Love That Dirty Water....

VPR is 3-0! We had a blast last Saturday as Mitch Wertlieb, Ric Cengeri, and I traveled to Boston for VPR's 3rd trip to Fenway park with a great group of VPR listeners. We took a tour of the storied ballpark, feasted on hot dogs, and watched the Sox take on the Detroit Tigers.

I'm usually a very optimistic Sox fan (unlike Mitch - see his recap of last year's game here), but when we were down 4-0 early in the game and kept leaving men on base, I got a little discouraged. Oddly enough, Mitch was the one who kept saying "Be patient, they can do it."

They managed to come back to make it 4-2 by the bottom of the 9th inning. Tigers pitcher Phil Coke loaded the bases by intentionally walking Kevin Youkilis with one out, bringing David "Big Papi" Ortiz to the plate. Papi hit a double that looked (and sounded) something like this (the hit is around 2:15):



Since everyone was jumping up and down and I'm not all that tall, I didn't even realize they'd won it until I heard the unmistakable opening riff of "Dirty Water" - "buhmp buhmp buhmp, buhmp bah-dump." It was the first walk-off win I've ever seen at Fenway! My favorite part by far was watching Mitch jump up and down screaming and clapping, as if he were 10 years old all over again.

What a day! Great company, great weather, and topped off by a great come-from-behind walk off win. It doesn't get much better than that! VPR is now 3-0 with our trips to Fenway. Hmm...maybe they should have VPR listeners at every game! Check out our photos from the day below.

Dispatches from VPR's English Garden Tour

VPR Commentator and Gardening Expert Charlie Nardozzi is touring the legendary gardens of England with VPR listeners, and he sent us a few tastes of what they’re seeing:

Friday: The Chelsea Flower Show was amazing. Beautiful gardens, huge displays of flowers, and great design ideas. It was wonderful have Thomas Hoblyn for one hour to talk about the designs and the insider’s view of the show. Some of the gardens have budgets up to £350,000! It's quite an investment. We saw British Gardening TV star Alan Titchmarsh taping segments live and everyone seemed to really enjoy the show.




Saturday: We've been at the Garden House and Rosemoor gardens today. The Garden House was fabulous, a great example of a classic English garden, with cottage garden plants spilling out into walkways with great shrubs and trees. The bones of this garden are amazing. A 17th-century vicarage and walls is the perfect backdrop for Zone 3 to 9 plants. This part of England is actually almost subtropical with palm trees and other warm loving plants. Eveyone was wowed.

Rosemoor was more formal but interesting. Great old plants and beautiful examples of shrubs different foliage and textures. The rhodis, azaleas, poppies and wisteria are in full bloom. What a show! Tomorrow we're off to the Eden Project and then Heligan. Everyone is thoroughly enjoying England. We spend days chatting, laughing, and talking gardens. If I don't know the answers, someone usually on the tour does. It's great fun.

You can learn more about VPR's tours here.