The Arizona desert and training in Spring

at 3:45 on Saturday morning I pushed the snooze button on my alarm. Five minutes later I was staring at a text message sent 11 minutes ago telling me that Jana was walking out the door. In a panic I threw on my clothes brushed my teeth grabbed my bags and ran out the door. It was 4:00am and we were headed to Glendale, Arizona and Dodger spring training.

A Joshua Tree

The sun came up just as we were approaching Joshua Tree National forest. We pulled over for a planned stop to take some pictures. We wandered around for a bit, laid in the middle of the road, and remembered we could set up a self timer and had a tripod. There is nothing quite like the crisp clean cold morning air of the desert.

Arizona Welcome Sign

We stopped in booming Blythe, Ca for breakfast, just before the border of Arizona, where we weren’t the only customers wearing our Dodger pride. Not a few seconds back on the highway when Jana caught the welcome sign just in time to pull over and take a few pictures. States really should have pullouts so that people don’t kill themselves doing that.

Camelback Ranch

Kemp and Ethier

We arrived in Glendale, AZ around noon which gave us an hour before game time. We were really impressed with the layout and the style of the whole facility. It wasn’t gaudy and blended in with it’s desert surroundings. A water feature (which used reclaimed water) made you feel as if you were in the middle of a desert oasis. The stadium itself was very intimate and it took a while to get over how close we were to the players.

Furcal

On Sunday we sat just 10 rows behind the Dodger dugout. We took turns walking down to the side of the dugout to take pictures. I was so close I could have touched Andre Ethier. Then I looked up and Rafael Furcal was standing just feet in front of me. Then I looked back down and Matt Kemp was standing next to Ethier. I scampered back to my seat giddy as a teenager.

It was an amazing trip and we spent the whole time planing our month long vacation next March. We got to see some kids in action, Clayton Kershaw and AJ Ellis, so it will be exciting to root for them. We were only able to get Jeff Weaver’s autograph because of a certain gestapo usher but we were able to stand near Chad Billingsley. I’ll flickr all my great pictures soon.

After spending way too much at the clubhouse store we got on the road and headed for home. It was the most jam packed 42 hours we had ever spent together and it was a blast.

Driving home into the sunset.