The first-ever trip by the Yankees to Montreal was too tempting to
pass up, and we made it up there for Tuesday night's game.  Montreal
is about 235 miles away, and the trip each way was around 3 and a half
hours.  It's good to have friends who can be talked into this sort of
thing.

The most interesting thing during the drive up was the lack of trees
with actual branches once we got near Plattsburgh.  The ice storm last
January caused some major tree damage across the northern Adirondacks
and in Quebec.  Lots of birch still bent over to the ground but alive,
and assorted others which are just trunks with only small clumps of
leaves where branches belong.  It's amazing to see how much damage a
few inches of ice can do.

We got to Montreal a few hours early but decided to go right to the
stadium to make sure we could find it and to buy tickets.  Some road
closures meant we saw more of the city than we originally planned, but
that was no problem.  We found the stadium easily and parked to go get
tickets.  Tickets were available pretty much anywhere in the stadium,
and I picked first base side, lower deck, about half way up.  Not bad
for $23 Canadian.  While in line for tickets we saw several Yankees
walking through the concourse toward the players' entrance.  I
definitely recognized Wells, Nelson, and Jeter.

Tickets in hand, we decided to walk around and check out the city.
Unfortunately we picked a direction which took us through nothing but
residential areas and barely could find a place to buy a soda.  We
finally found a corner store about a 45-minute walk from the stadium.
Montreal is a bilingual city, but they definitely prefer to speak
French.  I liked trying to read and understand it (through 10 years of
rust), but I wasn't about to try to speak it.  We headed back to the
stadium to get in to watch BP around 6.  They open the gates only an
hour before the game, but Yankee BP was still going on.

The stadium itself is impressive if only because of the huge mass of
concrete - ultramodern by mid 70's standards.  I'm sure it was
something to see when it was new, but now it's more of an eyesore.  I
was surprised to see the sun shining when we got inside.  I hadn't
heard that the big tarp roof was rotting and was removed before this
season.  Food selection was very good with the traditional stuff plus
pizza, sandwiches, and more.  The hot dog was nothing special but I've
had worse.  Prices looked high until you figured in the exchange rate.

The French baseball terms on the scoreboards were interesting to see
and try to figure out.  They give Expos stats in French and visitors
stats in English.

The game itself was great - all Yankees.  The crowd was probably about
1/3 Yankee fans.  By the time the game was over (about the fifth
inning, realistically), it was probably over half Yankee fans.  The
biggest thing the Expos fans had to cheer was the introduction of Tim
Raines in his first trip back to Montreal since being traded in 1990.
He didn't get in the game.  El Duque was dominating on the mound
for New York, and the offense was led by a very high home run by
Bernie Williams and two home runs by Scott Brosius.

After the game, following an unsuccessful search for a place to put my
all-star ballot, we battled almost no traffic.  We got right on the
road and returned home around 2.  I'd have liked to make it a longer
trip to see two or maybe all three games, and more of Montreal, but
that wasn't possible this time..

Next new stadium on the list?  Hopefully Skydome in July.