Daniel had become one of my good friends through being RA's together at school. One afternoon, his friend Carter and him were planning a random one-day road trip to go see the Reds play the Dodgers in Cincinnati just for fun. (Carter is a Dodgers fan.) I got the invite and decided to go! Why not?! I would totally love to skip class for a ball game road trip! I'd never been to Cincinnati and thought it would be fun. No, I wasn't a fan of either team, but wouldn't it be cool to say I'd been to that ballpark?
On the drive there, I began thinking about how fun it would be to say I've been to all the MLB ballparks, and not only go to them, but see a game at each of them. I'm a big Braves fan, but I love baseball in general. This just seemed like a really cool goal. Only one problem: I had NO idea how many of them there were. When I got home, I looked it up. There are 30 ball clubs, so naturally there would be 30 ballparks to visit. I needed to set a deadline for this goal. It just seemed so obvious that I should try to go to all 30 before I turned 30! I was 21 at the time I set this goal, so 9 years seemed like plenty of time to accomplish this!
Over the course of telling some people about my new goal and them asking questions about it, I decided I also needed to set guidelines on this new goal... like what if a ballpark I'd been to was torn down and replaced by a new one? Do I have to go to the new one as well? Do I actually have to actually see a game at each park I visit or can I just go see the ball park? So here's what I decided. Here are my ball park road trip guidelines:
- I have to actually go to a game at the ball park
- If a new ballpark is built and one I've been to is torn down, it's grandfathered in, meaning I don't have to revisit that franchise's park.
- I will take a picture of myself with the field in the background at each park.
- I have until my 30th birthday to reach my goal.
Of course not all of these rules and guidelines and rules came together all at once, but it's been a process and definitely a fun one at that!
The Cincinnati trip was fun and it was a good start to my adventure!
Almost 2 years later, I have been to 6 ballparks and am loving the journey! So let me recap where I've been...
After my trip to Cincinnati, I was revved and ready to go on all these awesome trips! I just knew this goal was going to be easy to accomplish (yeah right). Every semester Lipscomb has a "dead day" which is just a day for everyone to cram and study before finals begin. I did the only logical thing I could see fit to do on this day that semester: road trip to St. Louis. I tried to get Daniel and Carter to go, but they said that was a little too far to drive up and back to in one day. I asked SO many of my friends. Everyone said they needed to study, didn't want to spend the money or just wasn't a baseball fan. I was bound and determined to go though. I even told my mom I would go by myself. Of course she didn't like that idea, but I was determined. Finally I convinced 2 of my sisters in my service club to go with me! I was SO excited! We left at like 6 that morning to get up there for the game that afternoon. The Cards were playing the Braves, which was perfect for me! Becky, Anna, and I had SO much fun. It was a super long day though. Even though it was kind of a random trio to go on the trip, I wouldn't change that trip for the world. Those girls helped make that trip memorable for sure!
That summer Daniel, our friend Landon, and I met up in Atlanta with our other friend Chelsea. We had such a fun weekend there and also knocked another ball park off my list. Now of course I'd been to Atlanta plenty of times before that (and since), but this was the official visit since I'd started my journey.
After that came family vacation to D.C. Now, I'd hoped to visit the Nationals park and the Orioles park too, but my family had different plans. They didn't want to spend that much time at ballparks on their vacation (I thought it was a great idea...). Plus, the Nationals were out of town the WHOLE week we were in D.C. so that was a bummer. We did drive up to Baltimore one day for a ballgame there. It was rainy and kind of yucky for the first part of the game, but still a fun experience nonetheless. I was really glad to get to share part of my journey to my goal with my family too!
I will admit, I was bummed that I didn't get to see the Nationals while we were there, but that just means another fun D.C. trip will have to happen. So after all of those parks, I was starting to realize how expensive this mission was going to be. HOWEVER, I knew that once I had a teaching job and was on salary that I would totally be able to knock out the parks in the summer times. (I also soon found out that wasn't entirely true... these trips are expensive regardless!)
Baseball season ended for the year and I was left to wonder what parks I would go to the next season. In the meantime I applied and got accepted for the Disney College Program. This opened up the possibility of visiting the Florida ballparks!
I actually didn't go to either ball park in Florida until towards the end of my 4 months living there. At the end of my program, my new bestie, Katie, and I went for a beach day in Tampa. After our lovely beach afternoon, we went to a Marlins game that night. It was fantastic! Of course everything we did together was an adventure, but it was good to mark off another ball park with a new best friend!
Ready for more,
Katelyn
