Royalty Tours USA

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Royalty meets up with other roadtrippers at Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati to wrap up Fourth of July weekend!

After the King, Dave Block aka The Gratitude Guy & I left Wrigley Field Saturday night of Fourth of July weekend, we drove to Indianapolis to spent the night. On the way there, we stopped off at Steak N Shake for dinner in West Lafayette, Indiana which is the home of Purdue University.

Dave Block posing with the shakes
This was Dave Block's first time at Steak N Shake. When we got done eating, he was a satisfied customer. He loved the steak burger & shake he had. I told him it's a great place. He knows I wouldn't steer him wrong. After we ate, I drove us to the Best Western Airport Suites hotel that was located by the Indianapolis airport that Dave arranged to get for us. It wasn't as good as the MainStay Suites in Milwaukee but it did suffice.

Sunday morning we got up and we had breakfast at the hotel before I drove 120 miles to the Queen City of Cincinnati where we were going to see the Reds play the Seattle Mariners at Great American Ballpark that afternoon.

The King, Dave Block, Tim Parks & I 
I parked the car on the street in downtown. Shortly thereafter, I got a message on Facebook from a fellow ballpark chaser named Tim Parks who lives in the area & he has season tickets for the Reds. He's also the founder of a brilliant idea. Stay tuned for a special post that will go into further detail regarding that. In the meantime, he asked me where I was sitting for the game. I told him my friends and I don't have tickets yet. He wrote back to me and said to meet him at the VIP concierge entrance near the main entrance to the ballpark. We showed up there around 12:15PM almost an hour before the game. Tim greeted us and he gave us tickets to the Champions Club in section 227. We were very pleasantly surprised and grateful for his act of kindness to us. He took us up to the Club level and he gave us a guided tour. We were able to get all you can eat food in a special area behind the seating area. I didn't indulge too much since I already had a big breakfast. If I knew Tim was going to be so accommodating I would planned accordingly.

Regardless we were very thankful for his generosity. In addition, we got to see roadtrippers Reachelle Spieker and Patrick Smith who were also at the game. They also benefited from Tim. He gave them tickets for the game too. It was nice to see them as they were continuing their journey to all 30 major league ballparks.

View from Champions Club section 227
As for the game we saw, the Mariners jumped on the Reds early thanks to a few long balls off starter Bronson Arroyo. The second batter of the game, second baseman Nick Franklin hit a solo homer to give the Mariners a 1-0 lead. In the third inning, first baseman Justin Smoak hit a two run homer to left field to make it 3-0. The Reds finally broke the shutout in the bottom of the seventh inning when left fielder Chris Heisey hit a run scoring double to make it 3-1. Unfortunately for Tim, his Reds' fell short on this day as the Mariners beat them by that score.

After the game, the King and I drove all the way back home to NYC. We got back at 4AM. As for Dave, he wound up catching a flight home to San Diego. It was nice to see him again. In the process, he picked up a few new ballparks.

Stay tuned for my w/o 7/8 in review.

Thank you for reading & following along.

Yours truly,

Gary Herman

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