Kj's Baseball Collection: Padres 40th Anniversary Year

I am mostly trying to collect souvenir balls with the ballparks name on them on the trip. I could not find one at PetCo Park and that did not matter too much to me anyways, as I do have a Inaugural Year PetCo Park ball in the part of my collection currently sitting in storage. I ended up getting the Padres 40th Anniversary Year ball, since it is specific to this year. It has a Friar batting Padres logo that says Anniversary Year on top, has 40th in a home plate symbol, and says the years 1969 and 2009. Even if they had had a PetCo park ball I still would have chosen this one.

Game 2: Chicago Cubs 0 @ San Diego Padres 4

Last night we saw Game 2 of the trip. Game 2 was overall a great experience considering the circumstances. For one Petco Park is just not one of the better ballparks and we know that having been there inaugural year and last summer. Secondly the Cubs lost. That is the end of the bad list, as even Mik was for once very well behaved.

The seats in 229 in the All You Can Eat section were great and sure there was a bar in front of the seats, but it was not in the line of site at all like at the Diamondbacks game. The seats are located in the upper level behind right field and while a small part of center and right field (mostly warning track) cannot be viewed from the seats there were not any plays in that area during this game, so it was not really a noticeable issue. Not to mention that is very typical of seats in this type of location in any ballpark.

The All You Can Eat part was awesome. The veggie dogs were significantly smaller than the regular hot dogs, but they were still good and it does not really matter when you can get as many as you want. It was nice they also had some Nestle ice cream treats as part of it. More on the food to come in a Mik's Food Review post later (he's still sound asleep), though, including his verdict on the fish tacos.

The game itself was of course disappointing since the Cubs lost and Dad and I like the Cubs. Most sad is the first run was scored in the first inning without the Padres even getting a hit. Zambrano walked two and hit a batter with a pitch to load the bases with one out and then the Padres' Kouzmanoff hit a sac fly to center field to score the first run. The Cubs did get on base a good amount of times including loading it in the 9th, but they just could not get a run in. It did not help that the Padres pitchers combined to get 16 of the 27 outs of the game by striking out Cubs batters. It also happened to be the first time the Padres have shut out a team at home this year.

Below are a few of the photos from the game. You can see the rest in the album for the game by clicking on any of the ones below.

Game 2: Cubs @ Padres Mik Eating Dippin Dots

Game is just starting. We are in the All You Can Eat section, but Dad went and got Mik a fish taco as the trademark food and Dippin Dots in a Padres mini helmet. This section is pretty good. They even have veggie dogs as one of the all you can eat items.

Go Cubbies!!!!

Baseball Museum 2: San Diego Hall of Champions

The San Diego Hall of Champions was not even originally on the plan and we did not even realize it existed until we saw it across the parking lot from the San Diego Automotive Museum. One of the main sections of the museum is a baseball exhibit and the only other sport with a decent section is football. There are a several other sports represented, but most just have one little display each.

We pretty much just checked out the Baseball section since Mik was getting burnt out and obnoxious again. The Baseball section was pretty cool. It was mostly about the Padres and it was interesting to learn about the history of the team from being a Minor League to the current Major League team. It also had some interesting displays with Major League players with ties to the San Diego area, such as Ted Williams. It was actually a lot of fun to see this museum, especially since we did not know it was there.

Click the photos below to see the rest of the photos from this museum and today.

Day 3: San Diego Automotive Museum

Today we had a lot of time before tonight's night game at Petco Park. Originally we thought of going to the Natural History Museum, but instead found out about the San Diego Automotive Museum and decided to go there instead. I figure we can easily go to science type museums a lot of other cities, especially since we get in free to a lot of them with our Field Museum membership, and the automotive museum was something more unique to do. Plus, I hoped it would be of more interest to Mik, but he is pretty much a booger no matter where we take him and rarely cares what we decide.

Dad and I at least enjoyed it. There was a lot of old cars that were cool to look at and of course photograph. I loved looking at the old scooters and motorcycles, especially the 1960 something Harley Davidson scooter and the Vespa scooter. Another cool car was Louie Mattar's Fabulous $75,000 Car, which is a car specialized to run constantly for thousands of miles including fueling up while still moving and changing tires while moving. For at least a few minutes Mik was glad we were on our type of road trip with lots of stops and not the week long non-stop ones this car has done. Mik did at least enjoy seeing the Ferrari and we saw 90% of the place before him being obnoxious and needing lunch.

Click the photos below to see the rest of the photos from this museum and the rest of today's photo.

Day 2: In California

Pretty much uneventful road trip once we finally got on the Interstate. We stopped for dinner at McDonalds in Yuma as usual for a Tucson to San Diego road trip. It was somewhat slow going for a while after we were in California, as there was a Border Control temporary stop right after the permanent set up one. Pretty much normal, though. About another hour and a half to San Diego.

A few photos from today are below including Mik taking a nap, entering California, and the sand dunes.

Day 2: Finally on the Road

Despite Day 1 of the trip being almost two weeks ago today is the second day of the trip, although also kind of the first real day as now we have actually left Tucson and are not returning until August. Originally I had planned that we leave somewhat early in the morning for the drive to San Diego, but Mik had his baclofen pump refill appointment at 12:30pm today to top off before the trip and to be good to go until his appointment for a refill in the Boston area in July.

We were going to leave town straight from the appointment, but that did not quite work out. It was pouring raining and Dad was slow at loading the last stuff because he was sort of trying to wait it out. Then we thought we were on our way to stop at Eegee's and Gamestop before the appointment, but Dad forgot his wallet. Better before than later down the road, though. We did at least still get to Eegee's before the appointment because we were all hungry and Mik got his promised last chance for the Flavor of the Month, Orange Dream, which is his favorite Eegee's flavor, before the trip. He was afraid it was going to be the flavor in June or July and he was going to miss it this year.

There was not time for Gamestop on the way, so we stopped there after the appointment. Originally Mik was just going to return his used game that he bought last night because he did not like it. Then on the way to the appointment he discovered his DS Lite was broken with a big black pressure spot in the top screen. Thus we ended up all going in so he could look into getting a replacement. Dad ended up getting him a used one as an early birthday present. Mik then used his return and some more of his saved up money to buy four DS games and one PSP game to be stocked up for at least the beginning of the trip. I also got one DS game to use some of my Gamestop credit I had and then let Dad use the rest of the credit towards Mik's new DS.

After Gamestop we finally officially hit the road for the trip at 1:40pm. We are now just getting on the I8 towards San Diego. So glad the trip has finally really begun.