Alamogordo, New Mexico (Lessons learned about traveling)

 

We’re done with the baseball of our tour, and have only one more night on the road, in Alamogordo, New Mexico. So it’s time for some lessons learned, things we did right, things we did wrong, things we learned that did (or didn’t surprise us).

·       -- We went to 15 games in a trip that will total 30 days. That’s a fairly relaxed pace, but we wanted this to be a pleasure trip, not a test of endurance. Today was actually the longest driving day we had, at just over 600 miles. It wasn’t the toughest, though, since we had two others where we went more than 500 miles, and had a stop along the way (lunch with a relative in one case, visiting the Field of Dreams in the other).

·       -- We still have five hours of driving tomorrow, but we’ve not had any terrifying driving moments. We’ve tried to keep to interstates whenever possible, for the sake of safety. The worst experiences have been trying to negotiate unfamiliar cities, especially when Google maps lags behind on instruction or, as we found in one case in Dallas, doesn’t give any instructions at a T intersection. There will be more driving trips the next few years, but in most cases, we’ll fly somewhere and rent a car – it’s far safer to fly to the East Coast from Tucson than to drive, besides being quicker, and the expense is comparable (balancing the plane ticket and rental car against the hotels, food, and gas en route).

·       -- We tried to budget one day a week where we didn’t have anything to do except laundry during the day and a game in the evening. That worked very well.

·       -- When we were going to have two or three days in a city, we’d go to a grocery store and buy salads and frozen dinners, so that we didn’t have to spend the time or money on restaurants. That, too, worked very well, although we found out that many hotel refrigerators will freeze a salad if you put it in the wrong place, and ended up using a cooler filled with ice.

·       -- Whenever possible, we stayed in Marriott properties (Fairfield Inn, Courtyard, Residence Inn, etc.). There are three advantages to doing that. First, they are similar enough that you can get accustomed to the drill. Second, you get points in their “rewards” program, which you can redeem for a room once in a while. Third, once you’ve built up points, it’s clear that their computers at the front desk prominent display your “rewards” status, and they treat you better. At one hotel, the desk clerk was a bit surly until I gave my name – they typed it into the computer and were suddenly much friendlier. Frankly, I’d prefer a world where people just treated each other well, but I’ll play the system if I need to. I’ve been doing it with American Airlines for years.

·       -- We learned how to very quickly pack and unpack the car or a hotel room. Moreover, I’ve become very good at hotel luggage carts, and now know which types I do and don’t like.

·       -- We each brought along a gym bag for exercising, with exercise clothes and swimsuits, and each made sure our LA Fitness memberships were up to date. We never went to an LA Fitness. Instead, the only exercise we got was using hotel exercise rooms two or three times a week. We did get to know what did and didn’t work for each of us.

·       -- We got an Audible subscription, thinking to listen to books as we drove. We listened through two books that we enjoyed, listened to a couple of short stories in an anthology and then gave up on it. For our second book, we turned the speed up to 120%. The narrator’s voice impressions weren’t quite as good after we did that, but as impatient people, we decided that was the right thing.

·       -- We confirmed that I navigate better in cities than Kerry does, and Kerry drives better in cities than I do. That means we don’t have to think much about our choices on who drives. Kerry drives in the cities, and I drive enough in the country stretches that we end up with very similar amounts of time behind the wheel.

·       -- We decided that we no longer can tolerate Midwest summers. The last several outdoor stadiums we went to, we found the climate to be bothersome to dreadful. In Oklahoma City last night, Kerry commented that she was dripping with sweat, and her hair was limp, while there was a local woman a few rows in front of us with a very similar haircut that looked perfectly coiffed. I noticed that we seemed to be the only ones with sweat beading up. When we crossed the border into New Mexico, we both felt a sense of relief. We’re staying tonight in Alamogordo, which is in the Chihuahuan Desert, not our home Sonoran Desert, but feel both physically and mentally far more at home. 

 

·       We did not get tired of baseball. Late in the trip, there were a couple of times when we got home from a night game, and Kerry streamed the Diamondbacks’ game on the web, because they had started later.

·       Seeing so many different players, in so many different situations, did not get old. We saw Coco Montes play AAA in Albuquerque one night, and saw him make his major league debut in Denver a few days later. We saw Aroldis Chapman pitch for the Royals on a Thursday, and for the Rangers the next Monday after a trade. We saw many players that we remembered fondly (or otherwise) from previous seasons in the majors who are struggling to hang on in AAA, or who have turned into the player people thought they could be, or who are still viewed as having potential, by yet another team.

·       It’s been a good trip, and we’ll do more of this. The next trip is a one-off, since we’ll be in Louisville later this month for a meeting. But next year, we’re going to try to do the rest of the Texas teams en route to, or on the way home from, the total solar eclipse in April, and we plan to travel to see the California and Nevada teams, and we’ll probably do a trip where we just see a couple of teams.

·       I’m writing this for myself as much as anyone, but if anyone is still reading it, and thinks I should continue, please leave a comment.