My annual trip out west for Cleveland Guardians Spring Training wasn’t going to work out this year with my siblings. We were looking at the last weekend in March since it happened to coincide with my sister’s Seattle Kraken being in town at the same time to play the Arizona Coyotes (who will be moving to Utah next year!), but then our plans kinda fell apart due to other conflicts. I had resigned myself to just staying local and going to a few Rays games instead, but then a last-minute opportunity made it so that I attended spring games in Florida and Arizona!
Once I knew (thought) I’d be staying local, I got tickets to see the Rays and Red Sox by myself on March 2 at the (now) Charlotte Sports Park in Port Charlotte, and then the Rays and Pirates with my wife at LECOM Park in Bradenton on St. Patrick’s Day. I hadn’t been to the Rays’ Spring Training home since 2016 (it’s a 2-hour drive south of me) and since then it’s had some rennovation done, especially after Hurricane Ian caused some damage in 2022. I just got a berm seating/general admission ticket which let me (for just $15) wander around the park and watch the game from various places around the outfield. It was definitely different than having an assigned seat, but was also a lot of fun being able to change locations every few innings. There was rain in the forecast, but it ended up being mostly overcast and nice for the game, except for the outcome: the Rays lost 3-2.
So my next Rays game was supposed to be on St. Patrick’s Day but then my wife ended up needing to go to Las Vegas for an appointment on the 19th. A few last-minute plans later (including selling the Rays/Pirates tickets) and we were flying out to Arizona first thing on Sunday the 17th. I’ve been coming out to AZ for 15 years with my siblings (and daughter), but this was the first time my wife had ever come with me! We spent the late morning and early afternoon hiking Hole in the Rock and visiting the Desert Botanical Garden (similar to what I did with my sister last year). Then we drove over to Goodyear, checked into our hotel, and headed to the Goodyear Ballpark for a Battle of Ohio between the Guardians and Reds. Like my Rays game, it threatened to rain (a rare late afternoon occurrence in Arizona during Spring Training!) but despite the dark clouds the bad weather passed us by and the Guards won 4-2 (and we got a beer glass with a green 15 year anniversary logo on it after the game!) We grabbed some celebratory ice cream at Freddy’s before checking in for the night.
Monday morning, after breakfast at Wildflower, we hit the road to Las Vegas. It was a beautiful scenic drive up US-93 to I-40 and we made good time. We arrived in Vegas too early to check into our hotel, so instead we headed west to Red Rock Canyon to do some more hiking. I had been here with my college pals back in 2015 and then again with my sister in 2020 (right before the pandemic) but again this was the first time for my wife. We did the Calico Tanks trail but couldn’t quite make it all the way to the end due to some high water. It was still an amazing sight and we spent the rest of the mid-afternoon driving the loop before heading back to the strip. Then we were able to check into our room at The Cosmopolitan (with an amazing view of the Bellagio fountain and the Sphere) and get our bearings for the next few days (I’ll actually be working from our hotel room for the next two days while my wife is at her appointments).
Oh, did I forget to mention that the Tampa Bay Lightning were in town playing the Las Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday evening? When making our plans I of course noticed that and snagged some tickets for the game at T-Mobile Arena. After I finished work (which was at 2pm since I was working east coast time from west coast time) and my wife got back from her thing, we headed out and walked the strip for a bit. We had an early dinner (and drinks) at the bar at Superfrico in our hotel and then walked down to the arena for the game. I had bought decent seats in the 100 level behind the goal, but a Vegas fan asked us if we wanted to switch with him since he had friends in town that were sitting in our row, so we ended up four rows from the glass! The atmosphere was amazing, especially since the Bolts won 5-3! After walking back to our hotel, we had some celebratory ice cream at Milk Bar before calling it a night (it was a work night, after all, and I had to be up at 5am, ugh).
Wednesday was a similar schedule, except instead of a hockey game we had fancy dinner plans. Again, once I was done with work at 2pm, we freshened up, got dressed up, and started a little pre-dinner bar crawl. There are soooo many cool bars in the Cosmo, some which are “hidden” (there’s even a hidden pizza place that I went to for lunch). We started at Ghost Donkey (tequila!), then the Ski Lodge (which turned out to be our favorite, wish we had found that one sooner), before heading to dinner at Beauty & Essex (which is also “hidden” behind a pawn shop). After dinner we walked the strip again and took in the nighttime sights, wrapping up the evening with the Bellagio fountain show.
Thursday was our travel day back to FL, nothing exciting. But what a cool trip!
Spring Training side note: the old Cleveland Indians Spring Training facility in Winterhaven (Chain of Lakes Park) was recently demolished to make way for new development. I had some great times watching Indians games there before they moved out to Arizona in 2009 15 years ago.