Pre-Racecation: Astros Game & Houston, Texas

Sunday, August 25, 2013 – Astros game; Houston, TX
Monday, August 26, 2013 – San Diego and Old Town
Tuesday, August 27, 2013 – My Birthday and Sea World
Wednesday, August 28, 2013 – San Diego Zoo
Thursday, August 29, 2013 – Travelling to Disneyland/Downtown Disney
Friday, August 30, 2013 – DCA and the Disneyland Half Expo
Saturday, August 31, 2013 – Disneyland 10K and Park time
Sunday, September 1, 2013 – Disneyland Half Marathon and more park time

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About a week before leaving for San Diego, I booked a park and fly hotel in Houston, Texas. Our flight was scheduled to leave fairly early on Monday morning and I didn’t want to fight with Monday morning traffic and possibly miss our plane. (Ever since Kim and I missed our plane several years ago, I take all measures to make sure that doesn’t happen again!)

Since we had a day to play around in Houston, I looked into Astros tickets – and they were playing at home! Yay!

Little secret – usually, Astros tickets go on sale towards the end of the season when they aren’t playing so well. Since someone didn’t get the memo that it was August (almost end of the season) and their team had one of the worst (if not THE worst) records in baseball this season, tickets were full price. I’m still scratching my head on that one. Instead, I went to Stub Hub where I purchased someone else’s tickets….and they were two tickets for the price of one! Score!

I was SO excited to see Mickey!

Our first mission when arriving at the park was to find food! We decided on BBQ. It was delicious!

This sight saddened me to no end. I’ve been an Astros fan as long as I can remember. We used to attend games in the Dome every year growing up. I followed the Astros during the days of the Killer B’s and playoff wins. I was so proud of the Astros when they finally made it to the World Series. Now, I see the management changes, fan favorite player tradeoffs (I’m still upset about Hunter Pence), ticket prices rising, and network changes (which means most of Houston and the surrounding areas can even watch the Astros on TV)….and we arrive at Minute Maid Park to this. A stadium that can fill 40,000 + seats had maybe 12,000 people inside (and that’s being generous). I remember going to games where it felt as if you were in Disney World because you couldn’t walk the hallways – people were everywhere. Since this day also served as the first Texans game of the season (against the Saints), I’m hoping that most of the Astros fans were at that game instead. :0)

I thought this guy was pretty neat! He was trying to visit 30 ballparks in 30 days! Per his website, it looks as if he made it! Yay!

Love their scoreboard!

My buddy Biggio and I talked strategy after the game. :0)

For dinner, we split a pizza from a place called Spanky’s. We were trying to find an Italian restaurant but we drove to two that were closed…so Spanky’s it was!

This pizza was delicious!

We also bought several items from a bakery down the road from our hotel but unfortunately, most of it didn’t taste very good and several items ended up in the trash. Ah well, at least it was way cheap! We bought all of these items for under $5!

I had a mini freak-out moment when I realized that our hotel changed out their MTV station for the Golf Network. Who does that?! Not that I usually watch either, but it was the night for the VMA’s and well…NSYNC? Need I say more? Thankfully, my husband came to the rescue and discovered that the VMA’s would also be on VH1! Whew!

This was me during most of Justin’s performance….waiting….waiting….

When I heard Justin say, “You asked for it…” my heart began to beat a little faster…

…and there they were! The boys I listened to over and over again in high school,watched (and recorded on VHS) every television appearance I could find, and had posters all over my bedroom wall growing up….they were finally back together, on stage, performing. I could not believe my eyes. Even though their performance only lasted 90 seconds, it was perfect to me!

I fell asleep and dreamed happy dreams of boy bands and San Diego. :0)

Up next: Arriving in San Diego and exploring Old Town!

Are you a sports fan? Do you stick by your team in good times and bad? If you are/were an NSYNC fan, what were your thoughts on the reunion?