The Ninth Inning.

How fitting! our Ninth day was centered around the one thing that every real american boy should experience one time in his life. A pro baseball game! And not just any Pro Game! This was the Yankees vs. the RedSox. We had awesome timing and I bought the tickets before we left on e-bay. Fortunately they were legit and we made the trek to Yankee Stadium to see the Sox (2007 World Champs) beat the Yankees in the house that Ruth built. It is the pantheon of baseball and there is no better rivalry to witness than this. I never need to go to another baseball game for the rest of my life.

We left the game 30 min early to get a jump on getting back to the JFK airport. We waited and waited for our flight, and finally borded and headed back to SLC.

Wake up in the cradle of the Philosiphers and Statesmen.

Day Ocho was pretty nice, we woke up a little late had some breakfast at Amanda and Ben's apartment and headed out to Monticello. The estate of my favorite Founding Father. Thomas Jefferson would probably object to having so many make a pilgrimage to his beautiful plot of land, but I am grateful it has been preserved for posterity. Ashlee was particularly struck by Jefferson's quest for improvement and design in the way a household is organized. She really thought Mr. Jefferson clever to devise methods for making the whole thing work and function. Of course having servants and slaves helps but there had to be some genius of organization and benevolence. In no way do I feel that slavery is justifiable by any means, however that said, there are shades of grey in all things. Although the light would have to be particularly bright to see the slightest glint of gray on this matter. The weather cooperated really well (tip from previous post Buy a big umbrella), but Lance was so tired from this marathon trip I couldn't let him go and take the tour. He was miserable so I watched him outside while Ashlee toured the inside of the home. I had gone through about 15 years ago but really remembered it quite well. And while I was waiting outside I had an excellent conversation with a Syrian. He was a Christian Syrian which is like being a Jew in Salt Lake City. Actually probably worse. He had been in the US for 10 years and waxed poetically about how God has saved this land for the righteous. In retrospect I should have seized the opportunity to do a little Mormon missionary work, but somehow having a screaming kid throwing a tantrum outside the Monticello makes you feel like you definitely do not have all the answers. We spoke about families and even about Christianity, I did share my religion with him and he told me he had been to Salt Lake City once and loved it. Somehow at that point I believed if he had been to Baker California he would have said that place is awesome. Which is so cool because his positive attitude helped me deal with my son who at this time was almost a brain eating zombie that wanted so badly to just sleep and be held. Our travel itenirary is not to be copied by other young families that wish to remain sane or together or both... and here is why. we left Monticello and headed straight back to NYC. mainly to go and get some dinner in Little Italy. We drove and drove nonstop for 6 hours and actually made it to Mullbery street to see most of the eatiries closed but we were fortunate enough to get into one that kept late hours for fool like us. I have to be honest. I have had better Italian on the west coast and even in Salt Lake City. It was good but nothing to drive 6 hours non-stop for. But we did it and were satiated for the next few hours which was good because we ended up trying to get a room on the island of Manhattan for the next 2 hours and found out becasue of the Tribecca Film Festival, not even the seediest of dives had space in the broom closet. We had to drive clear out to White Plains to get the last room in a 12 story Hampton Inn. It was the Handycap room so it only had a full size bed that felt like it was frequented by an assortment of obese people weighing in at 600 lbs. Im not kidding I had to check under the sheets to see if they were trying to pass a canoe off as a bed. The four of us huddeled in and were so exhausted that we passed out. Except for the 15 times Rene woke up Ashlee and about 2 myself, but that was only so I could wake Ashlee up and have her feed Renee to get her to stop crying. I think Ashlee woke me up because she was crying too. Ai yai yai.... but its all worth it because of what we were about to do on the 9th day.

Le Setieme Jour

Wow

I am not a good blogger... Scratch that I am not even qualified to be called a blogger there has to be a better name for it. dogger? lazybonesogger, I'm like the Hailey's comet of blogging I come around once every 70-80 years or so.

I am sure you have RSS'd this page so you can be notified the second it gets updated with the details of the Seventh day of the East Coast adventure my little family experienced way back in 'ott Seven. So without further adieu...

We spent most of the day at Colonial Williamsburg. Ashlee liked this stop in particular. She really enjoyed the recreation of colonial life circa late 18th Century. There were torrential thunderstorms that left huge puddles all around and Lance promptly decided that Williamsburg is indeed a waterpark.

We went by the College of William and Mary to get a large golf umbrella. Apparently when you buy a large golf umbrella on vacation that means the weather changes promptly so you don't ever get to use the item during the remainder of the trip. And as chance would have it, the airline baggage handlers will actually destroy the item so it may never actually be used.
We left the park as it began to close to continue our trip heading to Charlottesville to visit my Sister Amanda and her husband Ben who at the time was going to the University of Virginia Law School. This is so long ago it's pathetic, he has since graduated and taken a position with a firm in Rochester NY. Upon arrival to Charlottesville we were introduced to 5 guys. They fed us some really good burgers and fries. They liked us so much they have since followed us back to Utah to feed us more burgers.