My Trip to Reading!!!!
12/30/2003

Reading Royals vs Japanese U-23 National Team

Umm...the trip itself was actually a very long one.  We left early on the 30th, from here in good ol' Cleveland, OH...and it took about 7 hours to get to Reading.  It was a nice, but LONG trip.  I'll do it again someday...but its nice to see Graig closer to home sometimes too. 

This sign brought much happiness to our car....as you can imagine it *would* after 7 hours!!

On the way to Reading, we had to go through a LOT of little unheard of places.  Gotta love Pennsylvania for that.    If you ever wanna make the trip...you get to look forward to seeing a LOT of curves in the road, a LOT of trees, a LOT of hills and mountains, and a LOT of cows.  I didnt like the curves, trees, or mountains much...but the cows were awesome!!  I was hoping to find a MAD cow somewhere...but its actually kinda difficult.  I saw one that at *first* seemed like it may be mad...but I think agitated may be a better word.  He seemed to be having difficulty finding what it was he was looking for...presumably grass?  Poor guy.  I decided to name him (or her I spose it could have been) Jamal.  Though if it was a girl....I dunno, I guess Beatrice may have stuck.  It works for me anyway. 

Here is a picture of some of the many cows I saw on the way....their names were probably going to be Neil and Betty.  I dont really know *why* I picked those names...but if you feel strongly against them for some reason, like, if YOUR name is Neil or Betty...and dont wanna be compared to a cow, I completely understand.  Let me know, and we can vote for a new name for the cow.  Maybe it can be a new Misch mascot.  Even though cows arent always very flattering animals, they do have some positive qualities.  Such as...their spots.  Spots rock!  What other animal do you know that can rock those black, white and brown spots?  Dont even bring up those dalmations, they dont pull it off NEARLY as well as a cow can...but I digress.  I've just realized how totally off topic I'm getting.    Oopsie.

Also on the way through PA to Reading, you'll find 3 or 4 tunnels that you have to drive through.  People are too lazy to go UP and over the mountains...or AROUND the mountains...so they just dug a hole through the center of it.  Whatever works I spose.  Here's one of the icky tunnels....

Once we finally got to Reading, we were staying at the Lincoln Plaza.  TOTALLY awesome hotel....I definitely recommend that you stay there if you're ever in Reading.  Its just a few short blocks from the arena...even though the one way streets DO make things a little difficult to navigate.  Here are some pictures from our room...it was up on the 12th floor of this place...so you could look out the window and see essentially the entire city.  Very cool.

  Here we have the spiffy bedroom area.  Yeah, it looks like any other hotel room with beds...but what you DON'T know...is that these are COMFY beds!!  Yeah!  Go figure!  Comfy beds!!  Something you can definitely look forward to.

Here we have our spiffy MICROWAVE.  YAY!!  Ok, so its *totally* unnecessary, but its still a nice little thing to have around!!  Ya never know when you may want popcorn or something like that...so a microwave can come in handy a lot!!  There was a little fridge there too...so if you wanna refrigerate your popcorn...you're all set. 

Here we have two pictures of what the view was like outside our room.  They were both taken relatively early in the morning...so thats why they have that icky *blah* color to them...the sun wasnt really up yet.  I couldnt really tell you what any of those places ARE...but I'm sure they're cool.    The arena is actually over to the left in that second picture..behind that building with the flagpole thing.  Its not very far at all...nice and handy if you wanna catch some Royals games!

Now just a tad about the game.

 The game was great...Reading won 3-2, thanks mostly to the Misch, who scored the tying and game-winning goals.  YAY!!  Reading also wore special USA jerseys, which you can see in these pictures of the Misch.  Ain't it purty?  They were auctioned off after the game, and Graig's went for the low low price of $800.  Ouch.  Someone is a very happy, but very poor, camper right now.  No, not me...but whoever it is...congrats. 

Well, thats about ALL from me.  That was the majority of my trip to Reading...all 900+ miles of it.  It was a lot of fun, and I'd definitely recommend that you ALL go to Reading to see the Misch play.  It's soooo totally worth the drive.