Snow and Ice and Everything Nice?

Sophie, my wife and the love of my life, tells me it is snowing at home. As I write this temps are in the 70's, there's a gentle breeze blowing, and clear blue skies. I guess that's what 924 miles from home gets you. Oh well, someone has to do it...

I'm working Spring Training at Surprise Stadium which is home to two teams, the Kansas City Royals and the Texas Rangers. Opening Day is tomorrow, Saturday and the expectation is that it will be sold out. I had training on Tuesday and worked in Aramark's main store for a couple of hours on Wednesday to get some practice with the merchandise, registers, and customers. Folks have been watching the teams practice for a couple of weeks and they seem to all want "Spring Training" apparel. As I anticipated, most everyone is in a good mood as it's difficult to watch baseball in the Arizona sun and not be pretty mellow and relaxed.

Everyone will be working opening day but I've had yesterday and day to myself and have had the chance to explore White Tank Mountain Regional Park. The campground is very nice, there are great hiking and biking trails to enjoy, and the desert is starting to bloom. Temps have been in the 70's and 80's and at night, as the desert is known to do, it cools down nicely into the 50's. Pretty comfortable given that my wife may well be outside right now shoveling snow (sorry honey!).

The campground hosts folks from all over the world and I've seen license plates from Oregon to Utah and all over the Midwest. My humble little camper is dwarfed by most of the RV's here but that's fine by me.

Phoenix is a huge metropolitan area with roughly 5 times the population as Denver and its spread over a very large geographical area. White Tank is on the western side, and McDowell Park, where we were the week after Christmas, is on the eastern side. It's about 60 miles and a good solid hour or more to get from one to the other. The area is slowly expanding what they call the Maricopa Trail (most of Phoenix is in Maricopa county) which when finished will encircle the city. I've ridden parts of the trail in the last two days and for mountain biking it's a real treat. The northbound trail from White Tank Park wanders through the desert before abruptly ending in the middle of nowhere which I guess is as good a place as any to turn around. I've visited 'nowhere' many times in my life and have always found it an enjoyable journey.

What the birds see at White Tank...

This trip down I brought a little camera drone along to try some aerial photography and I spent this morning out in 'nowhere' taking some birds-eye views of the surrounding country. I love taking pictures and this adds an entire new dimension to the hobby. To see a sample video from my drone click here.

Well, time to go for now. Busy,busy busy. Where'd I put my bike shoes...?