The Valley of the Sun!

The whole week was basically, for me, getting ready to go to Arizona. I mean I went to the dog park about every night and went to work everyday but that’s about the extent of things. Saturday morning I got up early and played some basketball and then we prebowled for bowling league (it went awfully.) We then took the dogs to the kennel and met up with my brother for lunch. That’s what’s nice about a late afternoon flight. We got to the airport (2 hours) early and I played lots of Nintendo DS (with that and our 2 hour layover in Chicago, 5 hours after we start we’re still into Chicago. The flight to Phoenix was long and boring. We made it late. Then it was time for rental car roulette! Yes, we get a row of cars and get to pick whichever one we want. And most were free upgrades from our mid-size. Dodge Calibers, Nissan Altimas, Toyota Priuses were all fine cars but we finally ran to get the Subaru Outback AWD. We got to it about 5 seconds before someone else who then ran to the other Subaru which wasn’t as good. I love the car so far!

Saturday we got up and headed to this blog’s namesake…the Waffle House. I hadn’t been to one since late 2006 and I don’t even think I saw one last year. Breakfast was outstanding. We headed back here, got ready and then headed a couple miles west to Tempe, home of ASU. We climbed this hill that’s next to Sun Devil Stadium, it was great! We then spent the next couple hours motoring around the Phoenix Metro area, first heading up to Scottsdale then west to downtown and the capital and then over to the Glendale area where the Brewers have Spring Training. We were a bit early to Spring Training so we headed up north to a place called the Coffee Bean. Had an excellent caramel latte. We then went back to Maryvale Park and got in. I felt special as we got to go to the VIP parking lot and then got to go to the players’ will call table (the lines for everything else were huge.) We got in and tooled around, it was our first time at Spring Training. Not sure how it worked but we had seats right behind the Angels dugout, 3 rows back. But I saw some Brewers players signing autographs over on the other side so I got my sprint on. I was able to catch Racine native Vinny Rottino and get him to sign a card. Also got Ned Yost to sign a card as well. Pretty sweet. The game was fun, the laid back atmosphere, the mid 70’s and sun, the 5000 fans who could actually hear the players talk. We were in the middle of the Angels fans and the Angels players and coaches would interact with them during the game. Neat! After the game we lounged around and I was able to add Tony Gwynn Jr and Gabe Gross to my autograph list. I was trying to figure this whole thing out and could’ve gotten a lot of minor league players to sign (and Uecker) but I didn’t really have anything for them to sign. No biggy.

After the game we found out the Mexican restaurant that a few different people told us about was closed Sundays and Mondays. Hoping to sneak it in on Friday before we go. We headed to the best burger in Phoenix, Delux. It was good, the patty was top notch, the toppings could’ve been better. We hit the Gelato Spot after and had an excellent dessert. Jess told me about some random trail where you climb 1400 feet in 1.25 miles and I figured we could catch the sunset up here. Little did I know, it was pretty much like a bouldering trail with some class 2 and class 3 scramble. We got almost a mile of it in where we got to a vista and saw the sun set. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. The sun setting behind mountains with the sprawl of Phoenix in the foreground. The sketchy part was descending while it was dark (the dusk was even darker when we were as going down the mountain was between us and what little light came from the sun. And Jess did take a top notch digger, I expected her to just have fallen to her knees but she went head (actually elbows(first) down to the ground. She was ok except for a huge not on her elbow. She’s soldiered on. We got to the car and it was night. We headed to the hotel and were crashed by 8:30, lots of sun and hiking made us dead!

Now it’s Monday am, I am up and Jess just got up. Heading to Dunkin Donuts for a latte and a donut before seeing whatever other adventures we can find. Then settling in for some Brewers/Padres before venturing north to Sedona. Hopefully DD has some WIFI so I can post this blog!
They didn’t so the blog continues. Dunkin Donuts makes a crap-ass latte (undrinkable). We headed back to the Cambleback Mountain this morning. We rocked it, made it all the way to the top. Jess took another fall but other than that it was nice. Took a couple hours round trip. Had some iced coffees after, it was awesome! Headed west to Glendale to check out the Cardinals stadium and then back to Maryvale for a second day of Brewers action. We hit Del Taco on the way and it was fun! Got to the stadium early and got a couple autos. The game went fast for about 7 innings and I scored a t-shirt in the t-shirt toss. The last two innings took forever but I was able to score some sweet autos (Hardy, Hart, Weeks, Sveum, Etc…) It was another beautiful day for baseball! After the game we went to Fatburger (pass) and headed to Sedona. Sedona seems awesome although it’s dark so I haven’t seen the beauty yet. Time to get some sleep!