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USM Baseball did not make it to Omaha in 2023, but I did. My dad had wanted to go for a long time, and he follows LSU, so I went. Here are some pictures from Omaha and from the trip back.

Arriving at the hotel:

I stayed in the same hotel as the Vols baseball team and recognized several of their players in the lobby and elevator, and at their little buffet area, which was actually on my floor. I remember seeing Maui Ahuna (shortshop) and Christian Scott (outfielder- the guy with freckles all over his face) a lot. Seemed like they ate a good breakfast- I remember Mexican one morning and Italian another. The night I arrived some of them went to a casino... or at least that was the elevator conversation.

Saturday, we went and watched Stanford play Wake Forest. I found a little Golden Eagle in the stadium:

That night, we watched LSU beat the Vols:

Sunday was Father's Day, so a bunch of us went and ate together and then watched the series on TV in my dad's room. A Juneteenth march happened way down on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, but even marches are pretty well-ordered and good-natured in Omaha.

That evening, we watched Florida (starting pitcher Hurston Waldrep) beat ORU. This time we sat in left field, instead of down the first base line, so we had nice views of the Omaha skyline.

Omaha feels kind of small, but it's actually a very important town from a standpoint of business/industry.

Everyone else was  pretty worn out by the last few innings of the UF-ORU game and they went back to the hotel to relax. This is from the end of the game, which would be my last game there:

Sitting in the stadium by myself, watching the last few innings of that game as the sun set, was an experience I'll probably always remember. The trip was a whirlwind- two days to drive up, two days there, and two days driving home- but this was an hour or so where I really got to sit and think about things.

The most arduous part of the drive back was certainly Missouri, a dilapidated and disorganized state I ultimately had to cross twice in its entirety. Kansas City lies in the west of the state, and St. Louis in the east. Kansas City has an interesting ballpark:

I actually remember that 2014-2015 Royals run pretty well. I had just moved to Atlanta and that was the big story in Major League Baseball at the time.

This is an old municipal coal-fired power plant in Columbia, a city which reminded me of Hattiesburg in some ways:

On my last day driving, I awoke in Cape Girardeau, MO (birthplace of Rush Limbaugh). I enjoyed my stay there and did a little shopping and exploring. It was really the only part of Missouri that impressed me. KC and St. Louis look, respectively, much smaller and much poorer than Nashville, for example.

Early on that last day driving, I passed through Cairo, IL, a notoriously ramshackle and depopulated Rust Belt city:

They do have a historic district, though I didn't explore beyond the wrought-iron archway:

Seems like a shame structures like this apparently don't get a second chance:

Cairo lies at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Charles Dickens visited in 1842, disliked the city, and wrote an entire novel based on his visit.

It's 3-2 Eagles after 6.