Sunday, March 17, 2013

Spring Training Vacation 2013 Recap: Day 1

I'm back!

Good to return to Los Angeles, though I'm not all that motivated to return to work.  Haha, we'll work that out later.  I've got a lot to chat with you about!  I thought that summarizing a long, exciting, enjoyable, and action filled Spring Training Baseball vacation in one blog post would not do the story justice.  Instead, I will use separate blog posts for each day of the trip and add in some other thoughts of the day at the end.   Let's do this...

Day One

The day started back at home.   I took an extra day off to buffer the trip and ensure I have time to properly pack and prepare.   Even though I had the day off work, I still woke up at my usual time of 5:30 am to go to swim practice.  Great practice!   It's kind of funny... I should have stayed around to talk to the assistant swim coach after practice, ya know the tall one, but I wasn't thinking ahead.  I wanted to get into the other aspects of my day, plus I had plans to pick up my sister from CSUN and meet my pop for lunch in Simi Valley.  So swim came and went.

Picked up my sis to meet my pop at Simi Valley at a place called Red's BBQ in Simi Valley.  If you want quality barbecue chicken, *this* is the place.  Folks, the meat comes right off the bone, it is amazing, and that smoky flavor is just incredible.  I had a half chicken special for 7 dollars!  SEVEN DOLLARS!   Boy do I love prices outside of LA.   It was great to chat with my Pop and Sister again.   Lunch came and went and I dropped off my Sister back at CSUN and returned home.  

I was packed, I had nothing in the fridge, but was plenty full from lunch.  Ooh, I forgot to mention, I snuck in a "breakfast" of three tacos and chips at El Indio Mexicano in Northridge before I got my sister.   Guilty as charged!   Carne Asada tacos were phenomenal though.  I don't regret that decision for a second, although both meals were spaced apart by only an hour.

Anyway, I was home after all of that, listened to the Franceser show, lurked on tmf.com, and did some additional research for Arizona.   Eventually my buddy Andrew aka "the Coach" picked me up with his hybrid Nissan car and we were off to Blythe, CA for the night.

We chose Blythe because it was the half way point between Los Angeles and Scottsdale, AZ, our destination.  For the night we stayed at a Motel 6.  It was pretty darn nice as is expected for M6:  simple, functional, and cheap.  As with every Motel 6, the front desk people were *very* kind.   I just LOVE that about Motel 6.  How do Motel 6 staffers, of all people, stand out as the nicest most caring front desk persons in the lodging industry?   I can't explain it, but I enjoy it.

Before we turned in for the night, Coach and I went to the nearby Denny's after Midnight, when we arrived.  Denny's was not at all my first choice, but given the location, it was the only realistic choice that was open after Midnight.   For Denny's part, they did a tremendous job.  Little did I know they were a) Celebrating their 60th anniversary (who knew?) and b) it was "Bacon Week" or something at the Denny's.   I went with the Jalapeno Bacon Chipotle Burger.   That was delightful.  I also had an Oreo Cookie shake.  Friends, this vacay was off to a great start.

It was remarkably comforting... out on the road with Denny's food... I didn't think it'd be so good, but it worked out very well.   We heard this song from Kelly Clarkson on the PA called "Catch My Breath."  Little did we know then that it would play 978 more times during our trip!  Oi!!!

That was Day 1... we were just starting.  Day 2 recap is coming up!

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