The first 24 hours of the California League Road Trip are in the book, and it has been a whirlwind day of adventure. From the minute I woke up here in Southern California, there has been an activity to race around to. Such is the norm for Baseball Road Trips, there is scarcely enough time in the day.
After getting into Los Angeles around 9pm, my family and I made our way on to the airport to get our rental car and drove out to the hotel. I had about a half hour of down time before hitting the sack.
This morning, we began our adventure by heading east into the desert on a quest to find this particular winery where my parents got married at. However, our first stop was the obligatory visit to In-N-Out Burger for a double-double with cheese and some French fries. By the time we got there, it was lunch time, so the patty hit the spot. I'll definitely try and hit up In-N-Out before going back to Oregon.
After the burger, we drove another half hour to the Temecula Valley to seek out the Mount Palomar Winery. Back in 1984, my parents got hitched in the very first wedding at this particular winery. For them, this trip was very nostalgic. For me, while I totally understood the reminiscing on their part, I was just jazzed to get some good wine and enjoy another hobby I have a passion for.
To describe Mount Palomar in one word is fairly easy: Yikes. I'm so used to the small and quaint wineries and vineyards back in Oregon that seeing the opulence of Mount Palomar was a little overwhelming. Located on top of its namesake mountain, the winery has transformed into a first-class wedding venue that is decked out like a Tuscan villa. It overlooks the valley and is littered with statues of Italian decor, olive trees and Mediterranean motifs. The surroundings made up for the entirely too sweet wine.
After drinking a bottle of wine and touring the grounds, we made our way back to the hotel here in Santa Ana. It was the plan for me to drop my folks off here at the hotel and then head out to Rancho Cucamonga for the game. As we were coming back, I got a glance at the task in front of me as the miles long traffic jams teased me with their presence. I dropped off my parents and waded into the gridlock that is Southern California traffic.
It took me nearly two hours to go a grand total of about 50 miles. Stop and go, stop and go, stop and go...that was my entire drive up there. I had to merge onto three different freeways during the trip, which didn't help either. If you wanted to know any more reasons as to why I insist on public transportation and trains for baseball road trips, here you go.
I got to Rancho Cucamonga about two hours before the game started. I had planned on parking and maybe walking around the city a bit, but down here, community identity is a difficult thing to ascertain because the borders are so fluid. You could walk from Ontario to Rancho Cucamonga to San Bernardino without even knowing that you were in those cities. Everything blends together, and that is kind of sad. I figured I'd just wait around for the game to start.
Waiting around meant standing in a huge line out in front of the Cucamonga ballpark. When I plan road trips, I usually stay away from giveaway nights of promotional events because I want to see what the purest experience is for the fan at that particular ballpark. However, for this particular game, I forgot that it was Andre Ethier bobblehead night. Consequently, the line for entering the park was two blocks long. Considering it was over ninety degrees, I was initially not looking forward to this task.
However, the experience proved to be quite fruitful as I got into a conversation with a number of fans standing in line with me about the team, the ballpark, the city and baseball road trips. It almost made up for not being able to do my customary community analysis. It is always interesting to hear fans of another team in another city describe their experiences and what they feel makes their team and city so special. While first-hand experience makes for a better community analysis, I guess I can live with the anecdotal testimony from tonight.
The Rancho Cucamonga Quakes play at LoanMart Field, but fans and those of us in the baseball park circle refer to it as its popular name of The Epicenter. What strikes you immediately as you walk up is the sheer size of the facade. It towers probably five of six stories and reminds one of the Coliseum or the Rose Bowl. However, the facade is a little misleading because the field isn't sunk at all and the main grandstand is surprisingly quaint and intimate. The seats only go baseline-to-baseline and to up maybe twenty or twenty-five rows. It really isn't a bad park, and out of the three California League parks I've been to, it holds it's own. I rank it higher than San Jose, at the same level as Stockton, but not as high as San Bernardino.
The Rancho Cucamonga Quakes managed to pull off a 7-5 victory over the High Desert Mavericks despite committing five errors. It was one of the sloppiest professional games I have seen considering the bad defense, a couple bonehead base running moves and some untimely hitting.
The beauty of the night game I went to meant that when it got over, the highways were clear and easy to navigate. In a drive that took me two hours earlier in the day, I sailed through it in only about 45 minutes.
Now, on to tomorrow. The plan is for us to wake up early and make our way down to Newport Beach for my Mother's swim. I'm still planning on paddleboarding with her, but I'm a little concerned about the water temperature. When we were taking the train down, and it was paralleling the coast, I saw dozens of paddleboarders in wetsuits. I don't have a wetsuit, so if the water is super cold, I might just call it in. We'll see how it goes.
Once the swim is over and we get cleaned up, my family and I are planning on meeting some relatives for lunch. After that, I'm going to make my way up to Whittier to see a summer collegiate league game at Whittier College. I don't know much about this league, the teams I'm seeing, or what exactly to expect. I had originally thought about going into LA to see the Dodgers play, but I'm a little burnt out when it comes to dealing with traffic. I found this game earlier in the week and decided "why not"?
I have been having a blast updating Facebook, FourSquare and Twitter for all of you. The blog is a great way to summarize the days, but those three social mediums are the way to see real-time where I am and what I'm doing. So, until tomorrow...
Always take on a 3-0 pitch ;)
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