Saturday, April 1, 2017

Batter Up!

One of the great things about March in Arizona 
(besides the weather) ...    is Baseball!

15 Teams make the Phoenix Metro their spring home and the towns
roll out the red carpet for the teams and fans.

We poured on the coal heading west in the hope that we would make it to
Phoenix before spring training concluded at the end of March, and
fortunately we made it in time to catch one of the last games of the spring season.

We returned to Surprise Stadium - where we saw the Texans last year, and this
year we saw the Colorado Rockies vs the Texas Rangers.

My old home vs my new home!


Being a die-hard Broncos fan...   I had to cheer on Colorado.
It was no use however as Texas won 6-5

The great thing about spring training is you are in a much more intimate setting than
at the home stadiums, and its easy to get great seats at reasonable prices.

We were behind the netting just to the right of the plate.


While here we stayed at Lake Pleasant Regional Park, on the northwest
fringe of the Phoenix Metro.

Its a great park with 50amp and water hookups with a dump on the way out.

The views from our site were great, and a nice cool breeze blew off of the lake helping
to moderate the warm daytime temps.

The Ocotillo are green and the flowers in bloom

My job has been a real grind lately with 14hr + days, and each morning 
I would take a break from work and we would go on a walk with
Jim & Kristi before I would go back to my cave to continue my labors...
Many days my work lasted long into the night.

We arrived too late to catch the desert "superbloom" but it still is the greenest
and most flowerful (is that a word?) that we have ever seen.



A desert Tortoise peeks out from his hiding spot
At the end of the week we moved down to Picacho Peak State Park for the 
weekend.   The campground is between Phoenix and Tucson and we find it to
be a nice place out of the cities to just relax.

It has only electric so show up with water and empty holding tanks.
I chose our site (B11) because it faced Northeast and keeps the afternoon sun
out of the front window.

The weather has been close to perfect and a cool breeze fills the Bus with
the scents of the desert.

Site B11
To our rear - looking west to Picacho Peak. 


Saturday morning we met J&K in Tempe for the Tempe Art Festival.
Tempe has a wonderful downtown area, and they close off several blocks plus side streets,
for the affair.    
It was a pretty large and eclectic event which had arts of all kinds including
musicians and street performers.


The lobster ladies struck a pose.


This group came marching down the street beating drums.
It looked like it might be a Native American group, but I'm not certain.


We will stay here in Picacho Peak Sunday night and then we will drive 40 miles
south to Catalina State Park in Oro Valley (north of Tucson)
where we'll stay put for 2 weeks and hook up with Ron & Maxine as well
as reunite with Jim & Kristi.

Tucson is one of our favorite places to visit because there is just sooooo much
to do there.   Hopefully I'll have some time to enjoy.

See you there.

9 comments:

  1. Your blog is so well done and so interesting, ALWAYS! Great photos, beautiful settings and even a tortoise! Wow. Thank you for sharing this great adventure.
    Hay/Ray

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    1. Its been hard to get real inspired lately since we are traveling a well worn (for us) path. We'll be cranking it up a notch in 6 weeks or so.

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  2. Just yesterday I checked to see where you were! Thank you for the details...Looks like fun. Enjoy...We miss you guys.

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    1. If you look at the map for yesterday and zoom in you can see how we walked all over downtown Tempe at the art festival. Kate and I were both good and resisted all the wonderful smells of food cooking. I tried to satisfy all my carnivorous urges by breathing deeply.

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  3. Was hoping to see you, but we have doctor appointments all week. Just the six month annual cardiologist, dermatologist, family doctor and dentist check ups. Plan to head west next weekend. We're at Sundance until then.

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    1. I'm hoping that we bump into you guys (not literally 😎) up somewhere above the 60th parallel.

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  4. Loved the lobster ladies!! Hope your working hours decrease soon so you can enjoy your surroundings...Miss you two! Margie :o)

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    Replies
    1. I too hope it slows down Margie. Lots of "work drama" is really taking the fun out of it.

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  5. The street fair reminds me of Seafood Festival on the waterfront of Morehead. Great pics as usual and love living vicariously through you. See you down the road one day. Love and miss you.

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