Surprise trip

I've been sitting on a couple of free round trip tickets from Southwest Airlines, good until the end of '09, wondering how best to use them. I have enough miles on our AAdvantage program for Carole and me to take a trip later this year, so I was free to plan a trip of some sort that didn't have to include her. So I was sittin' around Saturday when it hit me: go to Surprise!

All my life I've wanted to go to a Texas Ranger spring training, but circumstances were never right. Well, I have Spring Break coming, I've got two free tickets...now's the time! So I called Blake. Sorry, Brett, maybe next time. Blake, of course, was as ecstatic as a hobo with a baloney sandwich. He'd had the same dream of sitting in the warm, spring sun, basking in the warmth of the greatest game ever designed. A quick check with our wives to see if this was okay with them (an incredibly essential and smart thing to do), and full of unselfishness, they gave us their blessing.

So we'll be flying out to Phoenix and then to the strangely named suburb of Surprise, an oasis of green diamonds where millionaire ballplayers assemble every spring to work the kinks out. Another item scratched off my bucket list.