to Denver one other time and that was well over a decade ago for GABF, so it was long overdue. Denver is only two time zones west but flying out early in the morning to get a full day in took more out of me than I expected. It’s either rust from not having traveled much in the last year or it’s just another sign that This is 40. Don’t even ask me how my runs at altitude went (spoiler alert: they didn’t).
Anyway, to the point of this trip - crossing another MLB ballpark off the list. Coors Field makes for 26 ballparks visited, leaving me with four to go. With luck and an ever-improving pandemic outlook, I’m hoping to get this done in 2022. There’s increasing uncertainty of just how rooted in Oakland the A’s are, so there’s certainly the possibility of having to visit a new home ballpark of theirs before I get the current set of 30 done if I don’t pull this off next season.
What did I think of the Rockies’ ballpark? I liked it a lot but it’s been around a while and there have been enough new stadiums built since they opened in the mid-90s that it’s feeling a little dated. Among the 26 I’ve been to, it’s solidly mid-tier. The sight lines from the locations I sat in at the two games I went to were spectacular, even from the last section in the upper deck along the 3B line. My only real gripe was the lack of an open concourse above the field level but it’s a minor one on balance. I’d visit it again, for sure.
St. Louis Cardinals vs. Colorado Rockies, July 2
Coors Field, July 4
If going to a new-to-me ballpark was reason 1 to travel to Denver, reason 1-A was to check out the craft beer scene. When I’d last been out here, most of the breweries we visited were a drive out of Denver to the surrounding areas; this time around, almost all of the breweries I visited were a walk or a quick bus trip or rideshare away. There’s so many breweries where craft beer can be had fresh that it’s pretty much made old-school craft beer bars like Falling Rock Tap House obsolete which is a shame, really.
Most of the breweries I visited had fine, if not spectacular, beers on offer. Even in a beer mecca like Denver, the explosion in the number of breweries per capita hasn’t led to much of an increase in quantity of incredible beers being produced. While I’d revisit just about every brewery from this trip, I’m struggling to think of anything I had that was truly memorable.
Finally, let’s get to the last, best part of most of my trips - the food! There wasn’t anything particularly Denver that I felt I had to eat so I just went nuts with random cuisines. Of course, there was ramen (when do I not have ramen) and two of the three bowls I had there were great with the other one being adequate but would not make a point of eating there again. The best bang for the buck was Bourbon Grill which is a place that serves the kind of grilled chicken that wouldn’t be out of place in a mall food court. You know, the kind that always gave out the free samples you go back to for seconds and thirds when you’re in high school and college; except this place was actually good.
The standout meal was at The Wolf’s Tailor, a Japanese-influenced Euro/American restaurant. Tons of flavor combined with farm-fresh ingredients results in a spectacular five-course meal. As far as blowout meals go, $95 for a pre-fixe menu is a pretty solid price to pay.
The List
Breweries
Denver Beer Co
Cervecería Colorado
Jagged Mountain Craft Brewery
Banded Oak Brewing Company
Baere Brewing Company
TRVE Brewing Company
Diebolt Brewing Company
Cerebral Brewing
Ratio Beerworks
Great Divide Brewing Co.
Woods Boss Brewing Company
Spangalang Brewery
Restaurants
Walter’s303
Uncle
Bourbon Grill
The Wolf’s Tailor
Oishii Ramen
Osaka Ramen
Bars
Star Bar
First Draft
Coffee & Baked Goods
Jubilee Roasting Co
Rebel Bread
Little Owl Coffee
Voodoo Doughnut
Museums
Molly Brown House Museum
Denver Art Museum
Buffalo, June 5-6
If you’ll recall from my last trip to Tampa- St. Pete, I was able to catch a Toronto Blue Jays home game in Dunedin because of COVID-19 restrictions keeping them south of the border.
Beers 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
Breweries 🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻
Games ⚾️ ⚾️
Flights ✈️✈️
#ballpark32
If you’ll recall from my last trip to Tampa- St. Pete, I was able to catch a Toronto Blue Jays home game in Dunedin because of COVID-19 restrictions keeping them south of the border. Well, those restrictions are still in place but with summer approaching, the club had to find a new home or fall victim to the warmer, more humid weather to come.
Enter Buffalo - Sahlen Field, the home of their Triple-A affiliate Buffalo Bisons would become the new temporary home for the Jays.
Sahlen Field, June 5
Sahlen Field was built with the intention of possibly being a home for an MLB team. Well, a little over 20 years later, it happened with the Blue Jays playing their home games there in 2020 due to the pandemic. With US-Canada border still closed, it was pressed back into service for 2021 as their home after they finally “broke camp”, leaving Florida after their final homestand in May.
You can tell that there were higher ambitions for the ballpark as it’s a fairly large one by MiLB standards. That said, it’s still too small a footprint and would need considerable upgrades, even more than the ones made the last two years to have it be serviceable as a temporary home for an MLB team. That’s no knock on the stadium itself - it’s an awesome minor league venue and a fantastic place to take in a game of any caliber. It’s just not a major league stadium. It was, however, the 32nd ballpark I’ve seen an MLB game.
Also? I caught my very first foul ball here!
Sahlen Field, June 6
The start time for the Saturday afternoon game was a very Toronto home game time - 3:07 pm. That left me with just enough time to take a tour of a Frank Lloyd Wright home - Martin House. Alas, photography was not allowed inside the house on this tour so you’ll just have to take my word for it that the interior is phenomenal. Several rooms were incredible but the kitchen may have been the standout of the spaces we had access to.
Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House
The List
Breweries
Resurgence Brewing Company
Thin Man Brewery
Big Ditch Brewing Company
Lafayette Brewing Co.
Pressure Drop Brewing
Bars
Anchor Bar
Coffee & Baked Goods
Public Espresso + Coffee
Tampa-St. Petersburg, May 15-16
Looking at the 2021 MLB schedule when it was released last summer, I knew I’d be coming down this weekend to see the Mets play the Rays and notch Tropicana Field off my ballpark list.
Beers 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
Breweries 🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻
Games ⚾️ ⚾️
Ballparks 🏟🏟
Flights ✈️✈️
#ballparkdoubledip
Looking at the 2021 MLB schedule when it was released last summer, I knew I’d be coming down this weekend to see the Mets play the Rays and notch Tropicana Field off my ballpark list. This trip, of course, depended on the state of the pandemic and whether Florida would be in the clear by mid-May. I shouldn’t have had any doubts - it’s Florida, after all (interpret that however you want) and so I was off to Tampa-St. Petersburg.
Tropicana Field
What can I say about Tropicana Field that hasn’t already been said? It’s definitely a bottom-tier MLB ballpark and only the Oakland Coliseum rivals it for worst stadium in MLB. Having a roof prevents the rainouts in the summer months that the Marlins used to fall prey to when they were in Joe Robbie Stadium but not having it be retractable or at least transparent makes it feel like they’re playing baseball in a tent. It was a beautiful, sunny Saturday afternoon and you couldn’t tell from inside the stadium. I’m just bummed I didn’t get to see the wacky ground rules regarding the ceiling rings go into effect. If I’m being charitable, I can say that the sightlines from just about every part of the stadium are clear and unobstructed. Also, the local food and craft beer options are spectacular.
TD Ballpark
When I planned this trip, I planned to just make it to one game; after all, this was Tropicana Field and the way the flight schedules worked out, it was just easiest to come in Saturday morning and leave Sunday afternoon. What I hadn’t anticipated was the Canadian reticence to let the Toronto Blue Jays host games at home, owing to the cross-border traffic that would be required for them and their opponents to come to Toronto. This meant that the Blue Jays would not be able to break camp and head north after spring training, choosing instead to stay in Florida to open the season. As luck would have it, they were home the same weekend I would be in Tampa-St. Pete and, even luckier, their game would be at night. So, after leaving Tropicana Field (with a pit stop at a nearby brewery), I made my way up to Dunedin and to TD Ballpark.
I’d actually been here before for spring training but to see an actual MLB game at a spring training stadium was quite the experience. Sure, the tickets were way more expensive than you’d normally pay for a game here but look how close fans are to the action!
TD Ballpark
As always, there were breweries to visit and while I made it a point to revisit Green Bench and Webb’s City Cellar, their offshoot next door, everything else was new to me. It’d only been maybe three years or so since the last time I was down here and there were still plenty of places to try for the first time. If you’re ever in the area, I’d make it a point to go up to Dunedin and walk/bike along the Pinellas Trail - there’s at least a handful of breweries you can stop in at to whet your whistle.
The List
Breweries
Bayboro Brewing Co.
Avid Brew Company
Green Bench Brewing Company
Woodwright Brewing Company
Cueni Brewing Co.
HOB Brewing Co.
3 Daughters Brewing
Grand Central Brewhouse
Webb's City Cellar by Green Bench Brewery
Dallas, May 1-2
For the first time in 453 days, I flew on a plane!
Globe Life Field
Beers 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
Breweries 🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻
Games ⚾️ ⚾️
Meats 🐄 🐖 🦃
Sweets 🍩🍩🍦
Flights ✈️✈️
#beersbbqbaseball
For the first time in 453 days, I flew on a plane! With my first flight since the pandemic, life felt like it was finally returning to normal if, ya know, “normal” includes wearing a mask the entire time I was on the plane. But once I got to my final destination of Dallas, TX, it was a mask-free weekend. Freedom from the tyranny of masks! 🙄
I’ll admit to being incredibly nervous at times when it came to mask wearing. Now, there’s no mask mandate in Texas so it’s not like there’s any mask compliance to meet. But after spending the entire last 14 months in the northeast, to actually see how the other half is living, like the pandemic had ended (or worse, never happened) was jarring. Still, this is their turf so just gotta mask up and stay as safe as is possible and pray that J&J is effective. 🤞🏻
So why was I in Dallas? Well, they’ve got a brand spanking new ballpark that I haven’t been to yet and I had tons of Southwest Airlines voucher credit to burn through so Dallas it was! The last time I was in Dallas four years ago, I visited the Texas Rangers’ previous ballpark, Globe Life Park and after attending that early July game, I was convinced as to why a 20-something year-old ballpark already had to be replaced. Without a roof and climate control, it was unbearably hot in the stands until the sun set behind the stadium. I swore there were more fans in the concourse common seating areas than there were in the stands for the first three innings that night.
Globe Life Field, May 1
This new stadium, Globe Life Field? Heat is not a problem though the sun can still be since the roof is constructed with plenty of glass panels. Under direct sun light in the upper concourse, it can still get hot but that’s the cost of having an abundance of natural light, even for a roofed stadium. Of all the post-Camden ballparks I’ve been to, this is the first one that feels big, like it’s not trying to go after that hit of nostalgia every ballpark of the past 25 years seems to have chased.
Globe Life Field, May 2
But what about the barbecue!? The first time I was in Dallas, I made a point to try Pecan Lodge and I was not disappointed. Beyond that, though, I had been forewarned that Dallas proper didn’t have the great barbecue. Would I be disappointed!?
Dear reader, I was not. My first stop after dropping my bag at the hotel was to The Slow Bone, arriving there just as they were about to open and that was some damn good meats. We’re talking prime brisket, hickory sausage, and pork ribs, all of which I could have finished in one go if I didn’t have any shame. If that weren’t enough, they tossed in a free slice of turkey breast so I could have a try; I would have gladly gotten a portion of that if I hadn’t already gotten more than I could possibly eat.
The other standout barbecue was Hurtado Barbecue in Arlington which i am sad to say I have no photos of as I actually had to put in a large order to pick up on my way to the airport Sunday afternoon to ensure I got to try it as I had been shut out the previous day.
The List
Breweries
Peticolas Brewing Company
Texas Ale Project
Legal Draft
Division Brewing
Pegasus City Brewery
Manhattan Project Beer Co.
Restaurants
The Slow Bone
Lockhart Smokehouse
Hurtado Barbecue
Coffee & Baked Goods
Urban Donut
State Street Coffee