Laa de Daa

Tom and Banjo and I just got back from a road trip to San Diego for the annual Ebel family summer crazytime. On the way down, we decided to take a little detour to go to an Angels - A's game at Angel Stadium. It is a goal of mine to go to a baseball game at every stadium in the country at some point in my life, so it was a good chance to check one more off the list and cheer on the A's at the same time.
We got to the stadium about an hour early (after dropping Banjo off at Camp Bow Wow for some playtime) and got to take two laps around the stadium to check out the sights. It is a nice stadium, but relatively nondescript besides the waterfall rock garden and the "Big A" that they are famous for (below). Incidentally, the water in the rock garden is rather stinky and you will regret getting splashed by it.

There wasn't a huge crowd there, as it was a noon-time game in the middle of the week. It seemed to be summer camp day at the ballpark, as well, and we had to keep dodging enormous groups of neon-shirted campers. Apparently one of the claims-to-fame of the ballpark is cheap beer (subsidized by the owner of the team), but we opted for a surprisingly large, wonderful, and delicious Ruby's diner chocolate milkshake instead.

Dana Eveland started for the A's (and Kate's fantasy baseball team), and Joe Saunders started for the Angels (and Tom's fantasy team). Unfortunately the bad guys (on both counts) took the lead early and managed to get the win despite some valiant comeback attempts by the A's. Tom took a bunch of good pictures at the game, including the one below of his current A's favorite, Carlos Gonzalez, hitting.

One highlight was when A's fan favorite Frank Thomas made a surprise appearance at the game. Howdy, Big Frank!More on the rest of the trip later...