Posts Tagged: San Diego Padres

Our trip to Colorado in August was a bit of a last-minute thing. I (Harlan) had been offered a job at an agency in the metroplex, and it afforded us the opportunity to take a mini vacation between employment. We couldn’t decide initially where we wanted to go, but plane ticket prices eventually landed us in sunny Denver, Colorado, home to the Colorado Rockies. With the short-notice, we didn’t have a ton of time to prepare for the trip, which in the end proved an asset, as we spent a lot of time simply relaxing together and taking in the outdoors. (Except for the Duck Dynasty marathon we got sucked into, despite never having seen an episode prior to the trip.) During the trip, we explored a hiking trail, found a hidden castle, ate wild raspberries, fought off a bear (not really), explored the sanctuary of rock (Red Rocks Amphitheater), ate a stupid amount of gourmet pizza, and spotted the purple mile-high seats at Coors Field.

It was a great getaway before starting a new job. The only complaints we ever have about our baseball trips is that we won’t get to come back for a while.

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On our anniversary, 8 years after visiting our first park (Boston on our honeymoon), we hit the halfway point on our journey toward visiting every Major League park.

As I said in the last installment, the roadtrip to San Francisco was quite the undertaking, spanning over 4000 miles and visiting the likes of San Fran, Oakland, Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, and Phoenix. Five of us packed into our Explorer and headed for the coast. San Francisco is a great city, full of history. We truly enjoyed our time there, and marveled at some of the sights we had only seen in photos and on television. We trekked across the Golden Gate Bridge, saw Alcatraz (though only from the boat), braved the curves of Lombard Street, and even got in some catch at Fisherman’s Wharf. But obviously this trip would have been incomplete without a visit to AT&T Park, the home of the San Francisco Giants.

AT&T Park is an impressive structure, sitting right along the San Francisco Bay featuring an incredible waterfront and views of the Bay Bridge. The park opened in 2000, and has featured an exceptional amount of history along the way. Perhaps the biggest is the home run prowess (*asterisk*) of Barry Bonds, who hit 500, 600, 700, and ultimately 756, which put him on top of the home run records above Hank Aaron, all at AT&T Park. He also hit 71, 72, & 73 in the park, which gave him the single season record in 2001. In addition, it hosted three World Series Championships in 2002 (lost to the Angels), 2010 (where they beat the Rangers), and 2012 (won over the Tigers). The park itself is spectacular. From our perch in the second deck on the first base side, we had a bay-view into the water on the right, the Bay Bridge straight ahead in left-center, and a great view of the field. The weather was chilly, but manageable, and we had a great time. Cheers to Giants fans, you have an incredible park for baseball.

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So I haven’t written an installment on our MLB Parks Tour in over a year…and the guilt is eating me up inside. 😉 Really though, it’s terrible I haven’t gotten these caught up yet. So I’m making you a deal. In about 8 weeks, Yvette and I are headed out on a trip that will add three more parks to our list. It just so happens I’m 8 behind (not including this one) on the parks we’ve seen so far. So each week over the next eight weeks, I will post one of the parks and our experience there. That way we’ll be caught up before our trip. Sound like a good enough deal? Good…let’s get on with it then.

San Diego is simply one of the few places on Earth that you just can’t complain about anything, ever. Beautiful weather, sunshine, pristine beaches, gorgeous people. Seriously, what’s there to complain about, other than your mortgage/rent for living there? Nevertheless, the California trip was a bit of a whim. We had gotten back from New York a month earlier (where we saw the Mets and Yankees), and were still feeling restless. Disneyland was calling Yvette pretty strongly, so we hopped in the car and headed that way.

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