A Visit to Hohokam Stadium and a few Breweries and a Mild Rant…

To pick up where we left off, here in Mesa, Az, we had one more social gathering to attend at one of the breweries in the little town of Chandler that was on my list to visit, the San Tan Brewery. Here we met Jeri and Terri (Just Wanderin’), Jim and Sandie (Where are the Dixon’s) and Paul and Marsha (Where’s Weaver) for a real late lunch or an early dinner. Of course we had a blast and no lies were told by anyone… I know because I was there and I must say there IPA was very, very good!

Another day there was a convention called Airpex which is the Arizona Federation of Stamp Clubs and was advertised as an “Attic Appraisal” where one could bring stamps and have them appraised. One thing I couldn’t part with when we sold our sticks and bricks home was my childhood stamp collection so out of curiosity I wanted to take my collection over to this Mesa Convention Center event to have them looked over.

I was charged $5 bucks entry even though the web site said it was free to attend. I asked about that and of course they said someone was supposed to have that changed … Strike 1… Once I entered I went to the “Attic Appraisal” table where a fairly pompous and self righteous fellow deigned to spend less than 2 minutes flipping pages in my collection (of which I have well over 100,000 stamps) stating rather flippantly that it wasn't’ worth much of anything.

 

I asked about my mint World War II German stamps and he had little to say.  When pressed  he said I should talk to someone at table 40… who said I should to talk with someone else… and finally the fellow who was knowledgeable about German stamps said it wasn’t anything notable. Again, when pressed he said my collection might be worth $20.00. These so called experts said my collection was worth less than the unused postage I have in the collection. In other words I could lick stamps, throw the rest away and get at least $50.00 for the collection. What a waste of time this was as it seemed to me these “appraisers” were not there to help anyone but merely looking for the occasional rare find to perhaps “steal” from someone's collection… Oh well, live and learn!

 

So the day wouldn't be a total loss we decided to go to Hohokam and Fitch Parks (both baseball fields and spring training facilities) in the City of Mesa.  This day at Hohokam Park, the spring training home of the Oakland A's, there was an open house event of sorts. Hohokam Park (pronounced HO-HO-COM) takes its name from some of the earliest residents of the “Valley of the Sun”: the Hohokam Indians. Since the event was free we checked it out and found mostly a venue geared to children but there was a nice live band and they had balloon rides (we just missed doing that).

 

As we were leaving we saw Bert Campaneris and Furguson Jenkins signing gear as a fundraiser for Breast Cancer. Sharon stopped and chatted with Bert to thank them as a breast cancer survivor for their charity work. It was fun and to cap off the day we drove over to Tempe for a visit to Sleepy Dog Brewery  where I had previously purchased a Groupon deal. We enjoyed some frosty beverages and took home a few bombers (as per the Groupon ). Their beer was not nearly as good as San Tan or Four Peaks but we will surely enjoy the bombers we brought home nonetheless.

Well it looks like we leave here on Wednesday and I just booked us into a Passport America stay at Las Colinas RV Park near Casa Grande and Eloy Arizona where we will likely stay 3 or 4 days before moving on over to Tucson… We both hope to see you on down the road…