I was talking to my girlfriend the other day, and I mentioned that Baseball Road Trips are becoming few and far between. Sure, I'm making the yearly trips to Palm Springs and Arizona, the occasional trips to San Diego and LA, but I've written to all of you about that before. Granted, every single one of those trips has been beyond awesome and fun like no other, but the "old days" of an extended trip to a far off place and seeing the sights just aren't happening. Southern California has its pitfalls, but a lack of baseball certainly isn't one of them. However, this weekend, I'll be embarking on one of those trips as I head up to Oakland to see my Angels play the A's.
Like all Baseball Road Trips, the game spawns the experience. I'm leaving San Bernardino on Saturday night on the Metrolink to LA. Once there, I'm going to try out the new LA Bike Share and ride down to a new brewery in the Arts District. I'm interested to see how the bike share is in LA and how it may fit in with my current trips to Dodger games. I do bring my own bike, but having the bike share option there intrigues me. I've done bike share before on Baseball Road Trips with great success, so I'll be looking for ease of access, quality of the bike, and sufficient locations of the docks.
While I'm always down for a new craft brewery, the beer will help with my next leg which will see me take an overnight bus trip from LA to Oakland. I'm doing the Bolt Bus for the very first time because of the ridiculously cheap fare I got for the trip of $20. I'm not looking forward to being cooped up on the bus for the 8-hour ride up to the Bay Area, so maybe a few brewskies will assist in me going to sleep. If not, heck, it wouldn't be a legitimate Baseball Road Trip if I wasn't going on little sleep for an adventure.
After getting to Oakland and dropping my bags off at the hotel, I'm going to take the BART into San Francisco and spend the day in the city. I do have a few things planned for the day including making a stop at AT&T Park to get a stamp in my Ballpark Passport. I'm going to backdate the stamp to 2013 when I last visited the home of the Giants for the Final of the World Baseball Classic.
After AT&T, I'm going to make my way back up to the Ferry Building and catch the shuttle bus to the Presidio. I've been to San Francisco numerous times, but I've never been there for a look around. I'm really interested in seeing the old barracks and taking a tour at Fort Point. Since the area is all a National Park, I brought along my NPS Passport to get stamps there. Oh yeah, there's also a statue of Yoda I want to take some pictures of to fulfill my Star Wars fandom.
After that, I really have no other set plans except to ride cable cars. The last time I was in San Francisco, I couldn't get enough of those things. They are such an icon and I love everything about them. Since I have a free day of sorts, I'm going to ride the three cable car lines as much as I can. If you follow my Twitter feed, be prepared for lots of posts about cable cars.
In and around the Financial District in San Francisco is a plethora of breweries. Keeping in the spirit of seeking out craft beers, I'm going to hit up 21st Amendment Brewery. They're pretty well-known here in California, and getting a beer from the source will definitely be an experience.
After BARTing it back to Oakland and overnighting at my hotel, I'm going to sleep in on Monday until around 10ish. From there, I'll walk to the BART station and go down to the Coliseum to see my Halos play. I haven't been to the Coliseum since 2007, which seems like forever ago. The Coliseum is regarded as probably the worst stadium in all of MLB, but it will always hold a special place in my heart. The Coliseum was my first ballpark I went to on a Baseball Road Trip. I'll go into the story in a little more depth after the game, but it was that ballpark that launched the wonderful world of Baseball Extravaganza and Baseball Road Trips. Yes, the Coliseum deserves a tip of my hat.
I'm flying back to Ontario later on Monday night, so before departing, I'd like to hit up a brewery on the Oakland side of the Bay. There's a couple that seem interesting, so we'll see where my travels take me.
Follow along on my social media platforms for updates throughout the next two days. It will be a whirlwind trip, but certainly one for the books. I'm so excited to bring all of you along for this journey!
Always take on a 3-0 pitch ;)
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