Thursday morn last my good pal Marty Spazzerolinia calls me and says something to the effect of this "Bob - my wife's company has club seats for todays Indians game (a 12:05 day game) and the people who were supposed to go can't so they're looking for someone to use them. Since you're unemployed I thought you might want to go to the game."

As suchly did I go to the Tribe game. As suchly did I sit in the (great seats!!) lower level 7th row in shallow right field. As suchly did a screaming foul ball come directly towards me in the 3d inning. As suchly am I now in possesion of a genuine major league baseball whacked by future hall of famer Kelly Shoppach!!!

I'd like to tell you how much it hurt when I caught it but the truth is it smacked the dude just behind me and bounced under my seat where I used my cat-like reflexes to pounce on it!!!

Since NG had a three day weekend we decided to venture out in the wilderness of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park for a long-arsed 10 mile hike yesterday.

At about the three mile mark you ascend to the top of the valley and are treated to a wonderfull view of the trees in valley. Sadly my (non wide angle) pocket camera doesn't do the view justice.

The hike alternated between a rather thick forest:

And lots of hills going through the valley:

When you get to the bottom of the valley you are treated to lots of very scenic streams and such.

We pretty much had the whole forest to ourselves. We ran into 3 people during the 4.5 hour journey. Some of the scenery reminds me of when I was in the jungles of VietNam fighting the VC back in the 60's...

It wasn't a hike for beginners. We had to forge across raging rivers several times. Here's NG risking her life in one such river crossing.

Of course after she made it across I would venture along the same path - trusting my new boots to take me safely out of harms way!

At about 6 miles into it we came to the Blue Hen Falls. Not a very big one (maybe 30 or 40 feet???) but very scenic nonetheless. We broke for lunch here - sitting atop some rocks watching the water rush headlong oer the stones.

We took an access path down towards Buttermilk Falls - more great scenery.

About a half mile from the Blue Hen Falls we came across the top of Buttermilk Falls. These were much bigger but sadly there was no good angle to photograph it.

At about 8 miles into it we were greeted with some built-in steps leading out of the valley. At this point I was pretty happy to see the stairs as i was feeling pretty sore and we still had a two mile walk (along a flat bike path thanks be to God) to get back to the car.

It was certainly a demanding hike. My feets and legs were feeling rather sore last night but today I feel much better. The only thing we neglected to bring was caffeinated beverages as we had plenty of water and food but could have used a jolt of caffeine to help with the final leg.