Let's go Bucs!

Okay for some reason, Pirates fans do not yell "Let's go piiiiii-raaaates". They yell "Let's go Bucs!". It confused me for a second since I used to live in Tampa, a city that had a Buccaneers team. Where "Let's go Bucs" made a little more sense to me.

But I'm charmed by the PNC Park.
It's beautiful.
Unfortunately they lost the game by a large margin. No one likes to see the home team lose. Poor Pirates.

Anyway, Here I am getting my head crushed by a statue!

And here is the view of our hotel (that building with a hole in the middle) From across the bridge. As a place to stay to see a game, it was excellent. Literally all you do is walk out the door and cross the bridge and you are there!! Very nice.

The evening was perfect for a ball game. Nice and cool with a soft breeze off the rivers.

Also the boats going by makes for interesting viewing no matter what your team is doing on the field.

*****BLOG NEWS UPDATE*****
And in Breaking Blog News I have very interesting news about my spider from the other week. My friend Tricia told me it is a WOLF SPIDER. And those ugly bumps? They're the way the spider takes care of its young! Each bump is a baby spider! Eww!!! Just thought you needed to know.

Sunday walkies

Well, as usual, after a fierce evening storm (see post below for some hail pictures) we had a beautiful morning. We decided to go over to Manassas Battlefield Park and go walking. It's rather close to where we live and is a really nice place for a morning walk.

One reason is you can look at an old stone bridge.


You can look at some rolling hills and fields (they mowed down the grasses for hay a few weeks ago, but I imagine it will spring back up once more before fall).


You can walk in the woods.


And you can see some cool bugs.
I'm not sure what this is, the wings were different than most dragonflies I have seen. They were black - not clear.


I'm not sure what kind of spider this one is, but he was huge. My thought process went "oh look a baby toad, oh wait no, that is a tarantula!" It was about 2 inches or 3 inches in diameter. It was H-U-G-E. Neither Harland nor I have ever seen such a spider.


I have been trying to find out what is it online, but the closest I can come up with is maybe a bark crab spider? But the pictures don't quite look like it. Anyone know what this monster is? It was okay to see it outside, in the woods, but if this creepy crawly was anywhere near my house I'd be freaking out. This was the biggest, ugliest spider I have ever ever seen.
What is interesting is I was not nearly as creeped out taking the pictures of him as I am now looking at him. Those bumps! eww! Gross!