USA

Ballgame and a ballpark

/ Greg / 1 Comment

With my next sports-related trip south of the border looking to be a very, very long time away in the future, I’m thinking back fondly on a couple of my last sports experiences during a visit to Phoenix late last fall. On account of attending a work-related conference, it gave me an opportunity for my first ever visit to the city, and the timing gave me a chance to take in a Phoenix Suns basketball game.

Just a couple of short blocks away from my downtown hotel, the Talking Stick Resort Arena, designed specifically for basketball, was cozy, with the seats all around the arena right on top of the court. While I didn’t pony up for lower level seats, I spent some time watching the pre-game warm-ups from down there.

Phoenix Suns game

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Mile high baseball and beer

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With a very limited amount of time in Denver this past fall, I based my non-work time in the city around a couple of late season baseball games and some craft beer sampling. This is the luxury of second visits to places – there’s no need to rush around seeing the sights to alleviate the fear of missing out on something.

Once my meetings wrapped up on a Friday afternoon, I got to work in making the most of my weekend in Denver. First stop: my all time favourite piece of public art – “I See What You Mean” or as it is more commonly known as, “Big Blue Bear”. My weekend was off to a great start.

I See What You Mean

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Public art in Washington

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Washington has historical monuments and museums that you could spend weeks exploring. And while I was game to pop by the White House, to visit the Lincoln Memorial and to wander around a few of the Smithsonian museums, I was most excited to take in some of the modern public art that lines the National Mall. Here are some of my favourites….

“Are Years What? (for Marianne Moore)” by Mark di Suervo – I love di Suervo’s art. In this piece, I enjoyed the simplistic contrast in the red of the beams against the green landscaping and white of so many of the buildings along the Mall.

Mark di Suervo "Are Years What? (for Marianne Moore)"

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A whole lot of gose

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Baseball and beer. Pretty much a perfect pairing.

My annual baseball trip this year was to Washington thanks to already being in the city for some professional development. With five days to take in the sights of the American capital, I needed ample refreshment along the way to fend off the heat and humidity of the east coast in July.

On my first night in the city, I made it to Dacha Beer Garden under threat of a severe thunderstorm. Their outdoor garden is nicely covered and sheltered from the elements (thankfully!), and I couldn’t resist pairing a Joint Resolution hazy IPA from DC Brau with PEI mussels. Pretty good match and worth getting completely drenched on the walk back to the hotel when the storm hit with an amazing ferocity at the most inopportune time for me.

At Dacha Beer Garden

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Can I enjoy the faux Expos?

/ Greg / 2 Comments

While I’m always up for a baseball game, when I visited Washington this past summer, it was with some mixed emotions of heading to five Nationals games. You see, when my Expos were taken away from me, they were in essence handed to Washington to become their new team. And while time can erase a lot, I’m never sure of where I stand on this baseball team that now claims franchise records of the team I used to cheer for. Putting that all aside, I bought some tickets, and shortly after arriving in DC, I threw on my trusty Montreal Expos hat and headed for Nationals Park.

Just through the gate, I bumped into this guy, who gave me a presidential welcome for my first Nationals game.

Mascot at Nationals game

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Windy city pints

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Chicago is an interesting, but slightly logistically challenging city for craft beer exploration. If you’re staying in the centre of the city as I was, and want to visit a number of breweries or taprooms, you really have to do some traveling by subway and bus to some far flung locations. Like every trip I plan, I pinned a number of potential destinations on a map, then using the limited time in the city, tried to hit the really interesting and convenient places.

By far and away, the brewery I was most excited to sample from was Rick Bayless’ Cruz Blanca Brewery. You already know I’m a bit of a Bayless fanboy, in love with every culinary thing he does, so of course I needed to see if I would be a fan of his brewery.

Cruz Blanca

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A change of plans

/ Greg / 2 Comments

When my wife was unexpectedly able to join me on my trip to Chicago, it turned a baseball trip into a restaurant exploration trip pretty quickly. My original plans called for a lot of ballpark food and craft beer, but I was thrilled to spin those plans on a dime and make each evening about heading out on the town in search of deliciousness.

With the last minute nature of our new plans, we used points to get my wife into Chicago flying a different route and airline than was I. When we parted ways at the Saskatoon airport, she didn’t yet have a seat assignment, so we weren’t sure if we’d actually meet up in Chicago. In light of that, we kept our dinner plans simple – at Fisk & Co, a hotel bar in the loop, for some seafood and (surprise, surprise) craft beer for me. It ended up being a great choice. She did make it into Chicago, and our first order of business was crushing some oysters. Delicious!

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Let’s play two

/ Greg / 2 Comments

Chicago is one of my most favourite cities in the world. It’s a great eating and drinking city. It has stunningly beautiful art and architecture. It is filled with down to earth midwesterners who always make me feel at home. And, as a baseball fan, it has two teams, which means any spring or summer trip to the windy city will have baseball to watch.

When I made my original plans, it was as a solo visit, extending a work trip for a few days so I could get to 5 or 6 baseball games. The trip I planned wasn’t the one I ended up taking, and that was a good thing. Some last minute changes of plans meant my wife could join me for a week in Chicago. While she’s not a huge baseball fan, she’s always up for a game or two. As both the Cubs and White Sox were in town, we decided on two.

So, game one – on a spectacular April afternoon, here we are checking out the ballpark in advance of a White Sox game against the Tampa Bay Rays.

At the White Sox game

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Rediscovering my travel groove

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For a host of reasons, some of my trips over the past year or two haven’t been as much of a vacation as I would have liked. Whether it was allowing work to intrude in a few cases, or me not able to get my head in the right frame, or a plethora of other factors, I had been struggling with consistently achieving the sense of rest, wonder and pleasure of a good vacation.

I’m back from a recent trip to Washington, DC, and while it started out with a work-related course, once that outstanding learning opportunity concluded, my mind slid pretty easily into vacation mode. I think I found a bit of my groove again by accident, but something I can learn from. While there are weeks and weeks of stuff to do in DC, I didn’t cram my itinerary full. I saw the sights I wanted to, and allowed a lot of time to just wander (take one look at my step count, and you’d see that I did some professional level wandering around the city). With little “fear of missing out”, I skipped the Arlington National Cemetery and hit a craft brewery taproom with a book because that felt like more my speed on that day. I was indulgent and went to five baseball games and enjoyed being absorbed in the games and nothing else for a few hours. All of this unlocked a lot of time for my mind to be by itself, and when I found myself listening into its background chatter, I could tell I was happy and relaxed. I mean, seriously, relaxed.

At Washington Nationals game

I’ve got trips coming up to Denver, Phoenix, and a big one to Japan including Tokyo and Osaka over the next few months. I’m hoping I can tap into the magic there was in these five days of vacation in DC and continue this groove for my upcoming trips.