Seeking all-American sport and food

Tales from the trail, our summer questionnaire for readers on vacation, attracted an early fall response from Damon Taggart of Spokane Valley. Taggart is on a mission to visit major league baseball parks. In September, he toured the parks of the Midwest.

The mission: Tell us where you went and why you went there. Is this your favorite place on earth? Do you have relatives there? Was your trip business or pleasure? Who went with you? How long did it take to get there?

My mission over the last nine years has been to visit each and every major league baseball park in the country. Thus far, I have been to every major league park with the exception of one, the Florida Marlins. Since new stadiums are being built all the time, I have been to games in each city but not to the new ball parks with the exception of Chicago.

Over the past few years, I have added another aspect to my trips – a little Americana, where I visit small little towns and I will only eat at the local eateries and no chain restaurants. So on my trips I get to watch my favorite sport – baseball – and get to enjoy some great food along the way.

This year I decided to fly into Chicago and drive to the following cities to watch games: Chicago, Milwaukee, Cincinnati , Pittsburgh and Detroit. My trip was from Sept. 20 to 28.

About your ride: Give us the details about your vacation ride. Did you rip up the road in a convertible sports car or ramble along in a camper and pickup truck? If you went by air or sea, tell us about your plane or boat.

I flew from Spokane into Chicago and rented a Buick Lucerne as my “ride.”

Howdy, stranger: Where did you find the friendliest people? Give us a few words about what made them so nice and where you found them.

As I have been traveling around, I have found that people are very friendly especially when they know what I am doing.

This year, I was eating dinner at Mr. Perkins Family Restaurant in Milwaukee and I asked directions to Miller Park due to the mass amount of road construction going on. The counter lady, Sherie, gave me directions as well as her work and home number in case I got lost and she said to call her anytime if I needed additional directions.

The locals in Jackson, Ky., are real friendly, too. During a rainstorm, I asked for directions while gassing up my ride and the local gentleman proceeded to tell me and then he purchased a map to show me the exact directions and then he gave me the map to use while I continued on my trip.

Also, people in Wheeling, W.Va., are also very friendly and eager to help out travelers with directions.

Houston, we have a problem: If at some point in your trip, things didn’t go according to plan, let us know. Maybe your spouse forgot to pack your underwear, or your car broke down. Maybe you took off for an out-of-town concert and forgot your tickets at home. Tell us all about it and how you got out your pickle.

The only real issue I had was the large rainstorm I encountered while in Cincinnati. The game, the Reds vs. the Cubs, was rainy throughout the whole game and then after the fifth inning, the game was suspended for a couple of hours and then finally called after only five. The good thing, I still had two more games to see at the new Cincinnati stadium.

Bon appetite: Give us the best meals of your trip. Multiple listings are fine. If, for example, you had the biggest cinnamon roll ever in Provo, Utah, but also the best steak of your life in Blackfoot, Idaho, tell us about both. Please tell us what made the food so exceptional. Please give us the price, the name of the restaurant and a general idea of how to get there.

Because I only eat at the local eateries where the food is always homemade, it is tough to say which is the best but here goes two of the great meals I had.

At Mr. Perkins Family Restaurant in Milwaukee, a Southern soul food restaurant, I had the fried cat fish with fried okra, macaroni and cheese and fresh corn bread. One of the most delightful aspects of lunch and supper at Mr. Perkins is choosing the side dishes. Nothing I had was less than dazzling. Mac and cheese, fried okra, fried green tomatoes, turnip greens, chitterlings and pear preserves are a small sample of what you get to pick as two of your sides for lunch or dinner.

Primanti Brothers in Pittsburgh’s Strip District also has great food. It opened in 1939 and is the city’s champion of huge sandwiches. These great sandwiches were originally designed for the truckers who hauled produce to the nearby wholesale market. Because the truckers didn’t have a whole lot of time to eat while there trucks were being unloaded, they put the French fries and coleslaw (Pittsburgh style of coleslaw is no mayo) on the sandwich.

Out of 15 different sandwiches, I selected the cheese steak sandwich. It was awesome. The sandwich is presented wrapped in butcher paper so that when appetite flags, the paper’s edges can be gathered like a drop cloth to pick up the spillage.

You saw what? Give us the best roadside oddity you spotted and where it was. This might be the world’s largest paper airplane in Mukilteo, Wash, the world’s largest baked potato in Idaho, or the world’s largest penguin in Cut Bank, Mont. If you would like to see, before leaving town, if there’s a large roadside attraction along your route, we would suggest searching the World’s Largest Roadside Attractions Website at http://www.wlra.us/search.htm. Another good site is http://www.roadsideamerica.com/. Make sure to take a picture.

I had the honor of going to the birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken in Corbin, Ky. They have a museum there as well as the original restaurant where it all started many years ago.

Fill ‘er up! Where did you find the lowest price for gasoline? Give us the price, the name and location of the gas station and the date you filled up so we compare it to the Spokane gas price on that particular day.

I saw cheap gas everywhere along my trip (when you compare it to prices in Spokane). I would say the average was $2.15 a gallon, but the cheapest was in Lexington, Ky., where the gas was $1.94 a gallon on Sept. 25.

Even on the major highways and turnpikes, gas was still in the low $2.20s a gallon or even cheaper

Running on empty. Where did you find the highest gas prices? This might be a filling station or town you decided to pass up because of the price. Price, place and date is all we need.

The most expensive gas, which I did not buy, was in Chicago at $2.58 per gallon on Sept. 20.

Here, Moosey Moosey. If you spot any wildlife worth noting, please do.

I saw two fox along the side of the highway near West Lafayette, Ind.