Spring Training 2015: Day 1

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St. Patrick’s Day has passed, March Madness is in full swing, so it’s time for my annual Spring Training trip to the Cactus League with my little brother (and little sister, this year!). Spring has already arrived in Florida, but I’m sure my siblings are ready to get out to warmer climes for a few days.

This year’s tech is similar to last year’s, with some upgrades: new are my Surface Pro 3 and iPhone 6 Plus, and no stranger to the trip are my aging-but-still-functional Canon PowerShot digital camera (with EyeFi card), and Garmin nüvi GPS. I left the nüvi at home last year, in favor of Waze on my iPhone, but realized that with all the heavy use my phone gets on these trips, Waze was a big contributor to sucking the battery dry. So I’m back to a dedicated device for nagivation around the valley so I can save my phone’s battery for the important stuff: photos, social media, e-mail, etc. 😉

We’re staying the west side of the valley this year since that’s where all of our games are at. This trip will be different from the past because we’ve got two night games and thus decided to also do a day/night double-header on Friday. Of course, we’ll head to the east side of the valley for Camelback Mountain and our traditional dinner at Rustler’s Rooste to close out the weekend.

Once again my trip coincides with the start of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. My Dayton Flyers got screwed by the selection committee and had to open the tournament at home in the First Four last night, beating Boise St at home in UD Arena. They play again Friday against Providence in the round of 64. Go UD! So I was up late last night watching the game and then had an early start this morning, leaving the house at 5:30am to catch my 7:10am flight to Phoenix. The flight was great: there was no one in the middle seat, there was room in the overhead for my bag (leg room!), and we landed about 30 minutes early. After meeting my brother and getting our baggage at Sky Harbor, we ended up in a huge line for the rental car shuttle. Looks like the weekend is going to be busy.

The weather was cloudy, chilly, and then rainy! I’d never seen it rain in Pheonix on this trip so the inclement weather was a surprise (it was a good thing we weren’t going to an afternoon game because a lot of them were cancelled). We weren’t able to get a early check-in to our hotel yet, so we ended up down the street at Pieology for lunch. Think Moe’s, then substitute thin crust pizzas for burritos and you’ll get the idea. The place even looked like a Moe’s, down to the wood and steel dining area. After lunch we stopped at a grocery store to pick up a 15-pack of 1L water bottles for the weekend (most parks allow you to bring in a sealed bottle of water now) and then by noon were able to check into our hotel.

After unpacking and watching some basketball in the hotel room, the weather started to clear up so we drove over to Camelback Mountain and hiked up the Echo Canyon Trail. There had been some rennovations since our last trip to this trail, including a larger parking lot. This was also the latest we had hiked (2pm) but the cooler weather and cloudy skies made for a much more pleasant hike (still a good workout!) to the summit. We were back at the car by 4:30pm and then got stuck in Phoenix rush hour traffic on I-10 heading back to the west side of the valley.

At 5:30 we got back to the hotel and had time to wash up before heading out for our first game, our Cleveland Indians versus the Seattle Mariners at the Peoria Sports Complex (also home to the San Diego Padres). The slightly chillier weather returned after the sun went down (before gametime) so I was glad I had brought my jacket, but wished I had worn jeans instead of shorts. Unfortunately, our hopes to see straight wins like last year were dashed as the Indians lost 5-2.

We still had about two hours (!) before my sister’s flight arrived from Seattle so we stopped by the Westgate Entertainment District in Glendale, hoping to find something to do (and to stay awake) until we had to go to the airport. Unfortunately, the Coyotes game had already ended and the place was pretty empty so we just went back to the hotel for a bit. Around 11:30pm we drove back to Sky Harbor to pick up my sister and then collapsed back at the hotel at 12:30am. I hadn’t really slept on the plane so it was a 22 hour day. Whew.

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