Toodle-oo Tuesday in Boston

Dan and Carrie would be leaving on a mid afternoon flight to return to California but we still had Tuesday morning for a final Boston activity with them. The agenda included a guided tour of Fenway Park. The tour began in the team store, a strategy representing entrepreneurial planning at its finest. Dan, Carrie, and I browsed the store while Frank sat in a comfortable seat to wait for the tour to begin. I bought a Boston Red Sox rubber duckie for Autumn. Then we were off! Cue organ music... Take me out to the ball game...

Frank prefers waiting to spending money.
This tends to be his fiscal philosophy in general so we complement each other well.

Autumn thought this little duckie was yummy.
Upon my giving it to her, she shoved it straight into her  mouth, baseball cap first.

The exit to the store directed us across the street to historic Fenway Park.

The tour started by a taking a peek into the visitors' locker room. Then the guide led us single file up into the stands to get an overview of the stadium. Each party in the line paused in front of a photographer, who posed them for a souvenir picture, another fine example of entrepreneurial excellence. Dan took a photo of Frank and me as we passed along one of the upper walkways. Frank asked how the intricate pattern in the playing field was made. We could understand how a mowing pattern could make the striped or checkerboard design but how about the "B Strong"? We learned that the pattern is created by angling a hose directing a stream of high pressure water to lay the grass down in different directions, providing the two tones of color. I thought to myself, "This is just like the nap of velvet, corduroy, or fur fabric." The fabricaholic in me never dies.

Frank and I paused to admire the playing field from up high.
I was fascinated with the technique for patterning the green.

Behind our backs in the "B Strong" photo is the Green Monster. The scoreboard is in that tall green wall. The corridor behind the scoreboard is unheated, icy cold in chilly weather, and swelteringly hot in warm weather, and yet two men worked faithfully within those non-ideal conditions updating the scores during every game. Well, almost every game.  They only missed one game collectively within over twenty years of service. That was the day one of them got married and the other was his best man. Our tour guide thought the wedding should have been scheduled during the off-season. Our tour then walked to the seating area above the Green Monster and we were allowed to sit there a bit and admire the ball field from that vantage point within Fenway Park.

Here are Carrie, Frank, and Dan in the seats above the Green Monster.
Note the sign at the lower left corner. There is a close-up of it next.

I don't quite know why, but I was bemused by this sign at the Green Monster seating area.
Do the seats spring up and fire the offending fan into the air?

Our tour continued among the various pavilion levels of the stadium. We entered and paused for a bit in the pressroom, where the sports writers and sports reporters watch the games. We learned there is assigned seating and a pecking order. Along the way we passed no other than Micky Mouse. As a Disney fan I could not pass up a photo-op with Red Sox Mickey. I also could not miss the opportunity for another father/son photo during our saunter around Fenway Park.

As a Disney fan I could not pass up this photo-op!

This photo does not have the same prestige as the "Men of Boston" photo from my previous post
but it gets across the same point.  We were all having a fun time bonding while horsing around.

We also saw the Citgo sign, an iconic part of the Boston skyline. One well-known baseball player whose name I have forgotten (sorry, but, no sports figure is well-known to me) got his inspiration to hit home runs from the sign. He would spur himself on by envisioning the ball launched off his bat with the words,  "Cee - it - go"! The CITGO sign is also a nostalgic image for Frank and me from our MIT days. During the majority of his graduate student years, Frank lived on the 11th floor of Tang Hall, a graduate student dorm.  Frank's room 11B-4, had a great close-up view of the CITGO sign right outside his window.

The final bullet of the CITGO sign facts points out that anytime a home run ball is hit
over left field in Fenway Park, the CITGO sign is in the image.

At the end of the tour we walked through the Red Sox and Fenway Park memorabilia room. One gentleman there proudly showed me his world series rings.

This gentleman was not a Boston Red Sox player but sported two rings.
The team had voted that support members got rings as well.

This is a closeup view of the World Champion rings for 2007 and 2004.

After the Fenway Park Tour we had enough time for a light lunch before Dan and Carrie had to catch their ~3:00 flight. A restaurant just outside and across the street from the park was Sweet Caroline's. Carrie, technical writer that she is with a strong eye for detail, immediately spotted the mangled reference on their advertising chalkboard. Dan and Carrie were married in San Juan Capistrano.

Can you spot the phrase? Were those flocking fish intentional?
Maybe the beer does flow like wine within.

Although I did not know it at the time, I now know that the phrase is a quote from the 1994 movie Dumb and Dumber.  I guess my taste in movies back then did not sway me to rush right out and see that one. Or, if my younger tastes did woo me into watching it, then there is mercy in getting older, and I've forgotten I'd seen it. Here is the phrase in context.

Quote from the 1994 movie Dumb and Dumber

As I was writing about this I found out that those salmon have their own web site, too.  Check it out at http://salmonofcapistrano.com/. Although "the Salmon of Capastrano" was a bit of a slight to their wedding venue in a weird way, it was also funny. We laughed it off and ate there! We sat at a booth where the wall behind us was a vertical bank of dirt planted with real foliage. I wondered how the restaurant owners watered it? Although the bar was extensive, the wall gave the room a very atrium-like feel and the abundance of wood tones lent a luxe feel.

We had our final lunch with Dan and Carrie at Sweet Caroline's, across the street from Fenway Park.

We made our way back to the town home on Appleton street where Dan and Carrie picked up their luggage and set off for Logan Airport. It was great to have been able to spend such concentrated time with them. It was even more special to have had the opportunity and circumstances to share with them snippets of our lives when we were just a few years younger than they are now, back just before and just after Frank and I were married.

Dan and Carrie posed for one last picture in our 83 Appleton rental before departing for the airport.
This downstairs area was where Frank and I stayed while their bedroom was upstairs.

We had the rental on the town home for one more night since our flight to Oklahoma was not until Wednesday. As timing worked out, we were able Tuesday evening to re-connect with our friends John and Sue for a quiet evening of dinner and conversation. John works in nearby Cambridge and Sue drove into the city after she left work. We relaxed in the town home for a bit and then meandered to the Metropolis Cafe on Tremont Street for dinner. It truly was Toodle-oo Tuesday since we said good-bye to them also that day. Wednesday morning we took "the T" out to Logan airport.

In the background behind Frank, the train of the first leg of our subway route to the airport is approaching.

We were off to Oklahoma to celebrate our first granddaughter's first birthday and her mommy's over thirtieth. I took the following picture at Boston's Logan airport because it just seemed to capture the role of the modern grandparent - getting out of their rocking chairs to fly off and see the kids and grandkids.

The modern vs. the old. Jet plane vs. rocking chair.