Boston Red Sox @ Minnesota Twins 5-12-08

Here we are in beautiful Minneapolis. We spent the day driving around Minneapolis and St. Paul to get a sense of the city. We saw UMinn campus to get pictures of the Weissman Art Museum. We happened on the UMinn Crew Boathouse and took pictures for Steven to see. We then drove to the Walker Art Museum to look at their 24 acre sculpture garden ... lots of interesting sculptures. One of the recommendations in the local guide was the Peanuts sculptures in St. Paul (Charles Schultz was from there). Of course, we had to go see them and take pictures. The UMinn crew coach recommended we eat lunch at the Dari-ette, an Italian Drive-In restaurant (car hops and eat in the car). Very Good and a worthwhile side trip. With an hour to kill, we walked around the Mall of America, the ultimate in US capitalism.

Here's a link to the pictures of our Minneapolis tour:
http://www1.snapfish.com/photolibrary/t_=98074769

The Metrodome was better than I expected. Good viewing lines. Good access in the promenade. Lots of food choices. However, it clearly was built for football. Minnesota is building a new stadium for the Twins to open in 2010. The game started at 6pm to accommodate ESPN. It didn't start well. Boston scored 3 in the top of the 1st. However, Minnesota scored 2 in the bottom of the first and scored 5 more during the next few innings to win 7-3. Here's the link to the boxscore:
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2008_05_12_bosmlb_minmlb_1&mode=wrap

Here's a link to the Metrodome pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14772189@N03/sets/

The best part of the game was Michael Cuddyer's catch in right field. The ball hit his glove, bounced off his hat and fell forward into his glove. Here's a link to the video:
http://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?mid=200805122688687

Hot Dog Time: a very good dog (You have to buy it at the "Top Dog" stand by Section 121). There was a woman taking the temperature of each hot dog to make sure they were done. Lots of topping choices --- chili, cheese, beans, tomatoes, peppers, relish, onions, sauerkraut. One point off for a bun that was too big (who needs all that bread when there's a hot dog to be eaten). I gave it an "8". By the way, Nancy had her 2nd Leinenkugel beer on the tour. She's enjoyed it so much, we're stopping off in Chippewa Falls today to see the Leinenkugel Brewery.