May 23, 2013
Niagara and Detroit
Last night we
slept in Kalle’s basement. It was
perfect for us! The best part was they
don’t have a door on the bathroom yet, and Hayley was the first one who needed
to use it. Haha strict boundaries were
set so that no one would approach anywhere near where we might see in the
doorway. Haha
We slept in quite
a bit and Kalle was sure to make fun of me when I woke up because I was not
staying true to the Jergensen name because I slept in so late! haha She made us
some Waffles, bacon, sausage, and gave us some homegrown peaches. Breakfast was money! We talked with Kalle and Aaron a bit at
breakfast before helping them move their boat to a different garage. We tossed a baseball a bit then we packed up
and headed to the Falls!
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| cool pano of the "American Falls". not as popular as the horseshoe falls, but less mist! |
We went to the
American side of Niagara because it was cheaper, even though it is well known
that the Canada side has the better views.
We only had an hour or two to spend there, so we quickly took some
pictures from the high viewpoint. There
was this Asian couple that had either no spacial awareness, or they were simply
rude. Goodness- at first I was up
against a railing and turned around to get out, bumping her in the process on
accident because I didn’t have enough room to get out. Usually at this point though, someone will
realize they were bumped and turn and look, and then help provide space. But she didn’t. she completely ignored me. haha so I squeezed by. I then proceeded to try and take a picture
for Haylor, but the lady had found her way right into their frame. Then her husband who was taking the picture
found his way into it, too. He slowly
backed up right in front of me and right between Haylor and me, just to get the
perfect picture. He eventually backed up
into me completely, bumping into me pretty hard. Usually you would step out of the way at that
point, maybe apologize, or even just recognize that you had collided. Nothing.
I was so mad. It wasn’t a big
deal, but that was like 2 mins of nonstop getting in our way, mostly things
that a reasonable person would have noticed was in someone’s way (backing into
someone for example?) It’s a good thing
I didn’t react. Ha so dumb. Garrett at
this point noticed that they were being dumb and stepped by him so he could
take a picture right in front of him. Haha- Oh, I forgot, she glared so hard at
Hayley at one point when they were in their picture. So ironic. So frustrating.
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| The four of us in front of the horseshoe falls |
We made it down onto the ‘Maid of the Mist’,
the boat tour that takes you right up close to the falls. That was neat, although it was so misty that
you couldn’t really see the falls when you got close! Haha But it was most definitely worth going
to. It was very wet and water was
dripping off my face. I only got one
picture from my phone before I decided it was too wet.
We got back on
land, dried off on the windy observation deck, and took some pictures right
next to the top of falls. We took a ceremonial McDonalds smoothies break and
then went across the border. Once again,
I was driving and handled the border patrol with poise and elegance. We drove
straight across Canada without stopping from Niagara to Detroit. It rained for a good portion of the trip, but
other than that, it was pretty uneventful!
When we got to Detroit, the border patrol officer GRILLED us. Haha
He was asking all kinds of questions.
My favorite of his questions was probably, “why would these other people
want to stay at your cousin’s house in Buffalo?” haha- uh, because we went to Niagara Falls,
like I just told you and it was free housing.
Sometimes they ask the dumbest questions just to make sure your story is
straight. He asked if we bought
anything, and I said, “we drove straight through and didn’t even stop for gas”,
and he immediately said, “Wait, I thought you went to Niagara Falls….” Uh, we did Mr Officer, on the American
side. We told him we were in Detroit for
the Tiger’s game, to which he asked to see the tickets. We told him they were in the trunk and he
asked to search the trunk. He came back
laughing at us, saying our seats sucked and we were going to freeze. Haha I had shorts and a T-shirt on and it was
45 degrees, windy, and rainy. Great. So
I think he lightened up a bit right there at the end, but he was the most strict
border patrol cop we saw.
We parked and
went to get warm clothes on (Garrett and I only had the clothes on our backs-
no pants, etc, as we had all left most of our stuff in Garrett’s car in Ann Arbor)
which entailed Taylor’s extra sweatshirts, ponchos, etc. We searched and searched for the tickets to
the game and they were nowhere to be found!
We were sure the border patrol cop had stolen them! After a solid 5-10 mins of searching, We
looked inside a zipped up back pack and for some reason the cop had decided to
put them in there! Haha. Good thing,
because I would have been so mad if our tickets were stolen, but I still don’t
know why he stuck them in a random backpack.
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| Awesome stadium view of Detroit |
We got in the
stadium with plenty of time before the game would start, but unfortunately,
right after we got there they announced their would be a rain delay before the
game could start. So we hung out
upstairs in our seats for over an hour before they finally started at
8:05. It was 44 degrees at first pitch.
Very cold. We pulled the ponchos over
our exposed legs to cut down on the wind and that helped a little. But man, it was pretty dang cold. Eventually we made it down stairs, bought
some Brats to help warm us up and feed our hungry bellies, then found a nice
spot that was relatively warm where we were able to stand and watch the
game. We stood there for a while before
moving down by the foul pole when Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder came up
back to back with the bases loaded.
Neither hit it out, but we stayed there in those seats for a bit and
eventually took the normal left field picture.
 |
| it was cold. Garrett and I were in shorts. we do crazy things. |
The Tigers
bullpen is right down the left field line, so when the catcher would come back
from warming up the outfielders, Taylor would shout, “Ball, Ball” hoping to get
one tossed his way. The second time, the
player barked back at him, mockingly, “Ball, Ball!” and shook his head as he
walked away from Taylor. That catcher
was now Public enemy number 1 to me. Haha I spent the next inning heckling him
and Josh Willingham (Twins LF). I loved
shouting at Josh, telling him how good his throws were, etc. Josh hit a few home runs, so you can tell he was
getting the love. The bullpen catcher on
the other hand only received words that expressed my dislike for him. Too bad.
He was probably a good guy.
We eventually
made our way around the whole stadium after stopping in right field for a bit,
then Garrett and I tried our luck sneaking down by the dugouts. Garrett walked down with no problem so I
figured it was no big deal and started to stroll behind him when an usher
stopped me and told me I needed tickets for that section. I acted like I wasn’t with Garrett and then continued
walking in a different direction until I came to the next stairway, which
didn’t have an usher. I headed down
those stairs and took a seat, but the usher had watched me the whole way. After a little bit, I think he decided to
come and get me, and he started to walk towards my stairway and turned down in my
direction. I got up and moved again,
switched my 2 layers of sweatshirts so I had a different color on top, and went
back to the good seats I had found. Haha
But the funny part about that story is that Garrett also thought the
usher was watching him that whole time, and when the usher moved towards my
section, Garrett had just stood up to come join me down closer at the exact
same time. Garrett thought he was
walking to go cut him off and kick him out, so Garrett sat down and never made
it to me! Haha . So in essence, Garrett stood up and started moving, the usher
started moving towards me, I got up to move away from him, Garrett sat down,
and the usher now had no one to chase and stopped. Hahahaha
We will never know if he was going after Garrett, me, or something
completely unrelated, but either way, I hope he was satisfied because he got
both of us worried!
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| Home plate pic before bouncing. notice the changed sweatshirt!! |
We eventually all
joined back up and took a picture behind home plate with one out to go and
headed for the exit the second the final out was made. We had a long journey
ahead of us. Since the game started
late, we didn’t get out of the park until around 11:30 or 12:00 and then had to
detour to Cincinnati through Ann Arbor to pick up Garrett’s car. We swung by The Big House for a minute, just
long enough to snap a picture outside, and then we headed to Cincinnati, where
we got in about 4:00am!
Stats:
Miles Traveled today: 560
Hours in the car today: 9
Miles traveled total: 3200
Hours in the car total: 57
Narcotic searches: 2
Jumbotrons: 2
MLB Baseballs: 1
Final Scoreboard:
Garrett* 6-0
Eric 4-2
Hayley 4-2
Mitch** 3-3
Taylor 3-3
*Correctly predicted the Tigers beating the Twins 7-6
**Correctly predicted the Dodgers beating the Brewers 3-1
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