Sunshine Trip: Day 2

I slept in a little on Saturday morning since Friday was such a long day. I really didn't have any plans other than the Indians vs. Marlins game that night in Miami. I figured I would take my time driving on over to Miami since I had the majority of Sunday to explore South Beach.

I started Day 2 of the Sunshine Trip by heading to the De Soto National Memorial. To be honest, I didn't know that this park existed until I check my national parks passport and found it was about 15 miles from my hotel. This memorial recognized the exploration of Hernando De Soto, a Spanish explorer who navigated through what is now the American southeast in search of gold and other riches. The lasting legacy of De Soto is somewhat split: some see him as a great explorer while some see him as a brutal conquerer and tragically stubborn. At the memorial, I took a short walk on the nature walk through the costal mangrove forrest.

I then headed south and east through Big Cypress National Preserve to Miami. I ate a very satisfying lunch at a hole in the wall barbeque place. I also stopped at the Big Cypress National Preserve visitor center to see what the preserve was all about. Essentially Big Cypress is a big swamp that is an extension of the Everglades. In fact, Big Cypress is often referred to as the Western Everglades. A big focus in the visitor center was that Big Cypress swamp is a important ecosystem that is home to many different animals (including the Florida panther and) and naturally cleans the drinking water for southern Florida cities. I walked along the boardwalk at the visitor center and saw a few alligators in the water below. I think Big Cypress would be a good place to backpack but the ranger said that it is only recommended to backpack in the winter month before the swamp floods and the bugs get too bad. I finished the day off by driving to my hotel, walking to Marlins Park (to be documented in an upcoming post), enjoying the game, and hitting the sack.

Sunshine Trip: Day 1

I left my apartment at 5:20 am in order to get to DTW in time for my 6:50 am flight. Aside from the reduced cost of the early Friday morning departure, the appeal of leaving so early was that I got in to Tampa before 11 am. I was a little anxious to get my rental car since I have never gone through that process on my own before. Thankfully the process was pretty straight forward since I had previously reserved as car online. I was out of the airport in a red chevy sonic by 11:15.

I had thought about heading directly to one of the many St. Petersburg/Clearwater beaches but I opted to head to downtown Tampa. I was planning on going to the Florida Aquarium so I parked in the aquarium parking lot for a small fee. Instead of actually going to the aquarium, I ended up walking around downtown Tampa and along the Tampa Riverwalk. I walked past the aquarium, the Tampa Bay Times Forum (home of the Tampa Bay Lightning), a history center, a bunch of hotels, and unfortunately a few free parking lots enroute to the business district of downtown Tampa. After walking through Poe Plaza (a green walkway between a few tall buildings), I ate lunch at a place with a   small replica school bus out front appropriately called the Taco Bus. After my tacos, I walked along the Riverwalk back to my car. The Riverwalk was nice but there weren't too many people around. That might have been because it was a weekday and the skies were getting pretty dark. In fact, I had to wait out a fairly heavy downpour for about 45 hours underneath a covered part of the Riverwalk.

After the rain had let up and I got back to my car, I headed across the bay to Clearwater to check out the beaches. I didn't have time to really enjoy the beach but I did get out of my car to walk on the white sand and stick my feet into the Gulf of Mexico. I then headed to downtown St. Petersburg to Tropicana Field for the night's baseball game. I have written about the stadium and the game in a previous blog post. After the game, I went across the Sunshine Skyway Bridge to get to my hotel for the night. The Skyway Bridge is supposedly one of the symbols of the Tampa Bay area but it was a little dark for me to stop and admire the bridge.

Ballpark: Tropicana Field

After roughly 13 hours after I left my apartment in Ann Arbor, I was at Tropicana Field to watch the Friday night game between the Rays and the Giants. I found a lot to park in for $5 and ended up buying a ticket from a scalper. The ticket was about twice as expensive as I originally planned to spend but it was about 30 rows behind the visitor dugout and I got it for about half off the face value.

Tropicana Field, or "The Trop" is a domed stadium with an astroturf playing surface.  The infield is better than most domed stadiums, such as Rogers Center and the old Metrodome, in that dirt makes up the entire skin of the infield, not just small patches around the bases, mount, and plate. The bullpens are in foul territory down the foul lines and the outfield dimensions are pretty non-descript. The only item of note is that there are four catwalks around the circumference of the dome. Occasionally a ball hits off one of there catwalks.

The atmosphere at Tropicana Field is different than pretty much every other ballpark I have visited. The following items are things "The Trop" has in common with a carnival:

• vibrant colors; the concourse of "The Trop" was bright blue, yellow, and lime green.
• marque lights; flashing marque lights showcased a few restaurants, some merchandise stands, and ...
• arcade games; there is an arcade in Tropicana Field and I saw a kid holding a large stuffed Mickey Mouse that looked like something you could win at a carnival.
• a wide variety of food; this was a good asset of the ballpark. I had a cuban sandwich but I saw people with hotdogs, popcorn, ice cream, beer, wine, Papa John's Pizza, barbeque, and a bloomin' onion.
• a petting zoo; this is actually pretty cool: here is a sting ray touch tank just beyond the centerfield wall. Using two fingers, you were allowed to stroke the rays along there wings. 
• ringing noises; the rays fans would shake their cowbells for key pitches in the game such as 3-2 pitches with two outs and runners on base.
• big furry mascots; the rays have two mascots that a big, furry, and don't really resemble anything other than Mr. McGibblets from the sitcom, The League.
• a DJ; Friday night is the Centerfield Shuffle with DJ Fresh Night. Throughout the game they would show DJ Fresh on the (typical MLB) scoreboard surrounded by the Rays dance team. Sometimes they would show a cat dressed up in a Rays jersey and backward hat playing on a toy spin table. After the game, fans were invited to enter the field and exit through the centerfield gate. It was neat to be on an MLB field.
• people stuck in the 90s; in addition to several people with lots of tattoos and piercings and guys who had inflated biceps, there were two 90s-style music video type clips on the big screen. Most of the music videos at some point either featured DJ Fresh's cat or Dick Vitale's voice. This best comparison to the music videos I can think of are the spoof science videos from the end of Bill Nye The Science Guy.

The one historic baseball feature of Tropicana Field was the Ted Williams Museum and Hitters Hall of Fame. Even though the Rays are a newer team, their AL championship team and David Price's Cy Young Award highlighted the Rays specific exhibits. There were additional exhibits for game's best pitchers, best hitters, best Jewish players, and a whole room of memorabilia from Ted Williams. This was like a mini-Cooperstown.

Rays starter Chris Archer was in complete control through 6.2 innings surrendering only two hits to Brandon Belt (one a solo homer). This game had the makings of a pitchers duel as the score was 1-1 with Archer and Giants starter Madison Baumgarner routinely making hitters look foolish. Then the Giants strung together 5 straight hits including a triple by Belt and a homer run by Brandon Crawford to give the Giants a 4-1 lead. The Rays made a little noise in the bottom of the ninth with a Jose Lobaton triple but ultimately fell 4-1.

My take-away from Tropicana Field was that it is a baseball themed carnival with an MLB game in the middle. Some of the aspects of "The Trop" such as the sting ray touch tank and the cowbells are cool ideas and alone would make the ballpark stand out among others in baseball. However there are so many different gimmicks, it is a little overbearing and distracts from the play on the field.