Wow. We saw the Nats win two games in a row. First, against the Cardinals and then against the World Series winning Astros. In each game, the Nats used a different pitcher each inning. This may be the secret to a winning season. We saw both Gore and Cavelli and they looked good, as did all the relievers. We saw some of the youngsters get hits and make some great fielding plays. We even saw Victor Robles strike out twice. What more can you ask?

Other news. The food at the Nats’ park is much better than the food at the Cardinals’. No question. The location off the Cards’ park (surrounded by restaurants and stores) is much better than the Nats’ surroundings (scrub and grass). The Cardinals have a fine scoreboard. The Nats, to put it mildly, do not. The Nats scoreboard has writing so small that it’s a strain even for my eagle eyes, and when you do see it, it doesn’t tell you much. That is for three reasons: it doesn’t try to tell you all you’d like to know, it was completely off part of the time, and what information it gives you is not reliable.

Seating in both parks is good and mostly shaded. Parking is adequate but set up very differently. The Nats win the Star Spangled Banner competition, but lose the Take Me Out to the Ballgame challenge. It’s like the song disappeared midstream, but the words stayed on the scoreb, until the last two lines, which we’re neither audible or visible.

The morning was spent on a forest and dune walk at the MacArthur Nature Center, with our volunteer guide, Gregg Olsen, a retired psychiatrist. We learned a lot. How to tell a mangrove from a manatee, how to predict the sex of a sea turtle, the difference between red, black and white mangroves (nothing to do with color) and how to distinguish talk from shorter palm trees. Seriously, folks, it was one great tour, and Ed our cart driver back to the parking lot, a retired computer science professor from Czechoslovakia, was also an interesting companion. And his driving was good, while the driver who took us to our car at Nats Park was clearly a frustrated Formula One driver, who narrowly avoided hitting people while ignoring the difference between pavement and grass. One great ride.

Last night, dinner at The Old Key Lime House in Lantana with our hosts and a high school classmate of Edie’s, who also brought along her husband.

The lime green restaurant opened in 1887 and had more customers than either ball park did. It has about two hundred rooms, inside and out, and we waited over an hour in one of its floating bars to be seated. In addition to people, there was loud music and screen after screen, and I was sure we had landed in the worst possible place. Until we were seated at a nice round table, with plenty of room, and the food came. Plank salmon and salad were excellent. And eventually everyone but us disappeared. We arrived at 6 and left at ten.