Everyday Joe: My Trip To Target Field

I really have enjoyed this past week. The weekend's weather was grand and much of it was spent outdoors. The planned trip to Minnesota was better than previously expected and I experienced some pretty fun times.

Tuesday, June 3rd
The planned trip was me and my father (who I will refer to as "Father Todd" from this point on) were going to spend three days in St. Paul at two of our relatives' (exact relation = cousin, twice removed or something complicated to that level) house in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota. We would go to a Milwaukee Brewer-Minnesota Twin game at the (new to us) Target Field Wednesday night, play some board games to pass the time, and perhaps even go disc golfing. Disc Golfing never happened, but every event that replaced it made up for the lack of disc golfing handily. The trip was a full three-and-a-half hour drive from Wisconsin Rapids to St. Paul with only one stop in between at a gas station in Neillsville. It was sunny with barely a cloud in the sky and a perfect outdoor temperature at somewhere between 75 and 85 degrees.

Our road trip began around 10 AM and we arrived at our destination at 1:30 PM. With only a half a box of Slim Jims that I had carried into the car gone already, needless to say we were both hungry. Thankfully, my dad's cousin (I'm allowed to shorten his real title) is a somewhat professional chef. Up the staircase we went, greeted by a door which was technically the back-door entrance to his house although, we ended up using that door more than the front entrance. Once he unlocked the door, we walked into his kitchen. The chef then proceeded to make us some awesome Philly cheese steak sandwiches. He gave us a tour of his small, humble abode which included a down-stairs neighbor in a two-floor establishment. To the left of where we entered, lay a bathroom, food pantry, and laundry room. To the right, the dining room, living room, and one bedroom. The dining room was easily the most impressive room to us Todd's as it contained a book-case stacked with board games, some of which we had no idea existed. He capped off the tour by returning to the stair-case from which we entered and showed us to our room that we would be sharing.

The room was hidden in a doorway at the top of the back-staircase. Once that door was opened, it led to a room that looked like a janitor's closet with a newly-formed ladder in the center of the closet. Once our guide had opened the door, he begun climbing the ladder which confused both Father Todd and I until his cousin disappeared into the ceiling. "Duh" I thought, this ladder clearly led to the attic. We then proceeded to follow my dad's cousin up the misshapen "staircase" that was really a ladder and popped up into a hole in the floor of the attic. My father's cousin had re-done the attic within the past year and made it look like a decent room with nothing in it besides a futon and a deflated air mattress. I knew I was going to choose the air mattress as my last night on a futon resulted in ninety minutes of sleep.

My dad's cousin then proceeded to give us a tour on a quick walk around his area of the city (only a few blocks). Once we returned to his home, we had to wait for our host's wife to arrive home from work. In the spare half hour or so that we had, we played a game resembling the card game Last Word which I can not for the life of me remember the actual title for (give me a break, this took place 4 days ago and we played it for less than thirty minutes, plus I can't find it on Google).

Once the second host arrived home, they both took us to St. Paul's own Como Zoo. My dad's cousin tried to downplay the free zoo as he said "all they rely on are donations and it's not as bad as it used to be but us folks around here still refer to it as the "sad zoo"". Walking through the entrance, we saw the person manning the donations stand who was previously mentioned to us and opened the door to a surprisingly huge zoo (Not Minnesota Zoo huge but still pretty size-able compared to anything you witness in central Wisconsin). The multiple hours we spent at this zoo was fascinating and the subject of many nice photos.

Photos Like this.

Or this picture of Mr. Zebra gurgling his own urine. Nice imagery, huh?

The Giraffes seemed as though they were moving in slow motion as all giraffes do.

Lowlight: All of the cats were resting.

The caribou got up close and personal.

Breaking News: Polar Bears are large

Highlight: I made friends with a seal.

As we all made our way through the zoo, we followed the two Minnesotans into the garden area. The garden area was intense for anybody who loves gardening. Father Todd was in love with this building.

I have an idea for where to shoot a funny music video.

The plant area also had a hallway that led to food/spice trees (Ex: Mango, Cacao, Black Pepper). There was also an outdoor area containing around a dozen bonzai trees being watched by one security person who I swear, must have the most boring job on Earth. Who would want to steal one of these trees?

After our 2-3 hours spent at the Como Zoo, we got back to our car and my dad's cousin played a game he liked to refer to as "Highlight:Lowlight" which was basically just his way of getting us to compliment his decisions like going to the zoo or anything else we did this week. As mentioned in the above photo captions, my highlight of this part of our trip was bonding with a seal while my lowlight (not even a word) was every single cat in some sort of resting position, not willing to roar/meow/do anything.

My legs were pretty tired of walking through the warmth of the Summer sun for a few hours with no stops at a zoo so, we went ahead and got ice cream at the fantastic Conny's Creamy Cone at the corners of Maryland Ave. and Dale St.. This ice cream business had a wealth of options to choose from including the choice of whether or not to dip your ice cream in another flavor. They also had cheese curds. My review: Wisconsin Cheese Curds > Minnesota Cheese Curds.

The service was great and there were 24+ soft serve flavors, what else could anybody ask for?

As we chowed down on some delicious dairy products, all four of us at the table discussed what we would do next with our day. Our discussion led us to the main tourist attraction of the Twin Cities: The Mall of America. Four floors, roller-coasters, crazy huge Lego statues and the same sporting goods stores over and over again. It was definitely a highlight of the trip. 

They even had auditions for The Skol Line (AKA: The official drum line of the Minnesota Vikings). There were about 30 participants and people on all four floors were leaned over the railing, attentively observing. It was basically "Viking Idol".

All of us passed the ultimate test as none of us spent any money on our seemingly endless walk through the Mall of America other than one cookie (and man, those cookies were scrumptious) for each person. I went with Macadamia Nut (a family favorite). While in the Mall of America, I received multiple compliments on my Superman hat which I thought nothing of until I realized that the hat I was wearing was in literally ZERO of the dozen or more stores with snap-backs and other hats inside of them.

Seriously though, who has the time to make Optimus Prime out of Legos?

Quality profile picture material.

Afterwards, it was 9:52 when we arrived at the place we ordered our supper from, Taqueria Los Paisanos. The food was good but they really packed in a ton of ingredients into their burritos. I needed two meals to down the thing but it was tasty nonetheless. The night ended with three hours of more board games including the (highly recommended) Scattegories-esque Facts of Five (which spawned terrible categories like U.S. Politicians of Icelandic descent and terrible answers for those categories like "Calvin Coolidge") and Racko. 

After all of the game-playing, it was time for bed at 1 AM and I crawled my way up the jagged and sketchy ladder into the attic, where I got a solid night of rest on the air mattress despite the sweltering heat of the room. 

Wednesday, June 4th
I awoke to the sun peaking through the small window on the side of the dark attic/storage room and immediately knew that this would be a great day. How did I know? Well, I knew that the night would include a good old fashioned baseball game between the Minnesota Twins and Wisconsin's very own Milwaukee Brewers. Once I made my way into the kitchen, my dad's cousin was ready with a full onslaught of pancakes. After completing the typical morning get-ready-for-the-day activities, I sat down at the dining room table and was greeted by a huge stack of pancakes resting on a plate in the center of the dining room table. I ended up eating three with my dad taking care of a couple as well but my dad's cousin? He ate none. He said "I'm not a pancake guy. My wife loves pancakes but I see them more as an easy butter or syrup transportation device as pancakes rarely ever have flavor". I never thought of it that way but, I think he's right. The only pancakes worth eating are the flavored ones you find at IHOP like chocolate pancakes or red-velvet pancakes (another personal favorite of mine and what I ate on my 16th birthday).

The day wasn't planned out very well ahead of time but we knew we had to do something outdoors. After some deliberation, My dad's cousin (Oh yeah, I haven't used his real name yet... might as well just call him Dan since that's his name) took us out on Lake Gervais (no relation to Ricky) on his boat.

That's Little Canada's water tower shot from inside the boat on Lake Gervais. Come to think of it, with all of their friendliness, hockey, and maple worship... Minnesota is basically 50% Canada.

The boat ride was nice when the boat was in motion as the water was a perfect temperature to reach into but too cold to jump into. After the ten minutes or so spent moving, Dan stopped the boat and we sat in the sweltering sun for 75 minutes. It was nice for about ten minutes but when you introduce this activity to two Conan O'Brien-levels of pale individuals like Father Todd and myself, it gets old quickly.

I needed the tan anyways.

While out in the open water, we discussed what we should do for the rest of our three-day stay other than the obvious (Brewers game). The long discussion did not give us any clear answers but I've discovered that some of the most enjoyable things in life aren't planned and that was certainly true for my dad that afternoon.

Dan needed some time to finish drilling the final two cup-holders into his boat that he had been repairing when we arrived. He kept my father entertained by giving him the keys to Dan's moped (a device on which my dad has never driven/ridden). My dad gladly hopped on and did laps around downtown St. Paul for the next thirty minutes. He looked ridiculous to me but, he was having the time of his life. He even came down the alley to stop by me (sitting in a lawn chair, sipping some water by Dan's garage) and announce with a smile on his face, "This is one of the highlights of the trip!".

Dan finished drilling his cup-holders and took care of another chore by watering his wife's plants while she was at work. After spending a few hours outside on a beautiful afternoon, we came back upstairs and decided to pick through some of Dan's old video games. He had the works in terms of video game systems including a Nintendo Wii, the original Nintendo (what my dad has played most among all video game systems during his life), and a Playstation 2 (what I've grown up on). It was like Dan's house was the place to be in Minnesota if you wanted to play any type of game.

My dad began the video game portion of our afternoon by trying to master the toughest possible level of Dr. Mario that he has become so accustomed to mastering over the years. He started out sort of struggling but after a few unsuccessful tries, he was right back in the swing of things, dominating Dr. Mario and leaving our host in awe. Once Dan's wife walked in, we talked a short amount about when we should leave and then switched consoles to the Wii. We then played Mario Kart on the Wii and my father and I were massacred. I lucked out during one round and finished eighth in cup racing out of twelve but my dad was consistently in the bottom three.

At 4:25 it was time to leave. I made sure to wear my Twins cap just to even out the fandom amongst our group (Dan and my dad are Brewers fans, Dan's wife a Twins fan, and myself an unbiased sports fan who was just looking forward to a good game). Our method of traveling to the game was unusual to us Todd's as we usually only drive back-and-forth from home to Miller Park for Brewer's games. On the car ride to our first destination (a secluded parking area in a sketchy part of town with no heavy traffic just off the interstate), Dan kept bragging to his wife about the cup-holders that he had drilled into their boat and discussed her jersey that she wore that day (of Joe Mauer) while driving. The conversation went something like this...

Dan - "Hey honey, I see your wearing Everyday Joe's jersey"

Dan's Wife (who by the way, I've also neglected to name at this point so we'll just call her Bobbi... since that's her name) - "Yes I am"

Dan - "You know why they call him Everyday Joe don't you?"

Dan's Wife - "I..."

Dan- "Because he moved from catcher to first base! So now he plays EVERYDAY!"

He practically screamed this with a giddy joy and a smile. It was clearly an inside joke that we would catch up on over the next 18-24 hours we had left in the Twin Cities.

Once our car was parked near the interstate, we took their Metro Transit train to Target Field. The ride was a solid three or so miles and I nearly fell over once boarding as the train started almost immediately upon boarding.

Finally, we had arrived at Target Field within ten minutes of entering the train.

This wasn't exactly where we originally entered as we took about a half lap around the outside of the stadium.

The overall game and crowd atmosphere was terrific. There was a live band playing in between innings, all-star ballots were being filled out and luckily for us, it was dollar hot dog night. It was 50% Twins fans, 50% Brewers fans as a result of the Twins struggles over the past few seasons. The crowd discussions around me (down the left field foul line, 18 rows back) were hilarious and a fan was even wrongfully ejected for inciting a wave while standing on top of the wall that separated us fans from the field of play. Highlight: Player of the game Oswaldo Arcia. Lowlight: EVERY single food booth at the stadium was exactly the same.

End result: Twins 6, Brewers 4.

After the game we had to wait for the trains to return and decided to let the first train crowd, wait twenty minutes, and then hop aboard an emptier train all while discussing the outlook on both team's seasons with drunk and sober fans all around us. It was a great time and met my expectations.

Once back home, everybody seemed exhausted and ready for bed until Dan suggested we play the game Wits & Wagers. This game, which involves poker chips and numbers, was highly addictive and forced everybody to stay up and play for another hour until midnight. After that game, Bobbi went to sleep and Dan showed us the game Bonkers!. Bonkers! is straight out of the groovy early seventies with it's bubble letters and simpleness. The game involves players creating their own board over turns until eventually, somebody gets twelve points and is victorious. It makes very little sense on here but, if you play the game, it'll make a lot of sense quickly. After an hour or so of Bonkers! (The exclamation point is sooo necessary), everybody headed off to bed.

Thursday, June 5th
The next morning, I woke up before everybody else and "Finally!" I thought "Finally, a cool breeze has kicked in and I won't be sweating like crazy all week". Thursday had the most perfect weather conditions out of all three days in Minnesota. It was hard to sneak around any room in the house as all floorboards were creaky and my waking up ended up waking everyone up. My father and I repeated our breakfast meals from the day previous and ate a few pancakes alongside Bobbi who actually got to sleep in and eat the same, great pancakes. It was our final day in St. Paul and the day was ours but first, Dan had to drop Bobbi off at work so that he could have the car for the day to run some errands and do other activities with my dad and I.

After a quick drive through town (where we found out where "Everyday Joe" Mauer went to high school), Dan asked us just what we wanted to take care of before leaving Minneapolis and I had already created this list in my head of "Thrift Stores (for dad to find games and other cheap stuff), Wheel of Fortune on the Wii (I was curious as to how the Wheel of Fortune would play on the Wii), and one more of those delicious cones at Conny's Creamy Cone (because duh). We ended up accomplishing all of these tasks. (Although, we never did get to see where Prince lived which, according to Dan was "surprisingly normal" for the abnormality that is Prince).

First up, thrift store shopping. After all of the hilarious and fun times we had playing unknown board/card games that Dan and Bobbi picked up at thrift shops for less than $5, my dad decided it would be a good idea for us to look through some of the neighborhood thrift stores and see if there was anything we could dig up that peaked either of our interests. Alas, we only found a couple of neat hats that were cheap and we didn't see at the Mall of America (They have a lot of hats, but appear to be missing a few from the Todd collection).

Oh, they also had Kazam.

...And misspelled T-shirts. PS: This is the dumbest shirt I've ever seen, why didn't I buy it?

Once we were done thrift shopping, Dan had to pick up something from his one food cart that he owns and we finally got to see what his food cart looked like.

I very much groaned at the pun.

Second, we played Wheel of Fortune on the Wii. I nearly took a swing at my dad with how hard I was attempting to spin the wheel. Father Todd ended up winning the game despite tons of technical glitches and overall, it was another game that I was impressed with and had a fun time playing.

Finally, we said goodbye to our host and thanked him for an awesome time in the Twin Cities. From St. Paul, Minnesota to Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, there was only one stop on the way home...

First trip: I ordered peanut butter flavored soft-serve. Second trip: Cheesecake. Final Judging: Cheesecake > Peanut Butter. Both were fantastic. I will be stopping here on our next trip to the Twin Cities.

The trip home took three hours and I napped through about thirty minutes of it. Once we got home, we were riding off the high of Minnesota and ready to see mom again and just chill at home. I grabbed the mail, opened a letter from my school and found out that I'm being placed on final probation. That's just the way life goes sometimes. One moment feels like the highest of highs and another feeling like the lowest of lows and I wouldn't change a damn thing about it.

Safe!