go cubbies! spring training...ahhh... warm air and baseball

as i explained in an earlier post, i have joined a group called highlife adventures. this group had a trip going to spring training for the cubs in arizona. i thought: baseball, hot weather, hot dogs, and beer... sign me up! and so we left late on friday night and arrived rather later (about midnight). sat we went to our first game and it was cubs v. whitesox.

now, let me stop here for a moment. while i am still an ardent angels fan, i do now make my home in chicago about half a mile from the famed wrigley field and thus am now a cubs fan. and angels fan. ladies, they are in two different leagues and so i figure i can have one team in each league to root for and if they should play together then i will root for the angels.

so back to the arizona trip. i asked for hot weather and boy did i get it: it was 85-90 degrees there and we were sitting on bleachers that don't breathe. as in sweaty, sweaty, sweaty bums, faces, and everything else. not a good recipe for looking good! but in any case, we got to the stadium early and roamed around checking things out. one of the girls and i hit it off - i should say women as she is 20 years older, but looks and acts much younger - and we had fun running around the stadium. she is crazy - she says the things you are thinking but don't have the nerve to say. there was this stand that was giving away a trip an inning so we signed up for it. she (her name is lori) starts flirting with this hot guy around our age so empowered by her boldness, i joined in. low and behold lori wins a trip to puerto vallarta... it doesn't include airfare or taxes which are about 150, but it does pay for the hotel for 4 nights. well, guess what... a few innings later, i win the very same trip!! it was really funny. too bad it doesn't include airfare, but hey... a paid hotel in puerto vallarta is still nice.... i have a year to take the trip.

the fun thing about spring training is that the field and the stadium is so much smaller. it seats only about 12,000 people and you get to sit so much closer to the field. in walking around the stadium, we even found the workout room and they had the door open! i even saw some players in there stretching and working out. the first game against the sox was a tie - they only play ten innings in spring training so ties happen. the second game on monday against the texas rangers was a winner - cubs 6, rangers 4.

the one day we didn't have a game, some of us decided to just sit around the pool. it was a great day to soak in some sun and play some cards as well. it was so relaxing.


the field


cubbies playing catch and warming up


me and lori at the field... she was the fun crazy one!