The Rites of Spring, Day 1

My quasi-annual spring Training trip is underway, and it's been a wonderful break so far. After a crazy week (we were out late every evening Monday-Wednesday), I stayed home with the sick little boys Thursday and got ready to fly out that evening. After a considerable delay leaving ABQ (the plane had to have its battery replaced earlier that day, so they were checking it scrupulously), I finally got in to Phoenix around 9:30 local time. When I arrived at the hotel, Dad was soundly asleep, but once I was ready for bed he was awake enough that we chatted for an hour or so.

This morning we got ready and returned to the airport to get the rental car, although I was able to get some work done in the morning. But the real fun was the game.

I had purchased tickets to the San Diego-Chicago Cubs game in Mesa, so we made our way east, driving past the Mesa temple, to HoHoKam Park. A quick note on Mesa. It's clearly got a large LDS population, and, to be honest, it reminds me a lot of Simi Valley; in fact, the whole valley has a very Southern California feel to it. Mesa was kind of a backup option for kids from my ward who weren't going to go to BYU or Ricks, but still wanted a good LDS group at college. ASU wouldn't be a bad place for LDS college students, I believe.

The ballpark itself is quite nice. You can tell it's got some miles on it, but the Cubs and the local community clearly CubbieLand. You wonder if Chicago is a ghost town this time of year.

Our seats were among the last ones left a week ago when I bought them online, so we were in the upper reaches at the corner of the first-base line, just off the foul pole. We got there early enough to eat before the first pitch and get a good sunburn by the second inning. The weather was great; near 90 degrees, a few clouds, light breeze. March in Phoenix is quite nice.

The game was nice too. The Cubs got two away in the top of the first before an error by the second baseman let to a Padres rally and two runs for the visitors. But the Cubs came back with 1 in their side of the first and three more runs in the next few innings, and the good guys lead 4-2 after five.

At that point, jet-lagged and baked nicely, we left to get lodging, stopping on the way for ice cream. This evening Nathan flies in, and tomorrow we've got another game on tap. Right now, I think I'll hit the pool and toast the other side until I'm one solid sunburn.

On Being Mature

This is really the kind of thing I would typically post to my other blog, but I have the feeling that this blog gets more readers, and I would like to disseminate this to a rather wider audience. A few members of the ward have made mention of the recent/upcoming controversy over the depiction of temple ordinances in an HBO series; since we don't pay for TV (we're too cheap/disinterested in TV to buy the converter box for our circa 1999 set, we're a few months awat from losing all TV—and looking forward to it—for the most part), I have no context to discuss this specific show/network. But I have been waiting to see what—if anything—the church might have to say through its official channels.

So I was interested to read this commentary on the church's newsroom site late yesterday. I was struck by the measured, mature, intelligent tone of the piece. There was a moment of snideness when referring to the right of individual church members to boycott HBO and/or its affiliates ("Last week some Church members began e-mail chains calling for cancellations of subscriptions to AOL, which, like HBO, is owned by Time Warner. Certainly such a boycott by hundreds of thousands of computer-savvy Latter-day Saints could have an economic impact on the company. Individual Latter-day Saints have the right to take such actions if they choose."), but on the whole this was the voice of the responsible adults in the conversation.

I think this speaks well of who we are becoming as a church and how we can expect (and be expected) to respond to the inevitable controversies that will arise as the church achieves even greater notoriety. Clearly there are parties who wish us ill, both among right-wing and traditional religions and among left-wing and radical groups. We find ourselves staking out an odd middle ground, one that I personally find very comfortable, between these two extremes. And I think the opportunity this presents for us to redefine ourselves—not as the dogged victims of persecution, but as confident and therefore open-minded agents of tolerance and pluralism—is valuable. In many ways it allows us to align our rhetoric, which has historically tended toward the loud and caustic, with our theology, which is one of deliberateness and patience.

Springtime in New Mexico, or, In Like a Lion

It’s fully spring in the land of enchantment. The unseasonable warmth of this February has passed, and with it we have the tempestuous nature of March. On Thursday I came home in the midst of a windstorm that pelted me with sand for the entire half-mile walk from the bus stop to the house. I t was like being sandblasted for 15 minutes. I promptly took a shower and a nap.

But it’s also the gentle reawakening that attends spring. The cottoneaster out front has new growth, bulbs are coming up around town, and sunrise is moving gradually earlier (although I suppose a dose of daylight saving time tomorrow will nip that in the bud).

It’s been a fun season for our family as well. There’s plenty of stress to go around—Summer’s the cookie mom and has a new calling with the Cub Scouts, I was out until after 11 Wednesday with a ward temple trip and cleaning assignment, and there’s a gnawing sense that life is getting less simple as we get more into it.

But this also has the side effect of making us enjoy the free time more. Last weekend we made a day of a North Valley trip—a hike along the bosque, a trip to the best toy store in the world, and lunch at Blake’s, a local burger place that, even after 6+ years in town, we had never tried before.

This sense of adventure has defined this year for us. Our trip to Bosque del Apache last month embodied a sense of spontaneity that I don’t think we’ve ever really embraced. Yesterday we packed up for an evening out. We ate at another new place—the Route 66-style Owl Café, and loved it. We did some unexpected shopping and then drove around looking for a place to get a treat. And even though we are up to our eyebrows in Girl Scout cookie season, we stopped at ABQ Uptown to visit the newly-opened Nestle Tollhouse shop and get some warm cookies the size of Evan’s face. (Ryan ate a brownie bar that weighed as much as the baby, I swear.)

And so here’s to the other signs of spring, to short-sleeved shirts and no more coats, to Spring Training this month and Isotopes games next, to an end of allergy season, to General Conference and Easter, to spring break and field trips, and to planting growing things in the ground, smelling the earth and getting your hands dirty once more. And, I suppose, some windy afternoons, just to make us appreciate it all that much more.

The Old Ball Game

Here's the real beauty part of February in ABQ. The UNM baseball team begins hosting games at the end of the month; the home opener was Friday. So Saturday we gathered up the family and headed out to Isotopes Park to watch the Lobos take on the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders.

As a UNM student, I get in free, and tickets are $5 for Summer and $3 each for the kids, making it a cheap outing. And the crowds are small--maybe 200 people in a stadium that seats 12,000+, meaning there's always a good seat.

It was a gorgeous day at the ballpark; gametime at noon, the temperature was 55, reaching the mid 60s by the last out. We first sat three rows back behind home plate, but as the afternoon went on, the sun dropped behind the pressbox and it got chilly. So we moved up the third base side a bit, until that too got cold. Finally, we moved over to the sunny first base side, behind the Lobos dugout, and basked in the sun.

The game itself was good; the Lobos had lost 13-3 on Friday, but they came back with a nice victory Saturday, winning 4-1 (the second game was a UNM blowout, winning 22-2). The Lobos infielders made some dynamite defensive plays, and the pitching was solid.

Here are some pictures from the game. First, Evan, who loved just wandering around the seats all game long:
And second Isaac, who sat a few rows behind us in our first seats. Looks pretty smug, huh?

And with that, I bid you welcome to baseball season, my favorite time of the year. Here's to a few more UNM games (BYU comes to town next month), my Spring Training trip in just under 4 weeks, and a half dozen or so 'Topes games. Play ball!

Off The Beaten Path in New Mexico

(That’s the working title for a travel book about our family’s wanderings throughout the state. The subtitle might be something like “Four kids, a station wagon, and no clue.”)

Over the weekend we had talked about making some sort of day trip today since the kids were off school and I was off work. But we were very indecisive about our plans, which usually results in us doing nothing. We are compulsive planners, and not deciding typically equals not doing for us. Today, however, was different. We got our spontaneous on.

The plan—such as it was—was to visit Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge, just south of Socorro. This is where a number of geese, ducks, and cranes winter, and while the high season for migratory birds is winding down, we still figured on seeing a lot of avian wildlife.

We got to the refuge a little after 10 this morning, and, after a quick stop at the visitors center, which has a cactus garden and some picnic areas, we hit the auto loop. A two-mile loop circles the wetlands where, according to the bird count in the visitors center, over 22,000 snow geese were in residence. We stopped at two observation areas to see the throngs and let the kids run around.

The kids in the cactus garden

The second observation area was on the northwest edge of the wetlands, closes to where thousands of snow geese had settled down. It is an amazing sight, one that our simple little camera does not capture well. From here, we also saw wave after wave of geese come in to land.

The wetlands--the white dots are snow geese

But the real draw is the concentration of sandhill cranes—almost 15,000 today. Our timing was such that we missed the big show—at sunrise these masses of cranes takeoff from the wetlands to feed all day in the adjoining fields, and at sunset they return to bed down. Our midday trip cost us this spectacle, but we did see a number of cranes on our drive along the edge of the fields where they dine. The real treat was seeing a dozen or so cranes directly across the draining ditches, probably no more than 50’ from our car.

Sandhill cranes just off the road

After a picnic lunch, we headed south along NM 1, the two-lane road that passes through the refuge. We thought we would take the scenic route south to meet up with I-25. After about 12 miles, we saw the turn-off road for Fort Craig, a BLM site about halfway between Socorro and T or C. Throwing caution to the wind, we set off on the four-mile dirt road to this 19th-century army station.

Fort Craig, as it turns out, was established shortly after the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War and made the Southwest US territory. During the Civil War, Fort Craig was the Union army’s largest outpost in the Southwest, and site of an important battle.

In February 1862, a Confederate force moved north from Texas, set on taking New Mexico (they had offered the territory Confederate statehood) and cutting the eastern US off from California. As the largest garrison of supplies in the area, Fort Craig was a prime target. Just north of the fort the armies fought to essentially a draw. The Confederates did not take the fort, but they did make their way north, eventually capturing Socorro, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe before losing decisively at Glorieta and abandoning the western front offensive.

We walked around the ruins of the fort; not much is left of the adobe walls, but interpretive signs mark the walls of the fort and detail the history of the area. By the time we hit the road again, the kids were pooped and we were ready to trek north.

Here is what may be the best part. Obviously, we had fun, saw new and exciting things in our own backyard, and learned some history. But for me the real victory is the bottom line. We spent a shade under $12 to top off the gas tank (we got home with a shade under a half of a tank) and $3 for our admission to the refuge. The grand total for an eight-hour day trip: $15. Not a bad bargain at all.

If It Wasn't So Cute...

...Isaac would be in trouble for sitting on the bookshelf:
But it's hard to get mad at the kids when they're reading.

Pizza

I believe that pizza is the perfect food, containing all of the food groups and needing no utensils. And a good pie will yield leftovers, making lunch ("Or," says Summer as I type, "breakfast") the next day a snap. In the search for more sources of this perfect food, we've made some local discoveries.

Our first was Dion's. Still the go-to--especially since a restaurant opened not a mile from the house. They also sell slices and whole pies at Isotopes park; the game day triple play with pepperoni, sausage, and green chile is better than a hot dog.

This past October we tried Il Vicino in Nob Hill with Summer's parents. A classy joint, it seemed like it wouldn't be very child friendly, but then the waitress brought out a ball of pizza dough for each kids to play with while we waited. And the pizza with spicy olive oil and shrimp was wonderful.

Then, this past Friday, we tried the Old Town Pizza Parlor, located on Rio Grande just north of Central, in a 150-year-old adobe building. To be honest, we had low expectations of this new eatery, but we were very pleasantly surprised. We got the Farmer's Market, with olives, mushrooms, green pepper, red onion, tomato, and green chile. The veggies were piled high, and the crust was simple but satisfying. I'd like to go back to try their sandwiches and calzones.

Our next foray will be Farina, located in the growing East Downtown (or EDO, a bit of a ripoff of Denver's LoDo area). This pizzeria looks a bit trendy, but it's worth a try. We'll go for lunch this week when we just have two kids in tow. Maybe Tuesday afternoon...