Our Vacations Journal

March 29, 2004 - Monday
At 8am We went down for breakfast, waffles and fruit. Then around 0900 we went over to the practice fields, watched warm-ups and batting practice. We didn’t get to see much of the pitchers this year and wondered where they were. The game started at 1305 against Oakland. Ryan Franlin pitched and just like Freddie, looked really good in the first inning, then they started hitting long balls off him. We were behind going into the 7th, 6-1, then the minor leaguers came in and got 4 runs, but we still lost 6-5. We went to Target, got Gatorade, Cadbury mini-eggs (on sale), then wandered around Pier I. We had supper again at “On the Border”, we’re in a rut but the food is so good.

There are three different sections here:

• Vacation Journal: You are currently looking at it. It contains posts on our different vacations over the years
• Links: Links to the places we visited.
• Photoblog: This blog is an example of how you can use b2evolution to showcase photos, with one photo per page as well as a thumbnail index.

After watching the Mariners play for three days, it's off to Tucson!!  It was our first time there...  There is a lot of outdoor recreation around the area. We planned on doing 3 hikes around the area. The hotel turned out to be pretty nice. We got there around 2pm.  It was within walking distance of Old Tucson. With the help of Andrew, Norma's manager, we had a list of places to eat and two were close to the hotel.  The first day there, we got settled in and ate at El Charro, a good mexican resturuant....

We did our annual trip to pay homage to the "boys of summer" in Peoria, Arizona in March.  We stayed in a motel which was only 3/4 of mile away from stadium, which is nice since we can walk to the home games. We saw two home games and one away. The away game was over at the Texas Rangers stadium. First time time at this statium in Surprise, Arizona. It was nice but liked our stadium better..   ;-)

It was great to be down there in the sunshine.  We stayed in Peoria for 4 nights and then went down to Tucson for 4 more nights.

March 28, 2004 - Sunday
We got up at 0200 (are we nuts?) and the shuttle picked us up at just after 0300. Once we got checked in at America West, we immediately looked for coffee and found a Starbucks. Our flight left on time, 0545 and arrived early into Phoenix. We rented a Chevy Trailblazer, it really rides nice. We drove straight to our motel, a Quality Inn in Surprise on Bell Street and checked in. Nice, clean and free hot breakfast. The Kansas City baseball players (minor league) were also staying there. We hustled over to the field, and watched the Mariners play the Diamondbacks; needless to say, there probably wasn’t an empty seat in the stadium or on the grass. It was warm and sunny, Freddie pitched and looked good in the first inning then seemed to fall apart. We lost 8-2, didn’t get to see Randy Johnson. We went to dinner at “On the Border”; we’ve been there before, wonderful tex-mex food and margueritas. We hit the sack early, long day.

October 17, 2003
The power came back on around 2200 last night, it’s still raining but blowing less. It looks like the tide is going out, lots of sand in the waves. After we ate and packed our stuff, we walked out to the beach. Incredible!!! Huge trees, branches and debris all up and down the beach. I’m sure there are many treasures mixed in with that debris. We left around 10:00am, stopped to get a newpaper but there were none. I asked the folks in the store if any one knew the outcome of last night’s game, Boston vs NY and they said NY won-shoot! Hopefully the Marlins (beat out the Chicago Cubs) can give them a run for their money in the World Series. Just a few miles down the road we came to a stop sign and a road closed sign. Traffic was coming through, but there had been a lot of water over the road for about a mile, probably at high tide. We continued on. We were detoured off 101 due to a huge mud slide at Lake Crescent. #113 to #112 then back to 101 just outside Port Angeles. These roads had had water on them until just recently, lots of silt on the road and really high, fast moving water in the creeks and rivers. We had lunch at subway in Port Angeles., then stopped at 2 wineries, Black Diamond and Olympic Cellars. We stopped to get gas and got a newpaper; Forks had gotten 7.03 inches of rain in the last 24 hours—no wonder!! We got the ferry around 1450, it was just unloading. This was an enjoyable fall vacation, in spite of the weather. Very relaxing, we did get a hike in, and wow, what a storm. But now we’re back in Kansas and headed home.