Friday, March 16:

Today we had tickets for the Texas Rangers at their stadium in Surprise. We have not had a good history with games at this stadium. The first time we ever went there, the temperature was 99 and the stadium ran out of water. The traffic getting there has always been a bit of an issue also, but today was the worst.

The stadium is about 30 miles from our hotel and 20 of them are freeway so that part wasn’t too bad. It is after you get off the freeway and go for about 9 miles on Bell Rd which has a stoplight every 300 yards (maybe an exaggeration but I don’t think so) and we hit every one of them red. It took us probably 45 minutes to get to the stadium from the freeway.

After we parked and were walking towards the stadium we noticed 3 semi trucks with huge trailers marked with Budweiser Clydesdales. Sure enough, there were the horses pulling the big, red wagon that even had the Budweiser Hitch Dog, Barley, on it. It was awesome to see them and Yvonne got some good pictures since I had to run to the bathroom and missed them actually moving.

We had seats right behind home plate and settled in to watch the game. I got a beer and Yvonne and Jennifer got margaritas in souvenir Texas Ranger plastic mason jars. Whoopee! Of all the teams we play, the Rangers are also my least favorite and not just because of the stadium.

It was a pretty exciting offensive game with lots of hits (14 for Mariners and 13 for Rangers) and scores. Mariners ended up winning 9 – 7. That is two out of two for us this year. It seems like we usually end up winning 1 out of 4 when we are here. No Hernandez or Ichiro again today. I heard from my nephew, Kyle, that Hernandez was on the mound but it must have been for practice throwing as he was no where to be seen.

The food selection was a little better than at Hohokam but by the time we wanted food, the lines were extremely long. I ended up getting a so-called Southwest Cheesesteak sandwich, because the line was the shortest. There might have been 1 ounce of ‘steak’ but it was food and I hadn’t eaten much breakfast at all.

We got out of the stadium a little after 4:00 but didn’t get back to the hotel until almost 6:00. It took us two hours to get back and most of that was spent just getting back to the freeway. We made a note to ourselves to not go to that stadium again, but sometimes we just don’t have a choice because of the weekend we can go. Oh, well, I keep telling myself we are on vacation.

There are several restaurants within walking distance of the hotel and after all the traffic and driving I didn’t want to get in the car again. There is a highly rated one next to the hotel but we hadn’t been able to get a reservation before 9:00 for any of the nights were are here.

We walked to the Pomo Pizzeria about a quarter of a mile away. It was pretty busy but wasn’t going to be a long wait. We went to the bar and were entertained by the bartender giving Yvonne a hard time about if she wanted her lemon drop stirred or shaken. Huh?

We got a caprese salad to share and it was excellent. I ordered a Kale-Romana salad that was big enough for us to share. We all ordered our own pizza as they were just a little bigger than personal size but too small to share between two people.

The pizzas are thin crust and cooked in a hand-built, wood burning oven at 905 degrees. They were very good and we all enjoyed the meal. The service was also excellent – attentive, quick, and friendly.

The weather has been cooler than normal down here. It hasn’t been more than about 72 degrees during the day and down into the 50s at night. It is better than being in the 90s but not what you expect when here.