We thought we would end up sleeping in this morning, with nothing to do until the baseball game at 1:05pm. But we were both up at 7:45am so I did some quick research and realized that Red Rock Canyon was only 20 minutes away. I had hiked in the canyon during my first trip to Vegas back in 2015 with college friends and since our annual spring training normally involves hiking and we hadn’t had a chance to do it back in Phoenix, we decided to drive out there before the game. We had breakfast at the hotel around 9:30am and checked on my brother’s progress in the Mississippi Blues Marathon (which is why he couldn’t come with us on the trip this year), and my niece’s solo and ensemble competition (which my other sister had flow back overnight for) before checking out of the hotel and getting back in the car.
Normally Day 2 would start with a morning hike one on the valley’s mountain trails, but our traditional routine is a little compressed this year due to my one sister’s short stay with us. Instead, we got up early (around 7:30am), had breakfast at the hotel (including leftover cowboy frybread from dinner last night, yum!), checked out, and drove to Goodyear to see the Indians’ morning practice.
It’s March February … time for baseball! After going to Arizona for my annual trip out to the Cactus League late in the spring training season for the past two years, this time I’m going early. The trip includes a Leap Day game in Las Vegas! New tech since my last trip includes a nice pair of noise-cancelling over-the-ear Bluetooth headphones and my Canon PowerShot SX740.
Despite growing fears around the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), including a case in Phoenix, I flew out to Sky Harbor airport early (5:30am) and lucked out that the only empty seat on the place was the middle seat next to me, nice! I landed at 9:45am MST and met my sisters who had both arrived earlier. This is my one sister’s first trip out with us so we’re looking forward to having her share in this annual tradition.
With Hurricane Dorian threatening to cut across the state of Florida, we weren’t sure our annual Labor Day vacation to Walt Disney World was going to happen. But as it turned out the storm curved away, up the eastern coast of the state and stayed away from Orlando. As a result, we had a really nice weekend trip without a lot of crowds.
I was last in New York City back in 2015: in May when I helped move the office to 1 Rockefeller Plaza, and then again in July when I went up for a two day meeting (but had time to see Penn & Teller on Broadway at the Marquis Theater).
This time I was back for … another office move. Yes, after just four years the corporate office was moving 13 blocks uptown from Rockefeller Plaza to a new location on Madison Avenue.
Monday was a long day. I had a 6:30am flight out of Tampa to Newark Liberty International Airport which meant I was up at 3:30am to drive to the airport, park, check in, and catch my plane. I was in the office at 1 Rock by 10:00am, and then it was a whirlwind of moving activity until I got to my hotel near the new office at 3:00am on Tuesday morning (who moves on a Monday night?). The rest of the week involved similar long-hour days as we finished setting up the new office and continued addressing the copious amount of end-user issues (as there will be with any major office move, despite the best laid plans).
The 1 Rock office was cool, with its view of the Today Show plaza and the Rockefeller Christmas Tree, but the Madison Avenue area seems quieter and less touristy. I didn’t get to do any sight-seeing (or any relaxing at all) but did have some good meals with colleagues at places like Tao, LAVO, and Sean’s Bar. And on Monday night while we were packing the office we had pizza (I don’t know where it was from, though) so I had some obligatory NYC slices too.
I flew home, exhausted, yesterday afternoon … quite the whirlwind trip. Then today there was the massive blackout in Manhattan, which included Rockefeller Center. Whew, glad I just missed that!
Tao Uptown
last view of the Today Show plaza from the old office
To celebrate my daughter’s high school graduation (and also visit our 50th state … yep, we’ve been to them all now!) we went to Hawaii for a 7-day Hawaiian cruise on the Norwegian Pride of America! What an incredible and amazing trip. We wanted to spend as much time in The Aloha State so we flew out a few days early for a pre-cruise vacation …
It was barely Sunday morning (3:00am) when we left the hotel and drove back to the rental car facility at Sky Harbor Airport. By 3:30am we had returned the car and were waiting for the airport shuttle to the terminal. People were lined up (as they should have) for the various shuttles to specific terminals (1-4) but it turned out there were only a few shuttles running and they were servicing all terminals. This caused some problems as people patiently waiting in the line for terminal 4 realized the bus kept stopping at the terminal 1 line and filling up quickly. We finally got onto a bus with other exasperated passengers.
At the Terminal 2 stop, my sister and I bid farewell to my brother (who was going on to the much nicer Terminal 4). The one benefit of the smaller (crappier) terminal, however, was the lack of lines. There were no lines to check our bags (Alaska for her, United for me) and we were the only two in the TSA PreCheck line (which amazingly was open at 4:00am). Unfortunately, once through security, nothing was open yet. I waited with my sister until she boarded her flight at 4:45am and then sat around for another 45 minutes before boarding my own flight to Houston. I landed in Houston around 11:00am and had a normal length layover before my connection home to Tampa. By 3:45pm I was back in my car and then home unpacking half an hour later. Another Arizona Spring Training trip in the books!
Final trip notes:
my favorite Indians player this spring was catcher Kevin Plawecki (who I kept calling “chrusciki“)
the home team of every game we saw was the winner; that made our trip record 3-1 (or 4-1 if you count the Cubs winning the day game on Friday)
It’s March … time for baseball! For the second year in a row we’re heading out to Spring Training in Arizona a little late (the last week again) but this year we’re adding an extra day. Hard to believe we’ve been doing this annual trip for 10 years!
