Diamondbacks Game - Goodbye Gonzo

I got home from work Friday night and was waiting for Marcia to come home when she called me. "Hey, someone is giving away tickets to the game tonight, do you want to go?"

This would be the 3rd to last game of the season and the big news all week was how the D-Backs had decided not to renew Luis Gonzalez or Craig Counsel for next season. They are also changing the team colors next as if that will somehow make the team win more games. Resigning core players like Gonzo is how you build a winning team.

Anyway, we headed to the ballpark and found our seats. We were on the 3rd base side just past the dougouts in the 5th row. Not bad! The seats were way better than any other seat we have had there before. We got to watch Gonzo run past between innings and it ended up being a pretty good game. D-Backs beat the Padres 3-1 in the end.

Thanks for the tickets.

Getting out of town!

Well, we haven't been doing much travel lately and both of us needed to get out of town this weekend. The problem was, we couldn't decide where to go. So, we went to multiple places.

On Saturday morning we drove up to Prescott and browsed the shops on Whisky Row. We then ate lunch before heading towards Sedona. The drive northwest takes us past Mingus Mountain and through Jerome and Cottonwood. We visited our favorite shop in Sedona before traveling on Schnebly Hill Road over to I-17. Schnebly Hill Road can be seen on this page in the middle of the map. The photo below is looking back over Sedona from the east.

Arriving in Flagstaff in the late afternoon, we found a hotel room and packed our stuff in. Hungry for a nice meal, we went over to Black Barts Steakhouse. The wait was almost an hour, so we took a nice stroll around the campground attached to the restaurant. After supper, we drove around Flagstaff to relax and see what had changed since the last time we had been there.

The next morning we got up and headed back towards Phoenix. Taking the scenic route, we turned off I-17 to go down Oak Creek Canyon. The two photos below are from the Oak Creek Vista before you begin the decent down the canyon to Sedona. We made it back to Sedona just before lunch time and wandered around to some of the shops there before dining at the Oaxaca Restaurant.

Visitors from Iowa

Good thing we setup the front bedroom as a guest room. Hotel Silhanek has been booked the last couple weeks. My parents were able to come and visit us for a couple days and we are glad they did. They arrived on a Friday night after we got home from work.

Saturday morning we got up and went to Ceretta's Candy Factory in Glendale and watched them make candy. After we filled up a couple bags with candy and checked out, we headed towards South Mountain. We drove to the top and got out and looked over downtown Phoenix. Too bad I forgot to take my camera. In fact, I didn't take a picture the whole weekend. As we exited the park and started heading back home, my mom spotted the Pheonix Ranch Market. We stopped and went inside to check things out. They purchesed some baked goods and mom also bought a pineapple. That night Dave and Kathy came up to visit and we grilled out for supper.

On Sunday dad and I went shooting at the range and then went over to the new Cabela's. In the afternoon, we swam in the pool. It is starting to get too cold outside to enjoy that.

Monday Marcia and I had to go to work, so we sent them off by themselves. They managed to make it down to the Arizona Nut House between here and Tucson. Dad bought a 50lb. sack of pecans and plans on giving them out to everyone he knows. I've been eating on a bunch that he gave me.

Visitors from Michigan

Labor Day weekend and Matt, Lori, and Maegan flew down to see us. On Saturday they went and visited the botanical garden in the morning. Sunday morning everyone went and saw the animals at the Phoenix Zoo before returning home to swim in our pool. On Monday, everyone piled into the 2 Jeeps and headed north up Cave Creek Road. We drove into the Tonto National Forest and went up to the top of Humbolt Mountain. From there, you have a 360 degree view and can see for miles. From there, we went up the trail further and turned around just north of Seven Springs.



Pictured above are grandpa and grandma Armentrout with Marcia in the middle and Maegan posing in front. Matt and Lori are off looking around Humbolt Mountain and Virgil is taking the picture.