In the beginning...

How do you celebrate turning 60? I don’t know how I’ll do it, I’ll find out in a couple years when I hit that age but this is the story of my sister, Sybil, and her adventure of turning 60. And an adventure it is. My wife, Susan, and I, her brother Frank, asked what she wanted and we knew it would not be ‘stuff’ we all have too much of that. But what would she like? She decided on a classic idea: the road trip. Now, she lives in Jerome, AZ, with her husband Henry, which is pretty much an adventure in itself. Jerome is not too far off Route 66. She lives part time in Chicago and I guess Route 66 is just too familiar. There is another classic road of the southwest and this is what we are setting out on, the four corners of Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. We are specifically off to see Canyon de Chelly, Monument Valley, Mesa Verde, and Pagosa Hot Springs. Although, if our past is a guide, the unplanned events will be as memorable as the planned ones. And although this is a ‘road’ trip we are going in a Jeep which opens the adventure to back roads, dirt roads and no roads too. And if we hit snow we should not get stuck.

Like any good road trip we will start immediately with a bit of a detour. We will actually head south to Glendale, AZ near Phoenix to take in a spring training game between the Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Cubs. We grew up in Chicago and the prospect of getting to see both our teams is just too much to miss the opportunity. And to keep things neutral I am bring our Dad’s Chicago Bears cap for her to wear. Should endear her to any Chicagoan in the stands regardless of their baseball preference.

Well, it wasn’t a good game. Despite being the home team, being my team and having a better record in the regular season, the Sox lose13 to 2. Well, Sybil and more than half the crowd thought it the game was just fine. I guess it is nice for them to shrug off so many years of the Cubs losing. The temperature seemed fiery hot but was probably ‘only’ 90. Despite loads of sunscreen and liquid intake we leave after the seventh inning stretch to beat the heat and the traffic. This preseason game was sold out! When I was a kid the Cubs would not sell out their regular games. I remember very low turnouts for games and most of those were charity tickets given to local schools, church groups and youth groups. Now they sell out preseason games on the road!