In other news: the long, sprawling tale of the parental visit, continued! The first thing we did on the Wednesday that Beck's parents showed up was trek out to her office and visit with Katy and the legendary Dr. K. This did not equate with the embarrassment levels achieved when my mom visited Beck's professors before she went to vet school, but nonetheless made for a fun "parent Conference" vibe. And finally, visual evidence that the Beck is gainfully employed down here in Sunny Azz:
You'll notice that Scott, like Hitchcock, often includes himself in his works. Here's a candid shot of some chatting during downtime in the vet's office:
After the visit, the iPJ, iPMM, and iPFist and I went for a little stroll in the foothills north of the clinic. Fun little hike, especially after a park ranger told us that it would be "a good hike for you guys." What *exactly* did that mean? Did our lack of water and tourista attire give us away? Anyhoo, here's the usual slew of pics from that afternoon's jaunt:
There's a little "dry" creekbed that we had to do some adventure-hopping over. Felt a bit like real-life Pitfall. Sans those creepy alligators (in your face, Frank!). SO a good hike, and a good start to the visit. I had to head back to town to work for the rest of that day, but Beck et al headed to the Frank Lloyd Wright house. Good times.
Really the only thing left on my checklist is "Cubs games," and at this point I would be hard-pressed to recall all of the details. Spring training is fun, even if the people in front of you are occasionally complete morons. As Beck had repeatedly said, it's certainly better to be lounging in the sun and taking in a game than sitting in an air-conditioned dome and having your eyes bombarded with inter-inning entertainment. I'm very glad my dad got to see a couple of games - he met Dan, Christina and me at the game on the first Saturday my parents were in town, and we watched the Cubs from the right-field lawn. We got to the game a bit earlier the following Friday and managed to get lawn seats right behind the fence in right-center - here's a snap of our view:
Several fly balls made it out our way, and while none of them came close to being HRs - despite the crazy wind that day, it's still it's quite a shot out to RC at Hohokam - we had the privilege of watching the Angels' backup center fielder badly miss the ball TWICE. We were sure to remind him that there was probably a good reason the club had signed Torii Hunter. Ha! Great times out in the sun, with blankets and hot dogs and sodas and the whole deal. We even brought the binoculars to get extra close looks at various spittings and grabbings. Hooray.
Beck and I made it to a couple of games after that, including one the Sunday after my parents left that was one of the shortest baseball games I've seen. The day was cloudy and threatening rain, so I think the managers / umpires wanted to get it done as quickly as possible - so between that motivation and some good pitching, we were out in under two hours. Wow. Beck and I had nice if cold seats that day, and here was our vantage for that quick afternoon:
All in all a nice spring, and I'm looking forward to shelling out 6 dollars to sit on the lawn for future springs here. Of course, all of this would've been much nicer had Fukudome's HR meant anything the other day. One hundred years, stuck on my eyes, one hundred years, what a surprise. Sigh...
So that more or less brings the tale of the '08 parental trip to a close. I'm sure I missed several details. Obviously I'm not a golfer. Tune in later for more typical, more boring, and more erratic athematic posting from the one and only Nyet Jones. And now, off to read some F. Scott...
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