Arizona and New Mexico: Baseball and the Desert March 4, 2016 to March 27, 2016

The last blog ended with our stay at Emerald Cove, CA, on the Colorado River.  From there we crossed into Arizona and headed for Wickenburg, AZ, about 60 miles NW of Phoenix.  We had stopped here overnight last year on our way north and knew this campground to be a good one.  We spent 4 nights here, “treading water” until we could get into the Sun City campground where Jon and Norma Owens and Deb and Brian Kennelly were parked.

We wandered the streets of Wickenburg and found a little museum with this sculpture out front, called “Thanks for the Rain.  Wickenburg is famous for its team roping events, held in many different venues around Wickenburg.  

Wickenburg is also famous as the location of the Vulture Mine.  Although the Vulture was the largest producing gold mine in Arizona, it never paid off for its investors or its discoverer, Henry Wickenburg.  It shut down for good in 1942. Now, it was a popular tourist attraction, luring visitors from nearby Wickenburg, the town named for the hapless Henry, who may or may not have posed as the prospector in the photo with Jerry.

Sunday, March 6, we chose a Lutheran Church in Prescott, AZ, since we wanted to explore that area as well.  We found First Lutheran Church, a Wisconsin Synod congregation.  As always we found the congregation very welcoming, but very small in this lovely big church.  How long will this church survive with their aging membership?  After church we explored downtown Prescott and wandered through some model homes on the NE side of the city.  Prescott is one of the cooler places to live in Arizona, due to the city’s elevation. 

Tuesday, March 8, we joined the Owens’s and the Kennelly’s at Paradise RV Park and Resort in Sun City.  Many of you may not know how we’re connected to these two couples…and there are many links!  Jon Owens is the big brother of my K-12 best friend Ardith.  Jon and Norma went to the same high school as Jerry and I but are two years older.  They’ve lived in Renton, WA, a suburb of Seattle for many years.  Brian and Debbie Kennelly also went to the same little high school in west central Illinois.  Brian and Debbie are two years younger than we and were in the same class as my brother, Roger.  Debbie and Norma are sister and Brian’s brother Phil was in our high school class.  Brian and Phil’s mom, Mary was our Latin teacher and one of our favorites in high school.  Teddy, Brian and Phil’s dad, was one of Jerry’s baseball coaches.  Yep, a small world!

We're still learning about this RV lifestyle and Paradise RV park gave us some more lessons.  This is a huge park for 55+ folks and caters to snowbirds.  We saw lots of license plates from the northern tier of states, as well as Canada.  The snowbirds really got into decorating their campsites and making them their own.  This one was across from Jon and Norma.

The whole point of meeting in the Phoenix area was to attend spring training for the Seattle Mariners, Jon and Norma’s favorite baseball team, and the Chicago Cubs, favorites of Brian, Debbie, and Jan.  Jerry put up with all of us and frequently reminded us of the successes of his team, the St. Louis Cardinals.

We had not been to spring training before but, luckily, Jon and Norma were old hands at this and showed us the ropes.  We learned that it’s invaluable to attend the morning practices.  The Mariners players made themselves very available to the fans who turned out to watch their drills.  It was relatively easy to get autographs and to talk with the players.  The Mariners were particularly responsive to the kids in the crowd and made it a point to stop and talk.The boys in the photo had plastic sleeves full of baseball cards.  Every time a player walked by, they flipped through their binders trying to find the right card for that player to sign.  Very sweet!

The night we arrived, Jon and Norma had invited one of their classmates, Regina Morse Shelton, who lives in Phoenix, to come for dinner.  We covered all the teachers, classmates, and gossip of Spoon River Valley High School and loved every minute!

Jon and Norma’s younger daughter, Christie, her husband, Rennick, and their daughter Alyssa arrived on Thursday to join us for spring training and some ballgames.  They stayed in Jon and Norma’s motor home, Jon and Norma stayed with Brian and Debbie, and we were parked several blocks away in the pet section!

If you need to know whom the Mariners played, what the scores were, or who made significant plays, you’ll just have to read someone else’s blog…not this one!  Even though I claim to be a Cubs fan, I didn’t know the teams or their stories.  My primary purpose was to take photos and enjoy the “ambience” of the ballpark…hot and dry!  I can tell you that we saw games at the Mariner’s stadium in Peoria.  They shared the complex with the San Diego Padres.  The stadium was about 15 minutes from our RV park and easy to reach.

Friday, March 11, Jon et al decided to go to Scottsdale to see the Mariners play the Giants.  The tickets were expensive, even to sit on the berm in the sun, so the Kennelly’s and we chose to explore old town Scottsdale instead.  Jerry, true to form, found a microbrewery for lunch, “Two Brothers Taproom.”

We rendezvoused in Old Town to explore the touristy shops with the baseball fans.  Brian and Jerry really got into the Native American theme.  Silly guys!

Sunday, March 13, it was time to pull up stakes and head to Mesa to be closer to the Cubs spring training stadium, Sloan Field.  Who knew Phoenix was so huge!  It was almost 60 miles from Sun City to Mesa…just across town.  We settled in to Val Vista Village RV Park and prepared to watch some awesomeness from the Cubbies.

This RV Park was also a snowbirds' haven and catered to us retired folks.  There were activities galore...woodworking shop, an entire building dedicated to fabric arts, four pools, beauty shop, line-dancing around the pool, and several fire pits.  We spent several evenings on the patio enjoying happy hour, watching the sunset and re-hashing the day's events at the fire pit.  Tough duty!

Monday morning, March 14, we were off to see Cubs' spring training.  We knew that they had just opened their new stadium, which they didn't share with another team, as many did.  The architect designed the field to resemble Wrigley Field, and, of course, we found lots of photo opportunities.

Brian, Debbie, and I were quickly disappointed in the Cubs lack of concern for their fans.  The players were very inaccessible, the ground crew made us feel very unwelcome, we suffered a sad lack of bleachers and Porta-Potties.  Yikes!  We decided the Cubs’ architect should have visited the Peoria Sports Complex.  We also found that tickets to the Cubs’ spring training games at home were quite expensive.  It would have been cheaper to purchase tickets at the ballpark, but the ball-park was sold out…all the tickets had gone to third party providers like Stub Hub, who added about 25% to the ticket price.  Once again, we Cubbies fans were rather disgusted. 

It was a struggle, but Brian did manage to get a couple of autographs, including this one of Wilson Contreras, a catcher.  Note the huge green fence barrier. 

We saw lots of fans watching practice and lots of Dads and kids playing catch, while waiting for an errant fly ball to come their way.  My favorite was this little girl, who had quite an arm!  Her Cubs' T-Shirt is green for the St. Patrick's Day game.

Tuesday, March 15, friends from Anacortes, WA, joined us for lunch at Wilderness Brewing in Gilbert, AZ, just south of Mesa.  Chuck and Bev’s son and daughter-in-law live in Gilbert, a good place to visit, away from the rain and cold of Anacortes.  Jerry and Chuck, although about 10 years apart in age, are cut from the same cloth!  Chuck was an engineer at Boeing for many years, working with United Airlines.  These Anacortes Lutheran Church friends have made us feel very welcome in Anacortes.

Tempe, just west of Mesa, is home to the Arizona State University Sun Devils, and was an interesting non-baseball place to explore.  The Sun Devil football stadium, easily visible on our route to Cubs games, caught our eye.  We were directed to the Student Athlete Center, to view the football field.  (It was always our policy to smile, ask permission, and be completely honest in our quest for entry into non-public areas.  Worked every time!).  On our way up in the elevator, we met a lady who was the Sun Devil team’s education specialist.  We explained our purpose (with our beaming open, honest faces and charm turned on to 1,000 watts) and she told us to go to the 7^th floor where we would get great photos of the stadium.  Indeed!  You’ll notice the stadium is in complete disrepair but they expected to have the stadium ready for football in August!  On our way down to the first floor, we were once again joined by the education specialist and one of the football players.  He shook all our hands, was very polite, and “sirred and ma’amed” us all over the place.  We were charmed.

The parking deck we used was across the street from the "university hill” and we watched these two young men climb to the top.  What views they must have had!

After a delicious lunch on the ASU campus, we decided to explore Camelback Mountain, the peaks on the east side of Phoenix.  The profile of the mountain suggested a kneeling camel with two humps and was rather interesting geologically.  The granite that makes up part of the head of the camel dates back 1.5 billion years ago. The puzzle to geologists, though, was that most of the mountain, including the hump, was made up of red sandstone from a measly 30 million years ago. There were spots on the mountain where the billion and a half years older and much, much heavier granite lay right on top of its younger, lighter neighbor. How exactly it got there, though, nobody yet knows.  Another Arizona mystery!

We drove all around the mountain and stopped to check the views and explore at every opportunity.  The photo of Jon and I shows Phoenix well below us.

Partway up the mountain we spotted an open house sign in one of the swanky neighborhoods and couldn’t resist stopping and exploring.  Once again, we used our wide-eyed tourist approach and the realtor invited us in.  I suspect he was bored!  He gave us a lengthy discussion on the Phoenix area real estate market and we got to see a gorgeous million dollar home with amazing views. 

We did a little hiking in the Echo Canyon Park, through the sandstone cliffs.  We weren’t nearly adven-turous as some, who were off to the summit of Camelback Mountain on a trail that quickly gained 1200 feet of elevation.  We were more interested in selfie shots…like this one of us on the hike.  We were fortunate to be there in time to see many of the cactus varieties blooming, like this ocotillo at left and the blooming barrel cactus at right.

Our final ballgame was at the Camelback Ranch Stadium in Glendale, vs. the White Sox, on Saturday, March 18.  In true Cubbies fashion, we lost 3 – 2.  This was the hottest day yet and we just about melted in the 90^o sunshine!  We did get to see one of the Cubs’ stars, Anthony Rizzo, play.

As we entered the ballpark, we saw this little guy in his stroller.  Mom was a Cubs fan and Dad rooted for the White Sox, so he was the product of a mixed marriage!  He seemed to be taking his dual role very seriously!

Saturday, March 19, was a get-ready-to-depart day for the Kennelly’s, and us so we didn’t schedule a ballgame or a practice to watch.  We did find time, however, to go to the huge Mesa Market Place Swap Meet.  I’ve never seen such a large collection of stuff!  It was advertised as the ultimate in recreational shopping covering four huge buildings.  We saw everything from camping equipment to cacti.  I think every snowbird in the Phoenix area came to the swap meet on the Saturday we were there.We managed to walk through two of the four buildings and that took several hours.  Living in a motor home certainly reduced our need to buy stuff!

Sunday, March 20, we pulled up the jacks and headed to the Lazydays KOA RV Resort in Tucson.  We had read about this campground in one of the blogs we follow and knew that this park was unique.  It had two acres of solar panels, beneath which RVs could park.  Clever!  The lady who checked us in told us that in the winter these panels provided 85% of their power needs and in the summer, when the park was quieter, the park sold power back to the grid.  Smart!  We chose not to park underneath so that our DirecTV satellite receiver would bring in the March Madness ballgames.  Priorities!

Tuesday, March 22, we had lunch with Visalia friends, Maureen and Lynn Heiges, who were travelling in their 5^th wheel.  They had parked on the north side of Tucson and periodically were in Phoenix to visit their daughter and her family.  After lunch we explored downtown Tucson, including this beautiful old church, The Cathedral of St. Augustine.  It was completely restored for its 100^th anniversary during 1966 – 1968.  Beautiful inside, it has a sloping floor so all that 1,250 parishioners can see the altar.

Exploring downtown Tucson was hot work, so, true to form, we found a microbrewery to slake our thirst.  This one was called “Thunder Canyon Brewery” and had a rather rustic, industrial feel to the tasting/dining room.

Wednesday, March 23, we drove northeast of Tucson to Oracle, AZ, to tour Biosphere 2, an "Earth systems science research facility."  Back in the early 90’s, this complex was used to research the effects of a closed biological system on plants and humans.  Eight men and women spent two years sealed inside Biosphere 2 and were surprisingly self sufficient, although they had problems including low amounts of food and oxygen, die-offs of many animal and plant species, squabbling among the resident scientists and management issues.  Biosphere 2 was now owned by the University of Arizona and longer a closed research site, and we were able to tour most of the buildings. 

One of our reasons to stop in Tucson was to visit former Anacortes friends, Jan and Chuck Mallory.  After 25 years in the Northwest, they chose to re-locate to this sunny, warm climate!  They had a beautiful home in the foothills of the Catalina Mountains, not far from Biosphere 2.  

Thursday, March 24, we drove to the top of Mount Lemmon, a 9,100 peak in the Catalina Mountains, following a route recently designated as a Sky Island National Scenic Byway.  We drove through many of these spires called hoodoos. This was a very popular recreation area for Tucson residents and we shared the road with lots of bicyclists who rode the 27 miles to the top, gaining about 6,000 feet.  Whew!  We climbed out of the Sonoran desert, full of Saguaro cacti, to pine trees and snow.  

From near the top of Mount Lemmon, looking down the backside to the north, we could see Biosphere 2, sitting way below us in the desert.  We ran out of time to see all that we wanted to see in the Tucson area and will return here next winter.

Friday, March 25, it was time to hit the road again; this time to Las Cruces, New Mexico.  We chose this spot for two reasons…1) we hadn’t been here before, and 2) there was a Lutheran Church where we could attend services on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  We arrived in time to easily make the 7 PM service at Trinity Lutheran, and looked forward to returning on Easter.

Saturday, March 26, was another day to explore.  We drove about an hour north of Las Cruces to the White Sands National Monument.  We found out that these white dunes aren’t silica…usual sand…but gypsum, washed down from the mountains.  Water settled in Lake Lucero, which held water only part of the year.  As the lake dried out, the prevailing southwest wind broke down the deposits into crystals of gypsum and piled it into dunes.  You’ll notice the wind was blowing strongly the day we were there.  We saw lots of folks climbing the dunes with their snow saucers, to the ride the dunes to the bottom. The museum displays told us that this area has been inhabited for the last 11,000 years, just after the last ice age.  Part of the diet consisted of mammoths!  They knew this because mammoth prints had been found in the mud of the basin.  Obviously this whole area was a lot wetter then. 

The monument was surrounded by White Sands Missile Range and the route between Las Cruces and the monument closed during testing.  The closures average twice a week for about an hour.  Wouldn’t it be interesting to see that happening???

In the afternoon we drove further north to Alamogordo to see the New Mexico Museum of Space History.  The museum presented a detailed picture of the development of the US’s space program, beginning with Germany’s V-2 rocket in the 1940’s; Operation Paperclip which brought German rocket scientists to the US after WWII; and the role New Mexico played in the research and development of the space program.  The museum included five floors of displays; a Hall of Fame of astronauts, scientists, and even Walter Cronkite; and a Space Park of rockets, missiles, and rocket engines.  It was a lot to take in and we quickly realized how little we knew about this piece of history. 

Easter Sunday, March 27, we went to back Trinity Lutheran Church, a small congregation full of warm, welcoming people.  We were invited to the after church brunch and loved visiting with the church members, snowbirds, and their interim pastor.  We leave Las Cruces on Tuesday to go to the Midland-Odessa, TX, area and learn about the Permian Basin Oil Field.

More to come!!!