Arizona recap Part 2

Day 3
Thursday was Spa Day at the Camelback Marriott in Scottsdale up in the mountains. After working out for about 45 minutes, I checked in for my Swedish massage. I've never had anything like this done before. It lasted an hour, and it was an experience like none other. Dark room, southwestern music playing, it was so relaxing. The foot massage was probably the highlight.

Then came the pedicure. My toes are pretty sensitive, so I really didn't know how I would handle it. For the most part, it was cool and I won't bore you any further. Then I figured I may as well take advantage of what they had, so after an hour of tanning by the pool, I hit the steam room, the sauna, the shower, and that was that. Now it's onto downtown Phoenix for some baseball.

We went to the Diamondbacks-Giants game on Thursday and the D-Backs-Red Sox game on Friday. A few things about Chase Field. On the plus side, they have Cold Stone ice cream, the facility is maintained well considering the heat, watching the retractable roof open is cool, and the parking availability is great. Onto the negatives. Those would be changing the team colors from teal and purple to a generic red that half of baseball already has, you can barely hear the PA announcer, and the presentation is more like Triple-A baseball. Let me elaborate on that last one. I like entertainment. But this was what you would see in a minor league stadium. I don't need to see fans shagging fly balls in between innings to win frequent flyer miles. I don't need to see in-game hosts between every inning telling us the new black wool D-backs cap is six bucks off in the team souvenir shop. The presentation wasn't enough about baseball for me.

The big problem with Chase Field? The fans are dead quiet. A game there is like a morgue. For the Giants game, with Barry Bonds playing his only game of the series, there were 21,000 for the paid attendance, 44 percent capacity. The only time there was much noise was when they booed Bonds. For the Red Sox game, you would figure things would get better. Great team coming to town, the attendance will go up. And it did. 40,000 people, but I bet 20,000 of those fans were Red Sox fans. The D-Backs have a lot of good young players and one of the best records in the National League. But that franchise has to learn to market better.

I will give the D-Backs credit for one more thing. They have garlic fries, famous from San Francisco. Their "Taste of the Majors" stand features concessions from stadiums throughout baseball. These fries are basically potatoes, parsley, salt, pepper, a little butter, and a TON of fresh garlic. And they are the ultimate depression food. And I needed that. The Mets had lost 5 of 6 games and just got swept at home by Philadelphia. Suffice to say those garlic fries hit the spot. Of course, nobody dared come near me for the next four days...

Day 4
Friday started with a veggie omelette at the Good Egg for breakfast. Then we drove 40 minutes southeast to Mesa. We went to the end of Highway 202 and then the highway ended and turned into Tonto National Park, filled with just mountains, sand, and desert plants. Not a soul around. It was barren, yet beautiful. Suddenly, we arrived at the Salt River. Then, we got our inflatable tubes and floated for 2.5 hours down the Salt River surrounded by the Tonto desert. Now my father is not exactly an adventurous man. He's certainly not an outdoors guy, except for golf. He was very apprehensive going into this and mom and I begged him to do it. After 20-30 minutes of figuring out how to maneuver the tube, we could tell he started to enjoy it. How? He stopped complaining! We all really enjoyed it and he later said it was 100 times better than he thought it would ever be.

Two problems with the tubing. With the position of my body facing up in the tube, for hours in the Arizona desert heat, I got the strangest shaped sunburn. The middle of my stomach is fine, but my ankles, shoulders, and both sides of my stomach are cherry red. It's not pretty, but at least the pain has gone down. Second, my mom had my black sleeveless t-shirt in a plastic bag and at some point, it snuck out of the bag and drifted down the river, so I lost my shirt. But better to lose a t-shirt than a wallet or a cell phone.

Then we stopped in downtown Scottsdale and I purchased a belt and a few Native American necklaces, which I enjoy wearing. After going home to clean up, we had a top-notch Chinese meal at PF Chang's (lettuce wraps, ahi tuna, pork dumplings, spicy chicken, crispy honey shrimp, stir-fried spinach with garlic, pork fried rice, and for dessert, banana spring rolls). Then, it was one more baseball game with just Dad and I, went back to the Sheraton, and woke up at 4:00 am for the airport.

Being in the Southwest after coming in from the midwest is like coming to a completely different country. The colors, the heat, the mentality. I'm not saying it's better or worse, but it's different. And sometimes, we need that. I know I need a break from the familiar every once in a while. This was a good place to do it. More than that, my parents got along pretty well, thankfully. It's just as the years go by, I realize more and more how different they are with their personalities. I didn't make it to In and Out Burger like I hoped, but did pretty darn well with food.

Last, but not least, I got some time to reflect and get some quiet time, which I needed. I could have done more than I did, but I spent some time pondering my place in the world, and how I've been doing this past year. I'm not getting into specifics here, but I came away with a few clear thoughts and feelings about certain issues. I think that's enough said about that.