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| refusing to make eye contact with me bc she was mad we were leaving |
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| she had her ears back (a classic sign she is highly annoyed) and was completely ignoring me as I tried to say goodbye to her |
We left our house around 3:20 am on Saturday morning and our flight was unfortunately out of DCA. I've already shared on multiple occasions my opinion that National is one of the worst airports in the country, so I won't go into that again! Our flight to MDW was fine; we had a girl sit in the middle seat between us, but there's nothing to report on that front. However, on the second flight from Chicago to Minneapolis, we had a very irritating man with a humongous bag sit in between us, so I was happy it was a very short flight.
I generally like Southwest Airlines, but over the years, I really feel the quality of their planes and their staff has seriously declined. I'm certainly a fan of their customer-friendly cancellation/rebooking policies, as well as their two free checked bags rule, but they need to get it together when it comes to monitoring what people count as carryon luggage and personal items.
I've written before that something I really like about the discount airlines like Frontier and Spirit is how strict they are when it comes to stuff like that. Southwest is not strict. People bring all sorts of bags and suitcases that are clearly larger than what Southwest claims is allowed and the gate employees and flight attendants just turn a blind eye to it. There's no way on earth that the guy between us should have been allowed to count his bag as a carryon, and under no circumstances should he have been allowed to put it at his feet. So ridiculous. That would never have been allowed on Frontier or Spirit. So say what you will about those airlines, but the rules and restrictions are applied consistently. And frankly, Southwest charges a lot more money than either Frontier or Spirit. Can you tell that I was not impressed with Southwest this past weekend?!?
When we landed, we took a lyft to our hotel to check in and drop off our backpack, but to our surprise, our room was ready and it was barely 11:00 am! We spent some time wandering around the city, but almost everything was closed. It felt like a ghost town where all roads were under construction. Since we'd gotten up so early, we decided to have a nap before the baseball game, and were pleasantly surprised to find that the weather had greatly improved during that time!
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| Mary Tyler Moore |
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| check out the red star |
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| construction and road closures everywhere |
Around 5:15, we took the skywalk to Target Field, which was less than a ten minute walk from our hotel and super convenient. The fact that the Toronto Blue Jays, our home team, were in town was a nice coincidence, because we didn't choose this weekend based on the opponent! There was an hour-long ceremony before the game to induct a player into the Twins' Hall of Fame, so the actual game didn't start until 7:00 pm, and had we realized this, we probably wouldn't have gone to the game quite so early! We had really good seats and beautiful weather, but given the excruciatingly slow pace of baseball, we decided to stay until seventh inning stretch before going back to hotel. The Blue Jays beat the Twins, which made us pretty happy!
The stadium itself is very nice and definitely in the top 20 of the 40 we've been to. Of the four we've been to in 2021, it ranks second after Globe Life Field, where the Texas Rangers play (which is one of the best in the entire league!) and is much nicer than either either of the stadiums in Cincinnati or Atlanta.
On Sunday, we slept in and then went out for late breakfast and to walk around city a little before we had to head to the airport.
We took a lyft back to MSP and all I can say is that airport
security was awful. It took more than half an hour to get through security (and please keep in mind this is a small airport) and everything about security was very disorganized. Of course when I went through the scanner my bun set off an alert and the employee tried to come right at me and I said what I always say - "NEW GLOVES" - because I don't want to be touched by gloves that have patted down who knows how many other people – I didn’t allow that before the pandemic and I'm certainly not allowing it now.
We went to the Minnesota Wild bar in the terminal, which was pretty cool bc the front of the bar was made up entirely of hockey sticks, and preseason hockey has gotten underway, so we are super excited about that!
We lucked out with a having an empty middle seat between us for the flight from Minneapolis to Chicago, but we ended up with another very annoying man sitting between us for the second leg of our journey. While he didn't have an enormous bag with him, he did fidget the entire flight which made it difficult for me to sleep. Nonetheless, we made it home just before 12:30 am and someone was pretty excited to see us! Thank you to my mom for watching Ginny while we were away!
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| we wish we could have spent time in Chicago! |
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| she was watching the door in anticipation of our return |
We had such a fun weekend and now have only two more new stadiums to visit for us to be completely caught up – the Miami Marlins and the St. Louis Cardinals! That is, until one of the mlb teams decides to build a new stadium!
Happy Tails to you!
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