On the way to Kansas City.

9:00 We’ve left Winona, bound for Kansas City, our first stop on a nine day seven city baseball road trip. We left almost an hour later than we wanted to, but that shouldn’t be too surprising to anybody that knows me.
The trip is starting out on a very sad note though as I found out last night that one of my best friends is lost on the Missouri River after a boating accident. He was truly a great guy and he was also a real big baseball fan. He was a huge Atlanta Braves’ fan and I know that he would have loved to go on a trip like this. So in honor of him I’ll be wearing an Atlanta Braves’ hat to every park.
Tonight’s game is at the newly renovated Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City and features the Royals hosting the Minnesota Twins. I visited Kauffman about 7 years ago but I’m interested to see the new renovations they’ve made to the stadium in the last off season. This will be Erin’s first trip to Kansas City and this is the game she is looking forward to the most because she’s a huge Minnesota Twins’ fan. The pitching match up tonight will be Nick Blackburn of the Twins vs. Brian Bannister of the Royals. Blackburn has probably been the best Twins’ pitcher this season and the Royals have struggled lately so this match up should favor the Twins.
My wife Erin is going to try and get on TV at tonight’s game as she has created a Circle Me Bert sign that she’ll have at the game. For those of you not familiar with Twins’ television broadcasts, Bert Blyleven, former Twins’ pitcher and TV analyst likes to circle fans at the stadium. So now people make creative signs to try and get Bert to circle them. We’ve come up with a sign that will hopefully catch his eye. It says 9 Days, 7 Cities, 1 Big Baseball Road Trip. Circle Me Bert, Go Twins.

10:45: Just stopped at a rest stop in Iowa that is shaped like a barn. Only in Iowa would you see that.