The Hampton breakfast had sugar-cured smoked sausage, an occasional
member of the regular rotation. Nothing else of note, except the
orange juice spigot turned out to dispense strawberry kiwi, to
universal disappointment.

Westward to Maryvale to see the Rangers at the Brewers. Our game
plan involved a little more crosstown traveling than desired,
but I made our hotel reservations based on preliminary schedules,
and the Cactus League had its procedures set years before the biz
turned out to be an amazing cash cow, so things are sometimes
amusingly amateurish and most of the time annoyingly amateurish.

It took us an hour to get to the stadium, and by the time we got
there the front lot was full, and cars - even HP ones, were being
sent to the back, with some HP spots over a quarter mile away. It
took us a bit to get parked and into the stadium. I chose the wand
after Swisher's example to beat the longish line at security and
was in quickly.

We took a tour of the premises, determining that all the beers
were Miller products (a few oddities, such as Sam Adams Angry
Orchard, which squeaks in because it's cider, not beer), so I
figured I'd get a blue lemonade, but the lemonade vendors were loud
and obnoxious, so I went thirsty. Our section, about 5 degrees to
the third base side, filled up quickly with scouts (good, as quiet),
rabid fans (eh), and kids (bad, as noisy). I actually got to see the
ball a dozen or twenty times, all either stationary or slow-moving -
no hit or pitched balls, maybe I'll be ready for those in a year or
two. It was a long and dully played game, with the visiting Rangers
taking a quick 3-0 lead and the Brewers only able to make up 2
despite numerous chances.

It's a small stadium but with a bad traffic layout, and it took a
while to get out of there. The plan was to drop our stuff at the
Hampton Chandler and then out to China Magic Noodle House, which
my friend Alex had introduced me to years ago. Sad to say, Bill's
GPS led us astray, and instead of going I-10 all the way (the hotel
is a block or two from I-10), it had us take an illusory short cut
into traffic (I protested mightily to no avail), and we finally got
tired of sitting so bailed out on Broadway, which took us close to
the restaurant, so we decided to eat first. It was probably 6:30
when we pulled into the lot; we'd left the stadium at quarter to 5.

The food is still pretty good, and CNN still imagines it to be one
of the 50 best Chinese restaurants in the US, but it's pretty clunky
and coarse in the unobjectionable but by no means 50-besty way.

On the table, peanuts boiled in soy, plus shredded daikon and carrot,
both pretty good to whet the appetite, and thus free as appetizers
should be. No beer, so we both had iced tea ($1.50, free refills).

I ordered fried tofu, pan-fried Peking dumplings, and the noodles
in meat sauce (sometimes called Peking noodles), no longer available
in a spicy version. These came out fairly quickly but in reverse order.
The noodles were chewy and robust, tossed with a sweet-salty hoisin-
based ground pork sauce, and clumsily garnished with shredded iceberg
lettuce, cucumber, and scallions. A pretty nice dish. The dumplings
were clunky and unsightly, with thick wrappers a little overfried,
but the ample filling tasted good, and the dipping sauce was okay,
My bean curd (Bill tried one piece of it) was a pound of the stuff,
eight chunks in a cornstarch batter, nicely fried and with an
actually quite good dipping sauce but even better soaked in the
extra juices from the noodles. A quite pleasant overfilling dinner
for $15 each (a similar meal cost $10 each 5 years ago).

The Hampton Chandler is another cookie-cutter place, though it has
two more floors than those other Hamptons did. We got another
almost identical room, though this one was slightly upscaled
with more fashionable lamps and water spigots. There was a fridge,
though not a freezer, so we had to resort to the ice machine to
quick-chill the last couple beers, which had been in the hot car.
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