A new year and a new set of stadiums! It is 2013 and we start of our tour with a trip to Minnesota. This trip is especially fun for a few reasons. My sister is a huge Twins fan so she was super excited to go. The Twins were playing the Red Sox (my second favorite team) so I was pumped to go. Most importantly, my sister had just completed her second year of law school and she was coming home with me! I flew out to meet my sister in Minneapolis and all the week the weather looked to be beautiful. It was everything but beautiful, at least the day of the game. We were almost rained out! Our first full day in Minneapolis, since it was pouring, was spent mostly at the Mall of America. I'm pretty sure I could get lost in that place for a week and I still wouldn't visit every store there. The best part of the Mall of America is they have a little amusement park right in the middle of the mall. They have pretty legit roller coasters and best of all, they have a little log flume ride! Me, my sister and her fiance decided we CLEARLY have to go on the log flume right, that's pretty much specifically for children. We asked the woman if the weight disparity would cause any issues, she said not at all, no one ever gets wet on the ride. Yea, okay. I'm the idiot who chooses the front of the log, my sister's behind me, followed by Matt. It's all fun and good until we get to the final drop. Now, I can't even be mad, because it led to the funniest picture every taken, but it's not even enough to say I got COMPLETELY soaked from this drop. We all weighed too much collectively and man did we make a splash. I'm alone in saying this, but I was drenched when I got off the ride. I couldn't even shop for dry clothes because I was so soaked, my clothes were STUCK to me. Regardless, it led to this picture:

I legitimately laugh every single time I see this picture, everything about it is ridiculous. Luckily I had enough time to go back to hotel and change before we left for the tour of Target Field. We decided to take the last tour of the day, which meant we got to sit behind home plate during batting practice. They almost canceled the tour on us because of the rain, but it started clearing up just in time.The tour was so much fun, minus the people we were with. It was almost only going to be the two of us, but a couple signed up last minute. They were from Toronto and the guy let it be known he was a HUGE Harmon Killebrew fan. To the point where he never stopped talking about him, no exaggeration. We got to see everything that I loved about Target Field. Ever aspect of the stadium is directly related to the Twins organization. The entrance gate numbers corresponded with the numbers of retired Twins. Each food section was named after a famous member of the Twins. Target Field is also the only stadium with a museum. There's a curator who rotates different display cases of Twins memorabilia, it's fantastic. There is so much pride within the organization and it was very creative how they found ways to commemorate their history.

Once the tour was over we were able to go down right behind home plate to watch batting practice. I was SO close to meeting Dustin Pedroia, my favorite player in baseball but I just missed him. He waved at me though, and totally fangirled over it. Whatever, it happens. The best part about watching batting practice though was, we met Bert Blyleven, Twins announcer and Hall of Fame pitcher! He was just walking around and stopped to say hi because made a sign! He even took pictures with us and talked to us for awhile. We had met his broadcast partner Dick Bremer during our tour and he loved our sign so much he said he'd try to get it on TV! After BP was over, we wandered around looking for food and had our first encounter with one of the greatest thing baseball has to offer, a full sized helmet filled with nachos. Ugh, fantastic! We devoured that and then realized it was roughly 3 degrees outside and we quickly ran to the team store and bought hoodies. The game was fun to watch, but the weather never got any better. We were freezing the WHOLE time which made it a bit miserable but fun none the less.We have a few traditions now at every ballpark we go to. We always take a picture under the sign for the stadium, I always buy a postcard to put in a scrapbook, and most importantly, we always have ice cream from those little ballpark helmets. And when I say always, I mean ALWAYS. It was like 30 something degrees out, my lips were bright blue, I was shivering like crazy, but I was waiting on line to get ice cream cup helmets because it's a tradition!

We did a little more touring of Minneapolis the next day, when of course, the weather was MUCH nicer. Everyone is so nice and polite, giving us directions when we inevitably get lost. We stopped by the Mary Tyler Moore statue, we had lunch at an unbelievably delicious lunch at a steakhouse called Manny's. Pretty soon, it was our time to go. It was a nice quick stop in Minneapolis but it was a lot of fun and I'd totally go back.

Game Information:

May 17, 2013 8:10pm

Buchholz vs Worley

Final Score: 3-2 Boston Red Sox defeat the Minnesota Twins

W: Wilson L: Roenicke S: Uehara

Rankings:

1) Fenway Park, Boston Massachusetts

2) PNC Park, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania

3) Wrigley Field, Chicago Illinois

4) Target Field, Minneapolis Minnesota

5) Citi Field, Flushing New York

6) Yankee Stadium, Bronx New York

Here are some pictures!

Next stop: Philadelphia (boooooooooo!)