Blues, BBQ, and Baseball

So just to catch up, two weekends ago Ryan, Daryl, and I went on a friday night campout down at Cedar Creek. We went to an "island" in Cedar Creek we call "Gilligan's Island". Nothing too exciting. Hike in, pitch tents, make a fire, cook some poor boy packets. Have a few drinks and laughs around a camp fire. Get up. Make an oatmeal breakfast, break everything down and go home. Just some good outdoor fun.

Saturday Vicki and I went to Columbia's (well, Boone County National Bank's) Roots, Blues, n BBQ festival. I think it was the bank's 150th anniversary, and they brought in Taj Mahal and Jerry Douglas among others.

I was all about seeing Jerry Douglas, but mostly I just wanted to check out what they had going downtown. They'd started closing streets downtown at noon on Friday to set up -- which made it difficult for me to get back from lunch. A trip that should've taken me 3 minutes took me 40 instead since I wasn't sure what was going on.

Anyway, we went about 3:00 or so and had some expensive but ok tasting BBQ and chips. Sandwiches werer $5. Chips were $5 (but they were fresh made right there and you got a lot), and water... 16 oz of water was $3. So lunch was $18 for the two of us! And only one of us got water.

That's kind of to be expected at an event like this, but the kicker was you had to buy them with these "Blues Bucks" that you had to buy at a separate place. We placed our order, went to pay, and they said "we only take Blues Bucks. You can get them over there." Good thing I got 20 of them. But then I was stuck with two, which I think is by design.

There were people trying to sell their Blues Bucks all over the place so they weren't stuck with them. We found a place later in the day that took both Blues Bucks and cash and were able to liquidate our extras, thankfully.

It was pretty big. Not bad for a first try. They needed more food vendors, and they should drop the Blues Bucks. Oh, and work out some way to get food inspectors to ok sales by the people in the BBQ contests. All this BBQ and you couldn't buy any from any of them.

We ended up hitting Flat Branch for a beer because 12 oz of draft Bud/Bud Light was $4 and you could get a pint of good beer for $3.75 (about the same with tax, but more and much better beer) at Flat Branch and sit and drink it at a table. At the booths you had to stay within certain boundaries so as not to violate the open container laws. No taking it back to your concert venue, or walking around sipping one enjoying the atmosphere. Yeah that was another problem.

We caught a bit of local band Chump Change on Broadway. We missed the BelAirs because either the printed schedule was wrong or they switched time slots. We caught the Carolina Chocolate Drops. They were good. Jug band music. Ran in to Sam and Deb, and a couple of our neighbors. And then stayed and watched Jerry Douglas from about 8-9 pm.

I first heard Jerry listening to an acoustic music station on internet radio. This instrumental called "The Big Bug Shuffle" really caught my attention and I ended up buying the CD. Turns out Jerry's in to instrumentals and has won something like 12 Grammys. He plays with Alison Krauss & Union Station. Dobro. He's amazing, as are the rest of the guys in the Jerry Douglas Band.

Then this past weekend my sister-in-law Dawn had gotten tickets through her Cardinals' credit card to the Cards Cubs game (weeks ago). She called Vicki, a Cubs fan, to go with her so that they could dress in the respective garb for their two teams and maybe get on TV or something. Vicki later ended up scoring two standing room only tickets through Mark of Mark and Gretchen fame in Indiana, so Joel and I were able to go, too.

Interestingly, I've been to somewhere on the order of 10 Cardinals baseball games over the years, all in Bush Stadium (this was my first time in the new one.)

Here's the interesting thing: I have never seen them lose. Not at a game I attended. I should get free season tickets or something.

And apparently the Cardinals had been on the brink of coming from way down in the standings all summer and at a game maybe 10 or 14 days ago were in the lead in a game that would have put them first place in the division. They lost that game. Big, from what I understand. And they preceded to lose their next 8 games. Our game would have been loss number 10 in a row. And early on, by the third inning, the Cubs were up 3-0.

Vicki called my cell phone. "How do you like the game so far?"

"Well, it kinda sucks so far", says I.

Vicki and Dawn were surrounded by Cubs fans. And the place Joel and I finally lit, we were also surrounded by Cubs fans. In case you're wondering, Joel, Dawn, and I are in the Cardinals' camp.

I had also seen several couples walking around before and during the game where one was a Cubs fan and one was a Cardinals fan. One young female Cardinals fan walking with her boyfriend/husband who was a Cubs fan grabbed my arm and said "So it can work, then?"

Hope so. Kevin and Angela were at the first game of the double header. Kevin is a Cubs fan. Angela is a Cardinals fan. She had gotten them tickets to a Cards/Cubs game scheduled for earlier in the season but it was postponed when a Cardinal player died. It was rescheduled for the same day Joel & Dawn & Vicki and I had tickets. Hence the double header. It was a coincidence that we ended up at the stadium on the same day.

Well, in bottom of the fourth inning, the Cardinals scored 4 runs. And they held on to win. The Cubs had won the first game, making 9 in a row the Cardinals lost.

I snapped their 9 game losing streak. My record still stands. No need to thank me. And before you say "hey, you're rubbing it in"... just remember who called whom and when. I was very nice about it :-)

They went right back to it the next day, making it 10 out of 11. Not much hope there for them this year. The Cubs are still in first.