Brenda and I love watching baseball. We're not great about following the major leagues. I couldn't tell you who's hitting well this year, or who's leading the AL East. But if I see a softball game going on on my way home from work, I might stop.

The reason I mention this is that our latest excuse to take a trip was to see a minor league baseball game. Brenda had never been to a minor league game and I've always enjoyed watching minor league ball. The mixture of family fun and competitive ball is great fun. After hitting the web we discovered that we could see a game in San Bernardino on the Sunday before Memorial Day, so we scampered out.

The home team was the Inland Empire 66ers hosting the High Desert Mavericks. They both play in the California League.

The flight to San Bernardino is not a long one, we ticked less than an hour off the Hobbes meter end to end, but it's a pretty one. From Santa Monica the route follows the foothils of the San Gabriel mountains, leading to some pretty views. The weather was fantastically clear, so it was a beautiful trip.

San Bernardino International Airport is actually a former Air Base that's still in use as an untowered field. There's 10,000 feet of runway out there, but few people - this makes a much better place to practice engine off landings than Buttonwillow. I'll remember that next time.

Even I have little trouble landing on 10,000 feet of runway with unlimited visibility and little wind. We pulled up to Blues Aviation just as Lance was leaving to get lunch. Before he left, he asked if we needed anything, and when we told him where we were going, he offered us a ride. Nice guy.

We got to the stadium easily and as we were looking over ticket prices, someone offered to sell us a ticket cheap. As we were getting ready to buy for $1 under the $6 price on the ticket, his wife came up and informed us that she'd gotten the tickets for $2 apiece, so $2 per would be fine. The money was already moving, so I convinced her that taking a five for the two tickets would be easiest. This is the first time I have ever talked a “scalper” up.

The park is small enough that there were no bad seats, and the game was a lot of fun. Brenda kept score, and we both enjoyed the game and the rest of the experience a great deal. Certainly more of the baseball rulebook got exercised than I'd seen in some time, with a dropped third strike and a couple other corner cases. A great way to spend a summer's afternoon. We're hoping to get out to see some more.

I took some pictures. Y'know, it's a new camera.