This weekend actually involved some travel. Friday night we didn’t do anything because on Saturday morning we caught a flight to Tucson for Jocelyn’s grandmother’s eightieth birthday. Our flight Saturday morning was delayed an hour due to the fact that our fresh water supply on the plane had frozen. They were unable to fix the problem so our flight wasn’t able to server hot coffee or tea and there was no water in the bathroom. Before we took off we also had to stop or a fifteen minute deicing, thank heavens we were going to AZ to escape this miserable cold. We flew Frontier airlines and it was pretty sweet because each seat gets their own LCD screen with twenty-six channels of DirectTV. This was very cool and made the flight go fast. We switched planes at Denver and literally sprinted to our connecting flight and made the flight with less than thirty seconds to spare. It was amazing that something actually worked out while traveling. The second flight was smooth and we arrived at about eleven to the 85 degrees of Tucson goodness. J’s mom was there to pick us up and drive us to her grandparents’ house. We stopped at Subway on the way and also at a grocery store to pick up some delicious Fat Tire Ale (great beer which you can only seem to find in the West). From there we arrived at the house and I greeted all the relatives and inhaled my sandwich. Our plan for the day was to meet Jeff DeBruin and his lady Kelly and go to a Brewers’ spring training game. So I called J&K, who were already on their way, with the directions to where we were. They picked us up and we drove to the Rockies’ training facility. It took us a little longer to get there than we wanted but we found a place to park and went to the game. On our way in I heard a “heads up” and looked up to see a ball. The ball was bouncing in the parking lot and I ran to pick it up. This was actually turning out to be a great day. The day really was perfect. I got to see a spring game where Brewers killed the Rockies, tickets were $2, we talked to some folk from WI who were sitting in front of us, had a couple Fat Tires from the tap at the game, I got to hang with my boy Jeff, and we enjoyed the high 80 heat. We couldn’t stay the whole game and had to leave in the fifth inning to go back to the hotel to change for dinner. J&K dropped us off and headed back to Phoenix. It was great to see them and I’m very glad they came down to see us. That night we went to dinner at a Mexican place. Before dinner we had a pitcher of strawberry margaritas and some fresh table made guacamole, the best. For dinner I had a chicken and baked cheese dish. The restaurant had a mariachi band and they sang songs to the birthday girl, much fun. After dinner we went back to the grandparents’ house and had some dessert in the desert. When that wrapped up we were all pretty much shot. We tried to watch Napoleon Dynamite but I fell asleep. We woke up and headed back to the hotel for some sleep.

Sunday we woke up early and got dressed for the birthday brunch. We went to the grandparents’ country club. J’s family had some professional pictures taken and I was forced to be in a few so I’m officially in the family now. I made sure to stay pretty close to the end so I can be cropped out in case of an emergency. After the pictures we had some delicious brunch and enjoyed the scenery with some mimosas and bloody marys. When the pictures were done we went back to the abode and watched Illinois beat the Badgers for the Big Ten championship. I was surrounded by Illini fans so my gloom was further enhanced but I am confident that we’ll get them in the real tourney. After the game we sat around and watched more TV and NCAA bracket selection show. Later that night we headed to the community courts and played some b-ball. It was a great four on four game with a bunch of the family and I knew I was going to pay the price the next day. After that we went back and ordered some pizza. We gobbled that up and headed back to the hotel to shower and call it a night.

Monday I woke up as expected, sore. Those atrophied basketball muscles were barking something fierce. We got everything together and checked out early. We dropped our gear off at the grandparents’ house and J, her mom, and I went to Catalina Mountain state park. We didn’t have much time but I did enjoy the hour and a half hike up the trail. We hiked to a set of pools and while we were there we ran into a guy that went to college with Brewers pitcher Ben Sheets. The guy also used to play for the Beloit Snappers. He saw our Brewers shirts so we talked with him a bit. We finished up our hike and when we headed out we ran into another Brewers fan from WI, we’re everywhere people! The mountains are very beautiful and we plan on doing the whole eight hour hike to the top next year. When that was through we relaxed the rest of the day in the sun at the house. Finally it was time to head back to reality so J’s mom who left on a different flight at the same time drove us to the airport. We hopped on our plane and made it back safely to MKE and the reality of cold.