Mar 2007

We're off to another Cactus League Spring Training game today in Tucson. This one is at a different baseball park than yesterday, Tucson Electric Park. It's larger than yesterdays and is supposed to have great views of the mountains, but it is so incredibly windy that the dust blocks the view of the mountain. Yesterday we fried in the sun and today we feel like we're going to get blown away. Not sure which I prefer.

We get there early (one of the first ones in line again) to watch batting practice. This field has a large lawn area in the outfield so Joe wants to head right to the lawn area to try to catch a homerun ball during practice. Joe didn't have any batted to him, but Jere was at the right place and tried to catch it 'one-handed'....yeah that didn't work but it did knock the ball down in front of him and he quickly retrieved it.

We scout the park to see what they have for lunch and since it's a large park they have lots of choices. Then we take our seats for the game. We have fairly good seats on the third base line, about 12 rows up. We see some baseball players are signing autographs below us, so Joe has one of the pitchers (Sun Woo Kim) sign the ball Jere 'caught'.

You're probably wondering what teams were playing. I'm trying to remember too :-) Oh yeah...how could I forget??? It was Joe's favorite team, the SF Giants, playing at the White Sox. I'm certain it was the White Sox -- I kept annoying Joe by asking him 'Why don't the White Sox wear white socks?' Their socks were black.

Since Joe likes the Giants and knows all the players, he was very interested in the game, but they lost in the bottom of the 9th. The pitcher that signed his ball pitched in the 8th inning and would have had the 'win' if the SF pitcher brought in for the 9th inning wouldn't have been so so bad.

After game we head back to the RV. I call Dell and after being on hold for a long time again, I ask why the service tech never called today like I was told he would call. This third Dell guy tells me that I won't receive a call til the service tech picks up the part I need. The part that I need did indeed arrive in Tucson at 7:30am this morning, but was never picked up (so much for their Next Business Day Warranty coverage). After explaining to them that the first guy said I would get a call Tuesday (but no call), the second guy said I would get a call today (but no call) and now this guy is telling me not to expect a call til the part is picked up, I become VERY RUDE CLAIRE. I'm sure the Dell service warranty records have an evil angry face beside my name in their records.

So I've spent at least 45 minutes each of the last 3 nights on the phone with Dell and I'm not happy. Jere comes in and tells me to come outside to see the beautiful rainbows. The rainbows fade in and out for the next 15 minutes and it does calm me down. I tried to take pictures of the full double rainbow but I couldn't get far enough away with my camera.

Beautiful morning so I walk around the park early in the morning and watch the sun rise over the mountains. Today we will go to the first of many planned baseball games for the trip (I think we have at least 10 planned). Jere wants to visit all the professional baseball parks sometime in his lifetime, so we are going to visit 5 Cactus League Spring Training baseball parks that are in the Arizona in the next week.

We arrive two hours before game time to watch the players warm up and check out the park. It's a small stadium and you can get close to the field. Today we see the Chicago Cubs at Colorado Rockies spring training field in Tucson. There are very few shaded seats at this stadium and it is hot and sunny -- yes, I know, "but it's dry heat". It was hot! Not sure what the temp was but it was supposed to be in the mid 80s and sunny, very little breeze. The middle-aged mom two rows in front of us took off her t-shirt to reveal a skimpy bikini top, so she was prepared -- though several of us looked at each other in surprise when she did it--I think we were all a little jealous of her :-).

The game wasn't very exciting, though it did start out with Alfonzo Sorriano (Cubs) hitting a homerun. Besides that, the highlight was probably me eating an entire RockieDog. I think I ate my total allowable fat content for the next week.

After the game we drove over to the Tucson Mountain Park. Joe and Jere climbed up to the lookout while I took picures:

Then we continued on to the western section of Saguaro National Park. We walked around a little and drove the scenic loop.

Then a quick stop at Kentucky Fried Chicken for additional fat and back to the RV.

Our one laptop's LCD screen stopped working yesterday morning so I've been trying to get Dell tech support to fix it. So I spent another 45 minutes on the phone with them when we got back. The service tech that they said would call me today never did call. They said he will call tomorrow to set up an appointment. I'm quickly using up my cell phone minutes with Dell.

We take our time hooking up and take off for Tucson AZ. It's only about an hour's drive. First stop is the eastern part of Saguaro National Park. We pull up to the gate and the ranger looks at our 5th wheel and asks how long it is. We find out that we can't take the trailer into the park due to it's length, but they tell us we can unhook it and leave it at a parking lot up the road.

The parking lot is small! But Jere insists that we can do this and so we spend the next 45 minutes trying to get the 5th wheel into a corner of the parking lot. It was not pretty! And included a few scary minutes when the brake wire came unhooked and the trailer brakes locked up and Jere kept trying to back the trailer up the hill til he finally believed my screams that he had to stop. So, in summary, it took us as long to park/unhook the trailer as it took to drive to the park :-)

The drive around the park was interesting. We're now in the Sonora Desert, instead of the Chihuahan Desert. I'm trying to enjoy the desert, but it's hot and dusty.

I'm getting tired of the RV parking lots we've been staying at so Jere agrees to try a state park north of Tucson, Catalina State Park. The campground is a nice change from the parking lots we've been staying at. Nice mountains in the background and the trailers are not right on top of each other. Jere agrees that this is a good choice.

We take a trail labelled as a birdwalk after dinner, but don't see a lot of birds. Still a nice stroll since it's getting cooler in the evening. The sun sets early here since AZ does not participate in daylight savings time.

I spend the rest of the evening trying to contact Dell to get Joe's laptop fixed. Very frustrating. We have two Dell laptops, both with 3-year warranties that I bought, for next day 'at home' service. But I'm not 'at home'. After several hours, I finally do get to talk to a live person and after answering a jillion questions, he says that a person will come out to replace the LCD screen in Tucson AZ since we're on the road. With his Asian accent, he asks "What's a campground?" This repair may take awhile :-)

We're taking a day off of sight-seeing to catch up on things and have some R&R. Plus it's Sunday and we haven't gone to church since we started this trip. We decide to try the church service at the RV park and get there 5 minutes before the service starts. It is filled with senior citizens and there are very few open seats. One of them switches seats so the 3 of us can sit together IN THE FRONT ROW. I was only about 4 feet from the pastor. The service is okay.

We spend the rest of the day getting chores and errands done, while Joe takes a day off of schoolwork. Later in the day we take a break at the pool and then continue with chores.

Here is a photo of a pair of roadrunners that visited our campsite at Benson:

I get up early and go out to birdwatch and take a walk around the campground. Not sure why, but there are a lot of birds in this area. Then we pack up and take off to travel to Benzon AZ. Some fellow campers have recommended an RV park there.

The RV park is very nice so we pick out a pull-through site, have some lunch and then take off to Tombstone, site of the shoot out at the OK Corral. The town is crowded with tourists. Main street is totally tourist shops.

We buy the last 3 tickets to the 2:00 "Shoot Out at the O.K. Corral" show and enter the museum and then the show. The show is packed solid, but everyone is in a good mood and joking about the lack authenticity of the show (the cowboys are mainly senior citizens instead of 30-year-old cowboys, diet Coke can sitting around, a bright yellow plastic tub that they use to store the iced tea that they pour into bottles in front of us that is supposed to look like whiskey, and the refrigerator that can easily be seen when they open the door).

The show finally starts and they start with a comedy skit, which is cute. The actual recreation of the shoot-out is so-so, but like the person in front of me told me, 'this is something you have to do once and then check it off your list as done' :-)

We go see their multimedia show about Tombstone, which is actually better than I expected it to be (but my expectations were pretty low), and then walk around town (after getting large bowls of ice cream to eat).

On the way out of town we stop at Boot Hill Cemetary to look at the old graves. We donate $2 to get a description of the graves and we're surprised to find that most of the 100 or so graves have people that were murdered/hanged -- Tombstone was a rough town in the 1880s.

Then back to the RV for a late dinner and a little relaxation.