Play Ball on My Time

After a couple days without a Cubs game it’s time to get these guys back on the field and finish the month of April strong.

I’m usually an early adopter of most technologies but for some reason I hadn’t had DVR/Tivo until finally getting it after last baseball season. The ability to record programs and not have to watch commercials as well as the convenience of watching things on your own schedule is smart TV viewing at it’s best. So this is my first baseball season with DVR and it’s true brilliance came into play last Friday and Saturday with the Cubs games.

Friday I was working from my home office, with DVR I watched the Cubs game when I got a free minute or two. And what a game it was, after the 3d inning the Cubs seemingly always looking at a deficit, until Soriano and then Marmol put the birds away for good. The beauty of this is; I was able to work a full day and watch a commercial shortened version of the game in time to take advantage of a beautiful AZ spring afternoon/evening to visit Tortilla Flat.

When compiling the list of “Things to do in AZ” page here at Boys of Spring I realized that it had been a long time since I had been to some of the cool places listed on the page…Some I’d never been to. So I decided to head out to Tortilla Flat east of Mesa, I had been on this road many years ago when most of it was still gravel and on that trip came across a huge Tarantula sitting in the middle of the road. The picturesque drive to Tortilla goes NE out old Hwy 88 past Canyon Lake and is only about 40 minutes from my house. I had to take advantage of perfect weather, sunny with a high of about 78 degrees…It has since warmed up, high of 98 (ouch) expected today. At any rate I was able to work and watch the Cubs victory then be on the road to Tortilla by about 5 pm. I’m posting a few photos of the drive.

My only issue with the trip was missing some of the evening sunset because I had decided to go all the way to Apache Lake which is about 15 miles past Tortilla Flat, at least 10 of those miles on a very bumpy winding one lane dirt road hugging the side of mountains. By the time I was headed back from Apache and had ascended the switch backs up from Fish Creek the best sunset shots were lost.

The last 10 miles to Apache Lake made me wonder who in their right mind would think that a road should be built here and then go ahead and build it. I heard the road had been used as an old pony express route, not true, I found out it was built in 1904 in order to build the dam at Roosevelt Lake. By the looks of it the road is much the same as it was in 1904 except now you get the fun of meeting oncoming trucks on this one lane gravel road with sheer drops of thousands of feet. Don’t let that scare you, the drive to Tortilla Flat is all 2 lane blacktop and pretty easy going, well worth a day or half day trip…Find out how Tortilla Flat got it’s name and more info with links on our “Things to do in AZ” page.

The DVR did it for me again on Saturday as I got many things accomplished while enjoying the Cubs exciting 11 inning victory on MY time…How did I ever live without this device? Friday and Saturday’s Cubs/Cards games were incredible, so many ups and downs and sub-plots and in the end sweet wins against the arch-rival evil doers. It won’t be long until the Cubs are here to play the D-Backs and I’ll be at at least one of those games. Go Cubs!

Canyon Lake on the way to Tortilla Flat

It’s fun to ski or board and look up at the Canyon walls

This is pretty much the only business in Tortilla Flat, town population 6

I can’t tell you if it’s “good food” or not, didn’t eat there

The road to Apache Lake, this was an easy driving spot

On the way you must cross several one lane bridges

A glimpse of Apache Lake

Sun on cliffs above Apache Lake

On the way back looking at Canyon Lake after sunset