Trip to the great American Southwest

[Pilgrimdawg]

We just returned from driving 4,417 miles to see a bunch of National Parks in the Southwest, and spend 3 days in Vegas ( the big Vegas, not ours) to celebrate the Mrs. Birthday and our anniversary. Great trip and we took a lot of the smaller highways and saw a bunch of the areas smaller towns. As we went through all of these small towns the thing that we noticed was that they mostly had modern, new looking schools but almost none of them had any athletic fields. They all had signs proclaiming their mascot name so I guess they played basketball. We were all over New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and SW Colorado. There was a football field in Cortez Colorado, and softball field in another small Colorado town, and we saw one youth soccer field in a tiny Utah community. That’s it. The rest had nothing. Some of those areas have winter weather issues and of course they would need a turf field in most areas since grass is a high maintenance thing out there, but it’s a real shame that those kids don’t get the opportunity to play many sports. We are so obsessed with it around here that we forget that it’s not that way everywhere.

 

[dorndawg]

Username checks out.

 

[L4Dawg]

We just returned from driving 4,417 miles to see a bunch of National Parks in the Southwest, and spend 3 days in Vegas ( the big Vegas, not ours) to celebrate the Mrs. Birthday and our anniversary. Great trip and we took a lot of the smaller highways and saw a bunch of the areas smaller towns. As we went through all of these small towns the thing that we noticed was that they mostly had modern, new looking schools but almost none of them had any athletic fields. They all had signs proclaiming their mascot name so I guess they played basketball. We were all over New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and SW Colorado. There was a football field in Cortez Colorado, and softball field in another small Colorado town, and we saw one youth soccer field in a tiny Utah community. That’s it. The rest had nothing. Some of those areas have winter weather issues and of course they would need a turf field in most areas since grass is a high maintenance thing out there, but it’s a real shame that those kids don’t get the opportunity to play many sports. We are so obsessed with it around here that we forget that it’s not that way everywhere.

We spent a week in the Four Corners area a couple of years ago. I saw a few fields, and a few signs proclaiming state champions. I specifically remember Cortez, Durango, one on the Navajo reservation, and Aztec NM.

 

[TaleofTwoDogs]

Like you said, it's probably too expensive to maintain a grass field in the arid conditions and an artificial turf field is not in their small budgets. Is it possible that they share a common field and bus their teams around? Hard to play on rocks and dry dirt.

 

[Pilgrimdawg]

Like you said, it's probably too expensive to maintain a grass field in the arid conditions and an artificial turf field is not in their small budgets. Is it possible that they share a common field and bus their teams around? Hard to play on rocks and dry dirt.

I dont know. We thought about that possibility but if they had any common fields anywhere we didn’t see them. I am guessing that they are more into things like Rodeo and winter activities like skiing. Only saw a couple of small community rodeo arenas so I don’t know. We did stop in one old time country store and the lady running it had 3 daughters that looked to be from about 8 to 11 years old and all 3 were working stocking shelves and cleaning up etc. no complaints and not fooling around. I told the lady that it was refreshing to see some kids actually doing some chores and she told me that they better doing them. Good for her.

 

[Pilgrimdawg]

We spent a week in the Four Corners area a couple of years ago. I saw a few fields, and a few signs proclaiming state champions. I specifically remember Cortez, Durango, one on the Navajo reservation, and Aztec NM.

Cortez and Durango are pretty neat. Cortez is where we saw the football field. If you happened to eat at the Farm Bistro in Cortez I’ll bet that you had a good meal.

 

[L4Dawg]

Cortez and Durango are pretty neat. Cortez is where we saw the football field. If you happened to eat at the Farm Bistro in Cortez I’ll bet that you had a good meal.

We passed through Cortez on the way to Monument Valley and back. We were staying in Durango. We never had a bad meal in Durango. It was good from the taco shops on up. Durango is one of my absolute favorite places I have ever been. They have a big HS athletic complex just north of downtown.

 

[TaleofTwoDogs]

We Six Packers can now mark our calendars for 10 years from now, so that on your return trip you will take pics of the 3 daughters to prove that it happen. LOL.

 

[Pilgrimdawg]

We Six Packers can now mark our calendars for 10 years from now, so that on your return trip you will take pics of the 3 daughters to prove that it happen. LOL.

I hope I’m still around in 10 years. Getting a little long in the tooth to be making those trips. Hopefully we still have a few good years left though!

 

[PooPopsBaldHead]

We just returned from driving 4,417 miles to see a bunch of National Parks in the Southwest, and spend 3 days in Vegas ( the big Vegas, not ours) to celebrate the Mrs. Birthday and our anniversary. Great trip and we took a lot of the smaller highways and saw a bunch of the areas smaller towns. As we went through all of these small towns the thing that we noticed was that they mostly had modern, new looking schools but almost none of them had any athletic fields. They all had signs proclaiming their mascot name so I guess they played basketball. We were all over New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and SW Colorado. There was a football field in Cortez Colorado, and softball field in another small Colorado town, and we saw one youth soccer field in a tiny Utah community. That’s it. The rest had nothing. Some of those areas have winter weather issues and of course they would need a turf field in most areas since grass is a high maintenance thing out there, but it’s a real shame that those kids don’t get the opportunity to play many sports. We are so obsessed with it around here that we forget that it’s not that way everywhere.

It's a mixed bag of reasons I imagine.

#1 Demographics. There are a lot of very poor small towns out there. If you have a high Native American population (which many of those spots do), there's not a lot of love from those communities for anything other than basketball. We have a 1a school a couple hours north of here that only plays basketball. They are 75% native American and will 17 you up. They're 79-3 over the last 3 years and destroy very good 5a schools. Lookup "Rezball". It's a big deal in the Southwest and intermountain west.

#2 Weather. We are playing in a summer baseball league (15u) in Central Idaho. We have 8 teams from 6 towns and play on our respective "High School Fields." Mostly 4,000-6000' in elevation except for one town down on the river at 1,000' elevation. 1 town has no field whatsoever. 4 of us have a multi use field that is absolutely garbage, and the other town is all in on baseball (low elevation town on the Clearwater River) and has one of the coolest high school fields I have ever seen.

It's very hard for us to get community buy in or funding for baseball at the high school level because there is usually snow in the ground through the end of the season. Our high school had 3 home games this year and it was the first home games since 2019. Heated turf is the only solution and it would cost millions we don't have.







#3 Other Activities. I'm sure the SW is like us in this way... There are so many other activities people have that pull kids away from stick and ball sports. My little baseball team is a perfect example. My best player is now gone for the season as he is mountain biking the entire CDT from Banff to New Mexico for the next month. My number two pitcher (who's Dad pitched in MLB) is going rafting for the next two weeks and will miss our last 5 games of the regular season as we fight for first place. I have a kid that is leaving before the end of season tournament to start training in Colorado for the biathlon/nordic season. Practically the whole team is gone next week for the local Church's summer camp. Going to have at least one forfeit it looks like.

And I am not much better... Prolly pulling my oldest out of football this year because it ruins fall fly fishing and elk hunting which he and I prefer over youth football.

So effectively, when the weather is good enough to use for fields, there is so much other stuff to do. If we could use our fields in the spring for baseball, after skiing/snowmobiling ends and before fishing/rafting/camping begins we'd put a lot more into it I think.

 

[PooPopsBaldHead]

Like you said, it's probably too expensive to maintain a grass field in the arid conditions and an artificial turf field is not in their small budgets. Is it possible that they share a common field and bus their teams around? Hard to play on rocks and dry dirt.

A lot of away games for sure. Towns that invest in facilities play at home quite a bit.

 

[DesertDawg]

Roswell has one big stadium called The Wool Bowl. Roswell High, Goddard High and New Mexico Military Institute all play there. A lot of 7 on 7 played out here and the bigger schools have artificial turf. A lot of school also have stadiums away from the actual school.

 

[Pilgrimdawg]

It's a mixed bag of reasons I imagine.

#1 Demographics. There are a lot of very poor small towns out there. If you have a high Native American population (which many of those spots do), there's not a lot of love from those communities for anything other than basketball. We have a 1a school a couple hours north of here that only plays basketball. They are 75% native American and will 17 you up. They're 79-3 over the last 3 years and destroy very good 5a schools. Lookup "Rezball". It's a big deal in the Southwest and intermountain west.

#2 Weather. We are playing in a summer baseball league (15u) in Central Idaho. We have 8 teams from 6 towns and play on our respective "High School Fields." Mostly 4,000-6000' in elevation except for one town down on the river at 1,000' elevation. 1 town has no field whatsoever. 4 of us have a multi use field that is absolutely garbage, and the other town is all in on baseball (low elevation town on the Clearwater River) and has one of the coolest high school fields I have ever seen.

It's very hard for us to get community buy in or funding for baseball at the high school level because there is usually snow in the ground through the end of the season. Our high school had 3 home games this year and it was the first home games since 2019. Heated turf is the only solution and it would cost millions we don't have.

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#3 Other Activities. I'm sure the SW is like us in this way... There are so many other activities people have that pull kids away from stick and ball sports. My little baseball team is a perfect example. My best player is now gone for the season as he is mountain biking the entire CDT from Banff to New Mexico for the next month. My number two pitcher (who's Dad pitched in MLB) is going rafting for the next two weeks and will miss our last 5 games of the regular season as we fight for first place. I have a kid that is leaving before the end of season tournament to start training in Colorado for the biathlon/nordic season. Practically the whole team is gone next week for the local Church's summer camp. Going to have at least one forfeit it looks like.

And I am not much better... Prolly pulling my oldest out of football this year because it ruins fall fly fishing and elk hunting which he and I prefer over youth football.

So effectively, when the weather is good enough to use for fields, there is so much other stuff to do. If we could use our fields in the spring for baseball, after skiing/snowmobiling ends and before fishing/rafting/camping begins we'd put a lot more into it I think.

This pretty much confirms what we speculated while on this trip with regard to sports. I am glad we made the trip and saw all of the neat national parks and other things. However, the desert southwest does not capture my soul like the northern Rockies. Much of it is a barren wasteland. Some of the better areas do produce some big mule deer though. Every time we go to the northern Rockies, I can’t wait to go back, the desert southwest is very neat in its own way, but it is a very different beauty. I’ll take the northern Rockies every time.