On the road

After returning from Spain, Dave and Rachal were once again wonderful as they allowed me to stay at their place for about week while they were on their honeymoon in exchange for my taking care of Garinger (the cat, not the school). After leaving Charlotte I then took off on the longest car ride of my life: a mere 3700 miles from Charlotte, NC to Corvallis, OR. The drive was not as bad as it sounds, though. I actually had a fabulous time in going to five Major League Baseball games and one AAA Baseball game with one of my best buds from college, Alex Kwak. I have pictures here. If you have access to Facebook, I highly recommend that you check out Alex's daily blog, complete with pictures and Kerouac quotes.

Otherwise I’ll give you the brief rundown. I left Charlotte and drove to Atlanta where I watched the Braves beat the Rockies in 10 innings. Additionally, both John Smoltz (200 wins and 250 saves) and Chipper Jones (2000 hits and 300 homeruns as a switch hitter) were honored before the game. After the game I drove to Nashville and picked up Alex. After a day of foosball, Target, and trivia with my friends James and Zach, Alex and I left for St. Louis where I bowled a turkey at the International Bowling Hall of Fame. Why, you ask? Because two museums are better than one. For one low price we received admission to the International Bowling Hall of Fame, a game of bowling, and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame (complete with McGwire’s 1962 Cardinal red Corvette) all in the same building.

Continuing through Missouri we found two of more of the world’s best museums in Kansas City: Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and American Jazz Museum, also in the same building for one low price. I highly recommend both of these museums as the former is filled with information, artifacts, and various media spanning the entire history of African-American baseball. I also bought a hat. AWESOME! The latter absolutely amazed me. This just might be the most interactive museum I have ever experienced. Complete with at least ten interactive music mixing stations this is less a visual museum and more a musical game room.

Leaving Kansas City we entered Kansas.

Then we arrived in Denver and I ate the greatest hamburger in the world at CityGrille. I’ve had better. I watched the Rockies lose for the second time in five days, but the best part of Denver was being with three of my future Ecuador Team members. John, Abbie, and Annie are all from Denver and not only did they join us at the baseball game, but they also showed us around some of the Denver nightlife. The night was made even more fun, thanks to Abbie’s clothes shopping. I am not entirely comfortable talking about my outfit…

Then we drove to San Francisco and watched a AAA game in Utah. There really are a lot of blonde-haired, light-skinned Mormons with big families in Utah. We decided to keep moving and figured the best course of action was to bust out the flux capacitor and go back in time as we entered Nevada at 88mph. Actually I was asleep and felt no ill effects from the time travel.

The Bay Area just might have been my favorite part of the trip for the following reasons, in no particular order:
1. View from AT&T Park
2. The Guzzler
3. The Twist-off
4. Alex setting a new record
5. Mexican Shawarma
6. A beach with neither water nor sand
7. Hippies who live in trees
8. I got my visa
9. Brokeback to the Future
10. Two consecutive nights in the same room
11. The UC Berkeley campus and football stadium
12. House of Curries
13. T-shirt orgy
14. Going from above 9000 feet to below SF Bay in less than 6 hours
15. Baby scaring apparati
16. But most of all, the best part was being reunited with both my college roommates: Eric Walle and Alex Kwak