We left Tuscon and headed north towards Phoenix with baseball on our minds. The spring baseball practice league, referred to as the Cactus League contains several teams who are located in the Greater Phoenix area. My favourite team, The Seattle Mariners, play out of Peoria and that was our destination for an afternoon game the following day. We had some time to kill, though and so stopped off in Tempe to check out their Farmer’s Market. It was full of artisans selling their wares, musicians entertaining and, of course, farmers selling their fruits and veggies. A very relaxing way to spend some time.
From there, we headed across the river to a park we spotted. Here we parked and went for an enjoyable walk along Town Lake, crossing over the pedestrian bridge and checking out the Tempe Centre for the Arts. There were a a couple of outdoor stages being set up for a concert later that day and we thought what a perfect spot this would be to enjoy the music. We could clearly hear the music playing during their sound check, but you could just chill out on the beach over here and not be in a huge crowd – nice! Too bad we weren’t sticking around!
Later in the afternoon, we headed to the Evelyn Hallman Park where we wanted to eat our dinner. It was pretty warm when we got there and we noticed a lot of folks climbing this giant rock (known as Hole in the Rock), so after we ate, we headed up to explore. From the front it looks like a pretty steep climb, but as you walk around the back you find it quite easy to climb up and into the rock through the “hole” for a fantastic view that we shared with a whole lot of families. What fun!
Having more time before the end of the day, we drove to the nearby Botanical Gardens. Luckily for us, a couple leaving gave us their passes, so we didn’t have to pay to get in. We enjoyed wandering around and seeing some pretty interesting art displayed amongst the cactus!
Finished for the day, we made our way over to a nearby Walmart for our overnight. It was pretty close to Peoria, so in the morning, after a quick bite at McDonalds (oh, yum!) we drove to the baseball field. The complex is huge – the Mariners share it with the San Diego Padres, so we got there early to check it all out. We wandered around, watching the players warm up and were perplexed by this one guy at the batter’s practice. He was pitching, but boy did he look familiar. Ha! It was Ichiro! He’s a batting coach for the Mariners now, so of course it makes sense he would be there and I found out later that he was a pitcher when he played in Japan – who knew?
It finally came time to fill in to the stadium and we thoroughly enjoyed the game – complete with beers and hotdogs of course! It didn’t even matter that our team lost, it was just so nice to sit in the sunshine and enjoy a game – love that Cactus League ball!
