Spring Training

Griffey is Back!

Sunday March 8th
Woke up and it was sunny! We took a walk, had breakfast and made our way to the gas station where we found our cheapest diesel of the trip so far of $1.87 per gallon! We started the trip in Seattle paying $2.18 and filled up 3 times each time finding a cheaper price. Last year when we bought the van it was almost $5 per gallon—wow! It was a 2.5 hour trip to Phoenix and we should have made the Mariner game but the last half mile took 40 mins. Because of the traffic by the ball park! It turns out we were playing the Arizona Diamondbacks on a sunny Sunday and everyone decided to go to the game. We missed the first couple of innings where the M’s scored 7 runs to the D’s 2. We got lawn tickets and walked around to the M’s dugout side by 3rd base. We saw the familiar Griffey smile as he looked out at the game from the dugout rail. It was heart-warming to see his bat go through its gyrations while he stood at the plate anticipating the pitch as we anticipated his swing. Just prior to his plate appearance there were 2 outs with runners on first and second with Betancourt and the crowd chanting “ walk him” to load the bases for Griffey. Ball one, ball two, swung on ball three and missed, strike, ball, and … fly out to center field for the third out. We waited for him to lead off the fourth and watched him stroke a single up the middle—wow maybe the M’s can do something this year. Then Griffey was pulled from the game and sauntered off to the club house. We found our spot on the left field lawn and watched a 7-2 score go to a 7-7 by the 8th inning where the M’s added 4 more runs to take it 11-7. Another typical spring training game! But the weather was in the 70’s (barely) and Seattle was in the 30’s so all was right with the universe.

Candy and Rick enjoying the game with us

Monday March 9th
It rained some during the night. It was an overcast day but much better than Seattle. Candy and Judy wanted to move from our RV campground to one more scenic (and therefore much farther away). Harris and Rick followed their lead and we moved to Lake Pleasant RV Resort. The Pioneer Museum was closed so we had lunch and went to the Desert Botanical Garden where we saw not only the desert plant life but also a glass blowing showing by Chuhuily (sp). Wonderful day in the low 70’s. Candy and Rick wanted to check out Cabela’s so we were forced to eat out at a wonderful Mexican restaurant called Las Glorias. We made it home to late to use the resort facilities.

Some of Chuhuily's work


Tuesday March 10, 2009
Late start but we were able to do a couple of geocaches on the way to the Mariners baseball game. Today the M’s sucked big time with Griffey 0 for 3. Stadium was about 7000 fans full as we played the Chicago Cubs. It was great to see “Sweet Lou” even though we went down 8-1. It was warm enough we had to look for shade toward the end of the game. Rick and Harris decided that Wed. would be a double header while Candy and Judy take the day for themselves.

Sweet Lou