The Phallic Road Trip

Back in New York; the apartment hunt begins.

Yesterday morning, I left St. Louis early, connecting in Chicago on my way back to New York. At around 4:30 in the afternoon, I got to my friend Ruben’s place, where I’ll be staying until we find an apartment. We began searching the web for places, before grabbing dinner. Afterwards, I headed out to Town Tavern to meet a few friends, but didn’t stay out late.

We have our first meeting with a broker tomorrow at 11.

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Tuesday, John and I slept in before making our way to the Gateway Arch — St. Louis’s iconic national monument. We spent most of the late afternoon there, making our way to the top of the 630-ft structure in tiny capsules and watching a documentary that illustrated the Arch’s construction.

Including the Gateway Arch, we had made our way to a dozen national parks, monuments and recreation areas this summer — from the Badlands to Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier, the Redwoods, Alcatraz, Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon, Zion and the Arches National Park — not including the many different national forests we wound through.

Later that night, we sat down with John’s parents and flipped through the pictures from all of those stops, including the different cities and ballparks we visited.

It was fun to go back and relive the slideshow, but there was inevitably a lot that wasn’t captured in the pictures — hopefully the stories from this blog will help jog my memory in the future.

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Setting out to see all of these ballparks was rewarding in its own right, but what made it so special was the excuse it gave us to see so many different parts of the country — including many different cities that we might not have gone to otherwise.

Of course, there is no way that we could see everything we did in great depth; many of these national parks and cities would take several days — if not weeks — to truly experience. But we were able to form many different first impressions that we hope to build on in the future.

Picking a favorite baseball park, national park or city from these last two summers is really difficult, because we had very different experiences at each.

Our last game in Coors Field was fantastic, not as much for the park, but for the crowd, high-scoring game and fireworks we had. The rocks in Arches National Park were incredible to climb, but the same could’ve been said for Yellowstone had we not been caught in a snowstorm. Big cities like San Francisco were fascinating, but Seattle and Calgary were really a blast, thanks to our great hosts — Will and Andrea.

Inevitably though, with seeing all 30 ballparks, the main question that arises is: which was your favorite?

I thought it would be easy to answer, but it’s really not.

Wrigley and Fenway in Chicago and Boston are both historical gems; the roof in Miller Park in Milwaukee is retractable, but the design retains the feel of an open-air park; Seattle’s Safeco Field highlights the city’s picturesque skyline when sitting on the first base side, as does Pittsburgh’s PNC Park from the third base side; AT&T Park in San Francisco overlooks a beautiful bay.

And newer parks in Washington DC and St. Louis offer a number of modern conveniences like wider concourses and more concessions — as do many of the parks built in the last decade, from Philadelphia to Anaheim.

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But for the best park, I’m inclined to agree with John’s appreciation for Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore.

Opened in 1992, it started the current wave of “retro” ballparks that offer throwback facades designed to replicate much older parks. But once inside, many of these new ballparks lose that “old-time” feel, spoiled by chains like Panda Express and gimmicky outfield distractions like slides, waterfalls, pools and tacky advertisements.

Camden Yards, however, maintains a careful balance of more modern amenities with the simplicity of a more barren, original ballpark experience.

From the outside, the park is designed to look like another warehouse in the midst of an industrial yard. The inside is simple, with an open concourse that ends at the pedestrian-only Eutaw St. in right field — a street with unique shops and restaurants — and a picnic ground in center field for families, underneath an unobtrusive scoreboard that will soon be replaced with a clearer television panel.

Located in downtown Baltimore, on the site of a former major rail station, across from the convention center and near the city’s Inner Harbor district, it really feels like part of the community — though unfortunately for Baltimore fans, the team hasn’t made the playoffs since 1997.

It was one of the parks that we saw a year ago, in June 2007, but one that still really stands out.

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At least four ballparks will be replaced in the next five years — two in New York and one in both Minneapolis and Oakland — with two more parks being discussed in Miami and Tampa.

With the three of us each going in different directions, each new park opening will give us an excuse to meet somewhere for a weekend and see a new park for what we hope will last a lifetime.

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Leaving Town Tavern tonight, I had to correct myself and get on the uptown subway track. I’ve always lived downtown, but Ruben and I are looking for places in Midtown Manhattan, near where I’ll soon be working as a management consultant. Though we still may end up in a different neighborhood, living up here around Hell’s Kitchen would take some adjusting.

Changing subway platforms though pales in comparison to the steps John and Justin are taking — with John heading off to Pasadena this fall to begin completing a PhD in applied math at Caltech and Justin heading back to Chicago to work and prepare for dental school.

For me, full-time work begins in August. Once that begins, taking six weeks off to travel across the country will only be a dream.

But having completed more than 10,000 miles over these last two summers, my wanderlust has been quenched.

In the next few days, I’ll post a final photo album of our stops between Phoenix and St. Louis, so check back.

But unless John and Justin have any final comments, this will do it for our blog.

Thanks for reading!

Slept in this morning, about to go grab lunch.

Today is my last day in St. Louis. Tomorrow, I fly to Chicago and connect to a flight to New York.

Yesterday, John and I stuck around the house, leaving only briefly to go to the grocery store. After eating lunch with his parents, John began unpacking his college stuff that he sent home, while I sorted through some of last week’s pictures.

Towards the end of the afternoon, we hopped in the pool. For dinner, we grilled the remaining brats and burgers before spending the night lounging around the TV. I got my laundry out of the way, so I won’t have to do that back in New York.

After lunch, we’re going to head downtown, most likely heading up the Gateway Arch and walking along the Riverfront.

We didn’t look through all of the pictures last night, so we’ll probably do that after dinner.

Unfortunately, my flight tomorrow is early, so we won’t be up too late tonight.

Yesterday was a hot one.

We made it out to Busch Stadium at around 1:30 for yesterday’s game between the Cardinals and Cubs. Though we did get some shade as the sun set behind the third base side, we sweated through a 7-1 win by the Cubs — our final game of the trip.

We headed back to John’s place after the game, stopping off at Schnucks to get burgers and brats that we would later grill. With the Olympic trials and a Yankees/Red Sox game on last night, we stuck around the TV rather than hop in the pool.

Didn’t make it to bed until pretty late, watching late night television and old episodes of 30 Rock.

Justin headed back to Chicago this morning. Originally, I was to drive back with him tomorrow, but since he decided to get back to his family a little early, I’ve changed my plans and booked a short flight to Chicago for Wednesday morning, from where I’ll fly to New York.

While today has been pretty lazy, it’s been good. Sometime after dinner, we’re planning on hooking up my external hard drive to the family’s big screen TV and scrolling with his parents through the nearly 4,500 pictures I took over these last six weeks.

Tomorrow, we’ll probably head out and see some of St. Louis, though I’m not sure what we might do.

Regardless, after so long on the road, it’s nice to just relax in a house before making my way back to New York in a few days.

Survived yesterday’s marathon drive across Kansas and into Missouri. We got into John’s house here in St. Louis at around midnight, hanging out a little longer to catch our breath and watch Mall Rats.

This morning, we took Justin’s car for an oil change and full detail for the drive back to Chicago. Forgoing lunch around the house to save our appetites for the park.

We’re picking up John’s friend, Joe, in a few minutes and heading to Busch Stadium for this afternoon’s 2 o’clock game between the Cardinals and the Cubs. Though it’s hot, so far it feels bearable.

Afterwards, we’re heading back to John’s, hopping in the pool and barbecuing.

After a busy week making our way across the country, it’ll be great to just relax and cool off.

Burgers, brats, beer, baseball and fireworks.

Yesterday morning, we left Grand Junction, stopping off at Sonic for some drive-in burgers. From there, we finished the about 250-mile drive to Denver, across Colorado and some of the most beautiful scenery we’ve seen since British Columbia.

We made great time, getting to the park a little over two hours before the first pitch. We beat the crowds to a nearby bar called Lodo’s, where we grabbed pints. Justin left early to go check out the park, while John and I hung around.

We caught the start of the game on the TVs at the bar, watching the Marlins jump out to a quick 5-0 lead. When Florida scored another two in the top of the 2nd, taking a 7-1 lead, we decided to take our time, since the game didn’t look very interesting.

We finally walked over to the park in the 4th, at which point Florida was up 13-4. In the 5th, I decided to explore the park, searching for the mini-doughnuts that the New York Times had raved about. Ended up having to go all the way down to the field level (we were in the 300 section), near the first base foul pole; but I found them and they were delicious.

I got back between the 5th and 6th to see that the Rockies had closed the Marlins’ lead to four — suddenly, we had a close game.

With three more in the 6th, the Rockies brought the score to 13-12; the Marlins added another four in the top of the 7th, before a Matt Holliday grand slam in the bottom of the 7th gave us a 17-16 game.

In the bottom of the 9th, Garrett Atkins hit an RBI-single before the Rockies loaded the bases — with no outs — setting up a walk-off single by Chris Iannetta, scoring Holliday and giving the Rockies an 18-17 win.

For our 30th ballpark, John and I couldn’t have asked for a much better game.

Holliday told the AP afterwards: “If people came for the fireworks, they got more than the postgame fireworks. They got their money’s worth. Almost 40 runs, 40 hits.”

The postgame fireworks presumably were the reason that over 48,000 fans showed up for the game, making for a nearly packed house and a great environment to watch a come-from-behind win like last night’s.

Had we been sitting in the outfield, we could’ve gone down and sat on the field to watch the fireworks, but we had great upper deck seats behind home plate to catch the show. Always tough to get good pictures of fireworks, but got a few good videos.

We got on the road for a short while after the show, settling in Limon, Colorado, leaving us a little over 700 miles to traverse today, across what will be an uneventful drive through Kansas.

We’ll get to St. Louis tonight, where we’ll spend the next three nights at John’s place. Though yesterday was our last new ballpark, we still have one more game between the Cardinals and Cubs tomorrow afternoon at Busch Stadium. John and I saw a game there last year; for Justin, it will be his 25th park.

It was funny. Thursday night, the three of us sat around debating which parks we liked best and what had been the best game we had ever been to.

Though I’m still going to have to put some thought into my favorite park, the best game definitely was last night’s: the perfect combination of an All-American game on Independence Day with two great friends, along with beer, brats and fireworks.

30 down, 0 to go.

Made a bigger push yesterday so that we wouldn’t be on the road too much today. Currently in Grand Junction, Colorado, about 250 miles outside of Denver, which we’ll cover this afternoon.

Tonight’s game between the Rockies and Marlins at Coors Field is at 6, so we have plenty of time to grab lunch and make our way into the city.

Yesterday, we left Kanab and made our way to Zion early. The drive through Zion is short, though there is a lot to do there. Unfortunately, we only had time to stick to the main route — a beautiful 30-minute drive along UT-9.

We were through the park by 11; from there, we drove the about 350 miles across Utah, making our way towards Moab and Arches National Park. We first checked out Delicate Arch — the iconic rock that graces that Utah license plates. After that, we headed towards the Double Arch, where we climbed around and took a bunch of pictures.

Fortunately, we were there late in the day; while it was still hot, it was bearable.

Leaving Arches around 7, we crossed into Colorado, winding towards Grand Junction along the Colorado River on I-70 as the sun set.

Before leaving the hotel, we just watched the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, a July 4th tradition. After seeing that, I’m not sure I can eat a hot dog at tonight’s game. The New York Times recommends the mini-doughnuts at the park, so we’ll have to check those out.

Tonight does it: 30 ballparks in two summers.

No better day to do it than on July 4th.

Made decent progress yesterday, but we have a pretty big day of driving ahead of us.

Yesterday, we set out from Flagstaff for the Grand Canyon, which we arrived at sometime around 1. We entered through the South Rim entrance and headed east along the Desert View route, which wound along the canyon for about 30 miles.

A few years ago, my parents and I drove around the area, but I was still taken aback by its sheer size. We pulled off at a couple of viewing platforms, and stopped off at the Desert View Watchtower, where I got out and snapped some pictures.

All told, we were only in the park for about two hours, but needed to get on the road to gain some ground for today.

We headed up AZ-89, through over a hundred miles of barren Navajo territory. Looking at a map, it does look like there are some bigger Navajo settlements to the east, but what we drove through was rather empty.

Right before the Utah border, we hit Page, Arizona, where we briefly stopped to see part of Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Dam. With about 100 miles to Zion National Park from there, we continued along 89, stopping off about 40 miles before the park in a small town called Kanab, Utah, where we stayed for the night.

Today, we’re finishing the drive into Zion. Unfortunately, as with most of these parks, we don’t have a ton of time to explore, but we’ll see what we can from the main route.

We’re hoping to be out of Zion by noon, so that we can make the approximately 350-mile drive from there to Moab, outside of Arches National Park. If we can get there by around 6, we should still have enough sunlight to see the main sights. It’s a smaller park, so it should be pretty manageable.

It’s all coming to an end quickly. Today is our last day of national park sightseeing. Tomorrow, we’ll finish the drive into Denver for our last new ballpark. From there, we’ll make our way across Kansas and Missouri, into St. Louis for one last game, before finishing in Chicago on Tuesday.

29 down, 1 to go.

Last night, we made our way to Chase Field in Phoenix to catch a game between the Brewers and the Diamondbacks. Randy Johnson gave up seven runs in the first three innings, before being pulled. While the Diamondbacks chipped away at the lead for the rest of the game, they fell short, losing 8-6.

Fortunately — as in Houston — the park in Phoenix has a retractable roof because it was hot yesterday. As we were driving in, the GPS read 109 degrees. Later that night, on the highway heading up to Flagstaff — where we crashed for the night — the temperature read 98.

We didn’t have the most exciting of drives yesterday from Los Angeles to Phoenix. Aside from a small city called Blythe at the California/Arizona border, the drive along I-10 was across desert as far as the eye could see.

We hit some construction traffic coming into Phoenix, but still were able to make it to Tempe to meet John and Justin’s friend, Jamie, for Whataburger. John went for the double, but unfortunately couldn’t stomach it, despite how excited he was to make it there.

After dropping Jamie off, we headed towards the field, walking to our seats right as the first pitch was thrown. We had some pretty obnoxious Brewers fans behind us, but they calmed down after Milwaukee took a big lead.

Still torn with whether or not I liked Miller Park in Milwaukee or this park more, in terms of retractable roof stadiums. This one definitely had more going on on the concourses; Justin and I got totally unnecessary Panda Express in the 7th. While we munched, John met up with his uncle and cousins, who were also at the game.

Today, we’re finishing the about 90-mile drive to the Grand Canyon, where we’ll stop before heading towards Zion National Park. We’ll probably sleep somewhere near Zion, so that we can see it in the morning before heading towards the Arches, and then to Denver.

Little cooler today, since we’re at a higher altitude — only 83. It’s not that I couldn’t handle the heat if I ever had to live in Phoenix, but it would definitely take some getting used to.

For the first time in about two weeks, we have a pretty big day of driving ahead of us.

We’re leaving LA this morning, making what should be about a 375-mile drive today to Phoenix. If we get on the road by 11 — after letting some of the morning rush hour die down — we should be able to make it there in time to grab something to eat before tonight’s 6:40 game between the Diamondbacks and Brewers.

We’ve been taking it easy in LA, not to tire ourselves too much for this final upcoming push to St. Louis in the next few days. After sleeping in yesterday, we grabbed lunch near the hotel and left early for Anaheim.

Google said that the 31-mile drive would take about 40 minutes, but that in traffic, it could take almost two hours; so we left at around 2, putting us there at around 3, well ahead of the game.

We drove around Anaheim for a little while — past the convention center and Disneyland. Without much else to do, we settled at a Hooters for a few drinks. John described our bartender the best: “She was fun,” he said. “Disproportionate, but fun.” We were in “Silicone Valley” of all places.

We got to the game about an hour early, making our way all the way to the top — our seats were in the very last row of the highest section. Sounds bad, but the newer stadiums do a pretty good job of stacking rows in the upper levels to make you feel closer. And we were pretty much right behind home plate, so we got a good overall look at the park.

Unfortunately, the game wasn’t too exciting. The A’s scored two in the 2nd, before the Angels responded with one — their only run of the game — in the 5th. Four more runs spread out over the last three innings gave the A’s a 6-1 win. No Rally Monkey magic for the Angels last night.

Didn’t take us too long to get back after the game. Watched some TV and got some sleep for today’s drive.

John has some family in Arizona, so we’ll try to grab dinner with his uncle before the game. The only other main stop on our agenda is Whataburger, which John and I have been craving for a while — Justin has yet to have it. The chain is across the South, but the only place it is along our route is near Phoenix.

Still need to go back and look at our plan for the next couple of days, but after Phoenix, we’ll start making our way to Denver, with stops at the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park and hopefully the Arches.

Regardless, we have to be in Denver for July 4th for a game between the Rockies and Marlins at Coors Field, where John and I can toast to seeing our 30th and final stadium.