Our Arizona trips always involve hiking, and with another nighttime baseball game we had all day for outdoor activities. We got up early Monday morning and had breakfast at the house before heading over the zoo/botanical gardens area where we were on Saturday afternoon to “hike” up Hole in the Rock. It’s a short trail with only a 200ft elevation gain but it has a pretty unique view. Rather than go over to nearby Camelback Mountain or Piestewa Peak, both of which we’ve hiked before, we drove south of Phoenix to the South Mountain Preserve.

We’d never been here before but were taking the recommendation of a friend who had come out to Spring Training a few weeks earlier. Our destination was Dobbins Lookout. After a 20 minute drive up 6 miles of winding switchback road (carefully passing cyclists), we arrived at 2,330 feet. What. A. View. Sure it’s about 300 feet lower than the summit of Camelback, but hey, you can drive up to it. 🙂 We did want to do some hiking though, so we spent some time hiking the trails leading down from the summit, passing people who were hiking their way up (but not nearly as many people as we’d usually encounter on Camelback). We also drove to the end of the road to the Buena Vista Overlook and did some more hiking from there. We weren’t really checking trail maps (oops) but I think we were on the Mid-Life Crisis and Old Man trails. Along the way we met an older couple on their way back and they suggested we keep going for about 15 minutes where you could see the entire area (Phoenix to the north all the way around to Chandler in the southeast). Encouraged, we soldiered on (it also helped that again the temperatures were low which made for perfect hiking weather without being overly hot). Man, was it worth it … the view on both sides of the mountain were just incredible, we we were the only ones there.

By now it was almost 1:00pm and we had eaten all our packed snacks. It was time for lunch back at the house so we drove back to Phoenix and had our Rustler’s Rooste leftovers (potato skins, sausage, brisket, and steak). Our last game in Arizona was another night game so we had some more free time just to hang out at the Airbnb, pack up for our flight tomorrow, and I ran out to fill the rental car with gas so it’d be ready to return to the airport.

Around 5:00pm, we walked a few blocks to the Valley Metro light rail station and rode the train into downtown Phoenix and Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Again, I had been here with my daughter back in 2018 but it was another new park visit for my sister. We arrived just as the gates were opening so we had time to walk around the park (the roof was open, it was another beautiful, slightly chilly evening) and have some drinks at the Four Peaks Draft Room. This was still technically a Spring Training game, but MLB regular season prices (tickets, food, etc.) were in full effect. And the place was actually pretty empty (only about 9,000 fans in attendance). Our entire section in the 200 level was empty except for the first row, where apparently  everyone had bought their tickets, so we had room to spread out (unfortunately no foul balls came our way). And it was so quiet we could hear the players on the field (and they could probably hear us just talking normally). The Guardians had a 6-0 lead going into the bottom of the 7th inning by which time Francona had pulled out most of the starters and was giving the invitees one last chance to play. Suddenly, the D-Backs exploded for a 7-run bottom of the 7th and that closed it out, Cleveland losing 7-6 (in 2 hours and 35 minutes, our longest game of the trip … and first loss).

After a short light rail ride back to the Airbnb, we finished packing and completed the clean-up checklist for the house since we have an early flight in the morning. But the trip’s not over! We’re heading to Seattle for Opening Day!