Mehring Monday 6/25: Bus
One of the more frequent questions I am asked when I speak to groups in the
off season is: How do you travel? When people hear that all
Rattler road trips are by bus, they are taken aback. Don't you fly?
Even for the long ones? Nope, not even for the nine hour
trip to Dayton.
Look at it this way. Flying into a lot of the cities in the Midwest
League would be problematical. Bus travel is just easier. When
there are mechanical issues with a bus, it can be pulled over and replaced
with a new one. Try doing that with a plane.
As an added bonus, we get to stop at places that you might not otherwise stop.
El Paso, Illinois for one. We stopped there for lunch today. Did
you even know there was an El Paso, Illinois?
There are other baseball stadiums that we have been by in the past. US
Cellular Field in Chicago is one that -- no matter the time of the day or
night -- everyone on the bus seems to be awake for so that we can maybe
imagine ourselves working there -- probably against the White Sox -- one day.
Then, there are the truck stops, the fast food places, and the billboards.
Oh, the billboards. You really need to travel to see some of them. Ogden
Nash should see some of the billboards out there now. He would
probably reconsider the whole billboard vs. tree argument.
Just sitting back and watching the scenery go by is sometimes relaxing.
There are farms and factories; rivers and lakes; small towns and
cities. All are unique.
The highlight this season of the bus travel has been crossing over the
Mackinac Bridge into the upper pennisula of Michigan on the way home from the
series with the Great Lakes Loons. That was cool, even late at night.
Also cool was stopping into a UP convenience store in the middle of nowhere at
3:30am. I still don't know where we were. But, we got home okay.
That is the main thing.
Happy Trails, til we meet again.
CM
Missed a Mehring Monday?
Mehring Monday 4/9 : It's Not That Bad
Mehring Monday 4/16 : Cedar Rapids
Mehring Monday 4/23 : Show and Go
Mehring Monday 4/30 : Dear April,
Mehring Monday 5/14 : Where Were You?
Mehring Monday 5/21 : Interleague
Mehring Monday 6/4 : The Carpenters
Mehring
Monday 6/11 : Slams
Need more Chris? Read his Rattler Radio
Blog.