Tag: Garden of the Gods
A few days in Colorado
by James on Jul.29, 2010, under Minor League Baseball, Misc, Trips
While I only covered one Minor League All-Star Game this season, I was able to make up for not going to any others by putting a little four-day trip together to Colorado for the first time.
It all began around planning to see 311, a band my brother got me into over a decade ago. I really enjoy their sound and style and got out to 311 Day in New Orleans in 2008 to see them play over 60 songs over about five hours. Every even-numbered year they do a concert like this on March 11, so it’s considered the ultimate show for a 311 fan.
This summer they toured with The Offspring for about a month and their only dates in California were down south. I decided to at least see what would work around my days off if I went out of town and when I saw they were playing Red Rocks in Colorado I knew that was the place to go. It’s one of those venues any fan of live music should get to at least once if they can.
From there it was a matter of figuring out what else to do around Denver and decide on how long to stay. I found a wild animal sanctuary outside Denver and liked what I saw, so I donated to them and made plans to visit the place.
I would have liked to see the Colorado Rockies but they were out of town so I checked on the Colorado Springs Sky Sox as a backup. It happened to be they were at home and the Sacramento River Cats would be visiting. Perfect timing! Thanks to that, I had my plans. A friend in Colorado Springs also suggested I visit Garden of the Gods while out that way, so that was added to the mix as well.
All told, I ended up posting 280 photos in six different galleries. The wild animal sanctuary was nice, though the stories of a lot of the animals that ended up there are pretty sad. Some were really abused and the things people did and ways they kept some of these animals illegally is disturbing. It was good to see them in a more open area and as evening set in, the lions and tigers roared, the wolves howled and it felt right.
Red Rocks was pretty special. Just the way the seating fits in between the rocks creates a perfect, natural place to see music with some great scenery around it. Rain fell for much of the early evening but it cleared up by the time 311 took the stage. I don’t usually take pictures at a concert but I got some decent ones out of this with my Nikon Coolpix P100, the non-DSLR camera I used for everything but baseball on this trip. It was picked for its superzoom ability (26x) and I knew that’d come in handy in exchange for sacrificing a little image quality compared to the DSLR.
Garden of the Gods was also pretty neat and the weather cooperated long enough for me to get some good shots over the course of about an hour and a half. I would’ve liked to get up to Pikes Peak but for me that’d probably be more of a full day because of all the stopping and snapping of pictures I’d probably do.
Sacramento won both games without much trouble and put up 49 runs and 12 homers in the four-game series, sweeping it. I always enjoy the chance to work at a ballpark I haven’t been to before and while the one in Colorado Springs isn’t the fanciest, I was a little closer than I usually am at other places. It’s the highest pro ballpark in the country (about 6,500 feet above sea level) and has the smallest capacity of any in Triple-A (about 8,500). The first night was a sellout with Rockie Troy Tulowitzki there for an injury rehab appearance, and the way it worked out I saw his only two games there.
Good, enjoyable trip. Here, have some galleries:
7/19/10: Wild Animal Sanctuary
7/21/10: Sacramento River Cats at Colorado Springs Sky Sox
From Security Service Field in Colorado Springs. The River Cats won, 8-1. Tyson Ross earned his first win for Sacramento with 5 shutout innings, allowing just 2 hits and 2 walks to go with 7 strikeouts. Chris Carter & Steve Tolleson homered for the River Cats while Tolleson, Dallas McPherson, Josh Donaldson & Adam Heether all recorded a pair of hits. Eric Sogard, Tolleson & Carter had 2 RBI each. Troy Tulowitzki singled in an injury rehab start for Colorado Springs & Chaz Roe took the loss.
7/22/10: Sacramento River Cats at Colorado Springs Sky Sox
From Security Service Field in Colorado Springs. The River Cats won, 14-9. Seven Sacramento players had 2 or more hits, with Jeff Baisley picking up 3, 2 of them doubles while scoring 3 times. Josh Donaldson, Anthony Recker & Dallas McPherson all homered and combined with Baisley for 9 RBI. Chris Carter walked and scored 3 times as well. Boof Bonser picked up his first win for the River Cats. Chris Nelson homered, had 3 hits and scored 3 times for Colorado Springs, and Matt Miller also went deep while driving in 3 runs. Josh Muecke took the loss.
