Baseball Widow

Free Day for Westside Red Bulls at the Washington State Little League Baseball All Stars Tournament

July 21, 2008 9:19 PM | 0 Comments

Free Day & Logistics: Scenic Multnomah Falls, WA
Today we took respite from the intensity of the Washington State Little League Baseball All Stars Tournament by going on a scenic tour to Multnomah Falls. We hiked about halfway up, and I fully intended to reach the top, but I quickly readjusted my goal. My new goal was to descend quickly and find the nearest restroom. Delivering three large-headed, 100th percentile babies hasn't done me any favors in the endurance category and the pounding sound of The Falls wasn't helping matters. After the tour of The Falls, we went to a hatchery and passed the Bonneville Dam. We also ate at a kitschy cafeteria-style burger joint with an incredible view of the mighty Columbia River. I think it was called the Flambee Grill. I ordered a burger with mushrooms and swiss cheese, delusionally believing that it would be made with fresh mushrooms and a slab of Oregon Tillamook cheese ( I am a cheesehead, after all), but the reality was canned mushrooms with sliced Kraft. What was I thinking?

The unpredictable nature of these tournaments, has forced me and my sports fan husband, Bryan, to do a fair amount of contingency planning. It's reminiscent of those despicable word problems in high school math. Here were the parameters. 1) For starters, we didn't want to take two cars. 2) The girls needed to be back in Seattle for Girl Scout Camp at 10am Tuesday. 3)Since we're traveling on a family vacation to Washington, DC in August and I don't have limitless paid time off, I, too, needed to return to work by Tuesday. So, we needed to find another family with similar parameters, so that the non-essential members of the family (usually womenfolk) could return in one car, and a parent and player (usually menfolk) could remain, but share a car. Sounds easy, right?

Well, we did find the perfect match: The McDonahue's, but the funny thing is that both families rode the husband's car to the tournament, and, being alpha males, neither husband wanted to relinquish control and forfeit their car for the remainder of the tournament. I also suspect they didn't want their wives driving their vehicles. (Yes, this is all conjecture, but it's so much more fun to form hypotheses.) This is definitely the case with my husband, which gets back to my Nanotechnology issue. Because of my challenges with machinery and technology, driving his car requires a brief tutorial on essentials like the wipers, the air conditioner, lights, etc. A complicating factor was that the McDonahue's had a giant standard poodle, which we had to accommodate. There was nothing standard about this poodle. It was HUGE, and it's name was Oedipus, but they called him Eddie.

Anyway, Bryan acquiesced and we agreed to drive his car back to Seattle. I think this may have related to the fact that Mr. McDonahue's car was brand new, only a month old. As we headed out, Bryan looked wistful, and I don't think this was about the pain of leaving me. Once on I-5, the first thing I noticed was that the little diagram of the car was lit up in one section, the backdoor section, which is where Eddie was. I calmly informed Mrs. McDonahue and we exited and secured the door. Phew. That could have been a catastrophe on the order of a Chevy Chase family road trip movie. Anyway, we got home and went to bed. End of story.

That's all from your no-longer-roving correspondent. Unless they keep winning, we womenfolk will stay at our praire home.

The Sports Widow
(aka Nan Hall)