Guess what! Baseball season has officially begun!!! Aren't you all excited? As I write this the Red Sox are killing the Yankees in the background. I thought I was tuning into the Dodgers and Giants game. But, I guess not so much. Maybe this game is just running long and the Giants and Dodgers will follow. I'm so happy that it is finally baseball season. Even if the Rangers are as awful all year as they were last night, I'll still have the Astros to watch and I can always watch a good Giants game. Since it is baseball season let's talk about a baseball roadtrip.
There are many baseball roadtrips you can take if you are so inclined. Depending on what part of the country you live in, you could get in your car and drive to a different city for a different game every night of the week. I think it would be fun to do a California baseball road trip if you catch all five California teams in town during the same week. Or maybe start the trip in the middle of one week and wrap it around the weekend getting to all the ball parks.
You could start out by flying into San Francisco this Wednesday. You'd take the direct United flight 6291 from DFW to SFO leaving here at 1:39 Wednesday afternoon and arriving in San Francisco at 3:37 p.m. We'd get a convertible for the week through Avis and you'd pick that up before leaving the airport. Then head on over to your first hotel of the week, the Sheraton Bay Bridge. After all, you are going to both Giants and A's games while staying in SF. So you'll want a hotel convenient to both.
Our first game of the week is at 12:35 on Thursday afternoon in Oakland where we will see the A's vs. the Mariners. It's the last game of the opening series against the Mariners. We're sitting in the bleachers. We have a lot of games to go to and this is going to get expensive. So we've bought two bleachers tickets for a total of $36.75. Even if the game goes into extra innings we'll still be back in San Francisco in time for dinner somewhere down on Fisherman's Wharf. So, yea us!
Friday we have another early game. We'll be going to see the Giants vs. the Cardinals at 1:35 at AT&T Park. Now, I have been here before..... Wanna see a picture?
Again, our game will be over early. So we can get a little sight seeing in today. Maybe we'll take the car and go across the Golden Gate Bridge and have dinner in Sausalito. On Saturday morning we'll check out of the hotel in San Francisco and hop in our convertible to head down the 101 toward Los Angeles. Now, here's the deal. I'm a firm believer in scenic routes while on vacation. So, if I'm in charge of this trip it is the 101 all the way. We aren't going to go all the way into LA tonight. We're only driving as far as Simi Valley tonight. We got a room at the lovely 3 star Grand Vista Hotel in Simi Valley for only $93 a night including taxes. You couldn't get a single seat in AT&T park for 3 hours for that price!!!! So we'll spend our first night in the LA area there.
We're in no hurry to arrive though since we don't have a game today. So we'll make plenty of stops along the 101 for taking pictures. With no stops the drive is six hours long. We'll make it take all day with stops for photos, lunch and more photos. We probably won't be in Simi Valley until late in the evening. So, we'll head straight to the hotel to check in, drop off our luggage and then head out for dinner. Tomorrow we have another day game at Dodger Stadium so we won't do anything after dinner tonight.
On Sunday it's a 42 mile drive from our hotel to Dodger Stadium and we'll want to get there in time for batting practice. So we'll leave the hotel around 9 a.m. for our 1:10 p.m. game. We're checking out of this hotel so that we can stay more in the LA area tonight. So we'll throw all of our stuff in the back of the Mustang and hit the road right after breakfast. Today we are back in bleacher seats to watch the Dodgers take on he Pirates. Our tickets cost of a total of $42.50 plus taxes and fees. Don't ask me what taxes and fees are on the tickets since you have to enter your personal info to get that far on the site.
After the game tonight we will be driving 28 miles to our new hotel in Long Beach. Since we'll be staying here until Wednesday morning we've decided to get a little bit nicer place to stay. So we'll be in the Residence Inn by Marriott at Long Beach. It's a 4 star. We're paying $165 a night but we are on the water and the pool looks terrific! We are 27 miles from Angel Stadium. But we don't have tickets for an Angels game until Tuesday night. So after sleeping in late on Monday morning to recover from all of our baseball and sight seeing. After breakfast we can either head out to the beach or do more sight seeing. The possibilities are endless. We can see anything from the stars on the Hollywood Blvd to the footprints at the Chinese Theater to the La Brea Tar Pits. So, you decide and I'll just ride along.
Tuesday we are heading to the Anaheim Angels game against the A's so it will be our second time to see the A's in less than a week. Once again, the Angels are fairly proud of their tickets. So we are sitting in some pretty crappy seats in the upper deck in the very last row between homeplate and 1st base and we're paying $109 plus taxes and fees. To make matters wose, as a Rangers fan, I hate the Angels so this is really rubbing me the wrong way. This game doesn't start until 7:05. So we probably won't make it back to the hotel until close to 11. We'll be eating hotdogs and beer at the ballpark for dinner.
Wednesday we are checking out of the Residence Inn and heading to San Diego for the last leg of the trip. We have tickets for tonight's 7:10 p.m. game vs. the Dodgers. So it'll be our second time of the week to see the Dodgers play. Since it's the last night of our trip, we have decided to go all out. We'll be staying just outside of left field at the Hard Rock Hotel San Diego. Our room will cost us $230 tonight. But hey, we'll make up for it with a couple of tickets to the game for only $40 plus tax an fees. Loving me some Padres!
Tomorrow we'll get up and head to the airport for a pretty early flight home. The flight home has a stop in LA and then back to Dallas. The total price for this trip excluding parking that sweet ride in all those ballparks, hotels and so on, meals, gas for the rental car and taxes and fees on the baseball tickets is a whopping $4,016. Hey I never said a dream week of baseball would be cheap. We could cut nearly $700 out of this price by driving the car back to LA to board a flight on Thursday. But as long as we are taking a fantasy trip there's no point in putting ourselves out, right?
Well I've sat here through the entire Dodgers vs. Giants game working on this and missed the whole thing. So, I'll call it a day. Hope you enjoyed the West Coast Baseball Dream Trip. I'll talk to you all tomorrow.
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