A Trip to Target Field

Target Field

We asked another fan to snap a family photo of us at Target

Field, and he was quick to oblige. We thank him for helping

us capture this memory.

By Allan Olson

This week was busy, with four days of work, followed by a few days of playing, my week was planned long in advance I knew the first three days of the normal week would be spent running, so I spent Sunday preparing for that getting much of the work done in advance for the paper. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday were all long days on the job, but Thursday was cut short as we had an important family outing.

Our destination Thursday was Target Field, finally after all these years I was finally going to visit the home of the Minnesota Twins right during the height of their worst season in baseball history. Their record didn’t matter much to me, win or lose mattered only marginally more, but we were given tickets to the game and we were going, rain or shine.

On Thursday, we arrived at the hotel early enough to check in, haul in our baggage, reserve a ride to the mall and from there we had to figure out the light rail. I didn’t want to drive so I was more than willing to let the hotel shuttle get us to the mall. This would’ve been the perfect scenario if Abigail hadn’t been on crutches, but in reality it still worked out okay. The shuttle dropped us off and we walked to the mall and then had to navigate our

way to the opposite end and then figure out how to get tickets for the light rail. Thankfully, my wife who is always the navigator in the family kept us going in the right direction, while I hung back with Abigail who was keeping a pretty good pace even with the crutches. We finally arrived where we need to purchase tickets for the fancy trains and the train was sitting there waiting. The machine didn’t allow for kids and adults tickets to be purchased at the same time and we finally got the darn machine figured out. By then I was concerned that the train was going to leave and we would be stuck waiting for another 15-30 minutes, so I grabbed Abigail put her on my back handed her crutches to another sibling and rushed us out the door, I need not have hurried as we waited another five minutes on the train. On the way over to the home of the Minnesota Twins we visited with some die hard Toronto Blue Jay fans from Regina, Saskatchewan who traveled 14 hours to watch their team whoop up on the Twins. Although all things considered that was half the distance it would’ve taken for them to travel to Toronto.

We finally arrived at the stadium with front row parking and navigated our way into the big field. It truly was a neat first time experience. Our seats provided a nice view of the field but they were certainly not close to the field by any stretch of the imagination as they were the equivalent of nose bleed seats – but did I mention the tickets were free?  Beggers can’t be choosers.

A couple things I learned about the trip, one was to bring my own water, I was shocked to pay $5 for a bottle of water, another while the hot dogs were good, the customer service was slow in the food court I used and I really wish I had taken the time to walk around and look at everything while I was there.

Prior to the game getting underway, I took the kids to the souvenir shop and informed them of their budget which included tax. Marcus took his time adding up various items until he got as close as he could without going over – something I was strict about. Alivia, doubled her budget as she had saved her birthday money from last fall (because we put it away) and all spring I kept telling her to save it for the baseball game. Many times this spring I had to remind her that she was to save it for the Twins game, not her brothers, baseball games, so ultimately Alivia was able to come away with the most souvenirs of the trip. Nikolai was shocked at the prices of the gift shop but in reality when we went by the bookstore in the mall and in the window was a book he really wanted from that moment on he had in his mind that his budgeted amount was going for the book, forget the souvenirs.

My wife brought Abigail down to look about the fifth inning and they managed to find a little better seat and didn’t have to navigate her back up with the crutches. She also earned a little bit of extra spending money by spotting the elusive pink semi-truck on the road south which earned her another $10.

The game progressed on – slowly and moments before it happened, I told Nikolai they need to pull our pitcher while we were still ahead. The Blue Jays proved I was right as the Twins walked a batter and the next Blue Jays batter crushed one into the stands making it a tie game. Right then I knew it was going to be an extra-inning game. Finally in the ninth inning, I couldn’t handle the pressure, I was really going to be upset with myself if I didn’t get myself a souvenir also. I messaged my wife, “I think I want a hat,” she replied, “me too,” then it was settled. The rest of us exited our seats and made one more trip to the gift shop where my wife and I each picked out a hat, before making our exit since we had a train to catch and a shuttle to catch. I stayed as long as I dared, just not wanting to leave, but at the top of the 11 inning, I gave it up and the boys and I headed down the elevator to catch up with the girls.

I monitored the progress of the game online on the train ride back and it wasn’t long when the Blue Jays punched in the winning run and the Twins failed to catch a break and dropped to 10-30.

On Friday morning I took the kids swimming – except Abigail of course who has her foot in a cast with her four broken metatarsals. We dug in on their continental breakfast and packed our bags. We briefly contemplated staying another night, but we have some camping trips to go on this summer and couldn’t justify the extra expense.

On our way home, we stopped at a bookstore for Nikolai and the rest of the day was spent geocaching along the way home before finally making it back about 9 p.m. In all it was fun and great two days away from home.

This weekend – not really sure what the plans are as of yet, no big out of town trips, possibly a grad party, maybe some company and hopefully some geocaching.

Please remember to watch out for the buses that are carrying our most precious cargo. Also snap a photo or two to preserve a lifetime of memories. Thanks for reading, and have a great week! Feel free to drop me a line at cltimes1@arvig.net or stop by the office for a visit.