The SD

It is always more enjoyable to do a Baseball Road Trip with another person. I've gone on-and-on about how much more fun it is to travel to games and experience the cities while sharing in the joy of the concept of Baseball Road Trips. It doesn't matter if it's a short train trip down to Anaheim or a cross-country trip to New York or North Carolina. It has always been one of my intentions with this blog to promote Baseball Road Trip and recruit you readers to join me on the adventures. Some of you already have, and I hope that your experiences have been rewarding and memorable. This past weekend, I went down to San Diego with my wonderful girlfriend. It was our first Baseball Road Trip as a couple, and we had a fantastic time.

After getting breakfast at our favorite diner here in Highland, my girlfriend and I jumped into my Passat and headed south on the 15 down to San Diego. This was my second trip to San Diego this season, but traveling with a companion made the drive seem so much shorter. It seemed like we blinked and all of a sudden we were exiting at the Qualcomm Stadium off-ramp to catch the light rail into Downtown.

While on the trolley into Downtown, I was joking with my girlfriend that I seem to always attract people talking to me while on Public Transportation. Whether it is the Metrolink or the San Diego Trolley, people always seem to come up to me and ask me questions or engage in conversation. While there is definitely a taboo of sorts to talking with strangers on Public Transportation, I find it rather interesting how this always happens to me. Well, lo and behold, as we were getting in to Downtown, and just after commenting how surprised I was nobody had yet spoken to me, a gentleman started a conversation with me about my old Portland Beavers sweatshirt.

Maybe this is the reason why I love taking Public Transportation. You get to meet, sometimes unwillingly, some interesting people. I firmly believe that it is a cross-section of a community in which you travel. As Baseball Road Trips have evolved over the years, this has become more and more important to the holistic experience. I was so glad that my girlfriend was able to see first hand how it has developed.

We didn't bring our bikes with us, which was almost weird in the sense considering how my steed travels everywhere with me. However, as we disembarked the Trolley at the Gaslamp Quarter stop, my mind was thinking about future bike trips. We walked down to Mission Brewery, which is right across the street from Petco. The place was pretty sparse for being the day of a game, so I think I might make this more a pre-game ritual with my bike. After doing a loop through downtown, end there before the game.

My girlfriend had been to Petco before, and I had been there many times before, but I think we made a great baseball couple! We had a lot of fun in our nosebleed seats just enjoying a game under some beautiful sunshine. I very much enjoyed her company while we watched the Washington Nationals beat up on the Padres 10-5. We especially enjoyed watching Nationals' outfielder Bryce Harper continue his torrid hitting streak with a double and a 3-run homer. To think that in the span of one season, I will have seen Mike Trout AND Bryce Harper is pretty special.

After the game, we boarded the Coronado Ferry for the trip across San Diego Bay to one of my favorite places, Coronado. We walked down to the Coronado Brewing Company for a drink and some food, then walked a mile west down to Coronado Beach. After the hustle and bustle in San Diego, and the game being so crowded, being on an empty and expansive beach with my girl was very relaxing and refreshing. We just sat on the sand and talked for an hour before walking back to the ferry.

With Memorial Day Weekend coming up, I like to think that I have a lot more baseball left for the season. I hope that my girlfriend's schedule can match up with mine on some of these weekends so that we can go again on a Road Trip. San Diego is such a fun day trip, and I think it would be cool to take her on my trips down to Anaheim for an Angel's game and all the fun that goes along with that. We shall see :)

This upcoming weekend, Memorial Day, sees me hit up the last UC Riverside game of the year and make my first 66ers Road Trip of the season to Lancaster.

Always take on a 3-0 pitch ;)