What we ate & drank

We didn't eat nearly as much Southwestern/Mexican food as we feared. But we did try some really interesting things.

Sonorana tacos: Gena took us to a stand in Tucson. As she walked up, she told us it was way nicer than when John first brought her. "They have real windows now," she said. "The walls used to just be corrugated aluminum." Despite the minimalistic surroundings, the hot dogs were pretty good.

For those who are curious, Wikipedia has a basic description of Sonoran hot dogs.

Photo courtesy of Gena. 

I eat about one hot dog a year. This was worth it.

Eegee's: Gena and John also shared their favorite Tucson sweet treat with us and they share the name of the chain, Eegee's. They are similar to Slush Puppies at 7-Eleven, but they are mostly shaved ice with chunks of real fruit (and taste much better).

A Mango Tango Eegee for the road.

Best ballpark treat: Chase Field has the Terraza open on Friday nights and sells Hispanic fare. I had a delicious raspados - mango, crushed iced and lechera (sweetened condensed milk).

Best ballpark deal: It was Taco Tuesday at Petco Park - grilled mahi mahi tacos were two for $5. They were so good that they knocked Seattle's Safeco Field out of the top spot for best ballpark food.

I felt a little guilty for preferring it to GABP fare.

Best named beer: Malicious Journalist at OB Brewing in Ocean Beach. To our dismay, it was an IPA and neither of us was willing to drink it.

Best beer we did try: Wren House Brewing Company's Kolsch.

The best thing we ate (and perhaps the best thing I've ever eaten that wasn't cooked by my grandmother): The dative relleno from Cafe Sevilla in San Diego. This tapas dish consisted of medjool dates filled with cabrales blue cheese and wrapped in bacon. No description could do them justice.

Sign(s) of the Day: Occupied

Ryan mocked me for saying that I was super impressed with the women's bathrooms at Petco Park. I stand by my praise though.

Photo by ANDREA RUMBAUGH

The Padres have invested in a product called Peep No More. These Occupied/Available signs on every door made it easy to quickly locate an empty stall without any awkward peeping, just as the name promises.

Peep No More took part in the MLB Trade Show in 2014 and apparently is now also in AT&T Park in San Francisco. The company recognized as the NCET Microenterprise of the Year, according to the Reno Gazette-Journal.

The Phoenix Convention Center, where I'm attending a conference this week, could totally benefit from investing in Peep No More. On the conference's first day, I myself bent down once to check for the presence of feet and witnessed two embarrassing attempted entries into occupied stalls.

Thank goodness for entrepreneurial women.

The E-5 tour

Ryan and I mapped out our baseball travel this year (five new stadiums for him, four for me), and he's calling it the E-5 tour because based on ESPN's season-opening power rankings, we expected to be subjecting ourselves to some pretty awful baseball (opening day ranking in parentheses).

• Twins (28th) at White Sox (27th)

• Brewers (25th) at D-backs (22nd)

• Reds (29th) at Padres (30th)

• Reds (29th) at Braves (23rd)

• Athletics (26th) at Phillies (24th)

Petco Park absorbed that old warehouse. 

Several teams have surprised us though: the Twins and Brewers were both in first place for their games, the Diamondbacks were contending, and even the Reds have not looked entirely dismal (to borrow one of Marty Brennaman' favorite adjectives).

We still haven't picked our Camden Yards game this year, so maybe there's hope for a matchup of the Orioles and an exceptional team. Although at this rate, even a ridiculous O's optimist like Ryan might agree that the E-5 tour has morphed into E-6. Ryan and his cousin Matt have been commiserating over texts about the last month being the worst stretch of Orioles baseball since the Sydney Ponson era.

Here are a few pictures from E-5 Tour stop #3 at Petco Park in which the Padres beat the Reds 6-2.

Our seats in the right field bleachers offered a great view. 

The Padres jumped all over the Reds in the 1st inning with four straight singles ... 

... and stole a few bases ...

... and made the Reds have a lot of these. Ryan said former Oriole Scott Feldman's pitching performance looked familiar, much to my dismay. 

You can read about our visit to Chase Field in Ryan's post. (The Padres, by the way, had a more traditional/less scary mascot.)

After this season, Ryan will be missing only seven of the current 30 MLB stadiums. He has seen both L.A. stadiums and I haven't, so I will still need nine more.