A World Series Adventure

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Our World Series Adventure technically started back in July and August, when the Giants caught fire and started winning, but I'll skip most of the stuff in the middle and go right to Monday, Nov. 1, 2010, aka A Great Day for San Francisco aka The Best Day Ever for a San Francisco Baseball Fan aka Game Five of the World Series.
Dave and Ann Marie had invited us to tag along to a viewing party one of their neighbors was throwing; we were thrilled to go along; we'd mostly been watching the games on our own at home, and on the off chance they won that night, we loved the idea of being surrounded by a big group of other fans, so we loaded up Max (still sugar high hungover from Halloween! LOL) and headed to Back40 in Pleasant Hill for the party. It was a great game, so I didn't really take any pictures, but we had tons of fun, and most importantly, it ended with a victory for the Giants!
Everyone in the room absolutely exploded, so this is the only photo of the three of us, postgame:

A thrilling day for sure, and we instantly started making plans to attend the victory parade the following Wednesday. We've always said that we'd pull our kids out of school for the Giants first ticker-tape parade, and I'm a little thankful that they got this done before Max was in school (and that I'm still out of work, so I could go, and Jamie was able to switch for a late shift at work… everything just really came together!)
The parade, which followed the same route as the “Welcome to San Francisco” parade had taken in 1958, was set to start at 11am. I asked around on Facebook, to see what time people were planning on heading in to the City… there were estimates of 1,000,000 people expected to attend, so I knew we'd want to get there early! A couple of friends actually got a hotel room in the City the night before, to make it easier to get to the parade route in the morning.
We decided to head out at 6:30. We planned to take BART, so I was concerned about the BART parking lots filling up if we waited too long.
We planned just right, and got easy BART parking, walked right up to the ticket machines and had a little space on the train. (We didn't get seats, but we were able to carve out enough space to sit on the floor. Hey, it worked!) My friend Kevin took that picture at the Dublin BART station later in the morning; that's the line to buy tickets!

Even the San Francisco BART and MUNI stations got in spirit!

The parade hit Market Street at Montgomery, but we decided to get off at Embarcadero and walk the 3 or 4 blocks instead of fighting crowds the *whole* time. It gave us a little space to get Max into the carrier, and we stopped at a 7-11 with no line for some caffeine, and then we were on the lookout for a spot to snag!

We got to Market and Third, and that's where we found it! Our spot!

It was about 7:15, and we had to walk that 4-ish blocks to find a spot right at the curb… there were already that many people there! We really lucked out that we were able to get enough space that Max could walk around a bit; it really helped keep him happy and content for the 4 hours we sat there! In an effort to minimize the “stuff” we brought with us, I ran into a nearby toy store when it opened and was thrilled to find they have the Schliech animals Max loves so much, so we got him a new zebra to play with (and the receipt gained us entry into the bathrooms in the lobby right behind us! Totally worth the $5 for the zebra! LOL)

This picture is looking towards Montgomery (the starting point) still about 2 hours before the start… this many people waited at least 2 hours!



A collection of pictures of some of the signs we saw… there were so many more I wish I could have gotten pictures of, but there just wasn't enough time (or memory card!) to get every photo I wanted!

There were people on every conceivable surface, and some not-so conceivable; that guy sitting on the pyramid shaped sign post? That *can't* be comfy! People climbed trees, lightposts, statues, MUNI buses, windowsills and each other. People *everywhere* I'm seriously impressed and thrilled with how polite everyone was! We really didn't have any negative experiences, which is more than I can say for many other humongous public gatherings I've participated in!

Random guy on a cool bike/scooter thing

Even the police horses got in the spirit! They were wearing Giants hats and had the “SF” logo shaved onto their flanks!

And then the actual parade *finally* began…
Our big hint that it was starting was the cofetti that started swirling overhead!




I didn't particularly love this picture; it was WAY underexposed and I had to lighten the heck out of it just to see who was in the truck, which is why it's so darned grainy (noisy)… there's a cool thing though! I didn't see it until I lightened it, but look closely…

And finally, the PLAYERS!
Juan UUUUUUUUUUUU-RIBE!

Unfortunately, Brian Wilson was on the other side of the cable car while he was in view of us, so this is the best we got of him. *sigh*

World Series MVP, Edgar Renteria

Mr. Ross-tober, Cody Ross, the smiliest Giant ever!

Catcher Buster Posey… I was a little annoyed by the reporters trying to do interviews in the middle of the parade, but whatevs… he's still a cutie patootie! LOL

And Jamie's favorite, Pat “The Bat” Burrell, complete with beer!

We borrowed my sister's Ergo carrier instead of bringing the stroller, and I'm SO thankful we did! Max did great in it, it was a nice change for Jamie from Max sitting on his shoulders, and it was just plain awesome not having to deal with the stroller! Seeing the parents that *did* bring babies in strollers makes me doubly happy we left ours behind!

Here we are in the midst of the parade aftermath…

So that's the ticker tape parade rundown, and the last baseball post until next season! *sigh* We had an amazing time, and we're really looking forward to next year's parade as well! (What? You didn't hear? This is the start of a decade long dynasty for the Giants! LOL)