Ever since the 2007 Diamondbacks schedule was released I knew I wanted to go to Opening Day. I kept mentioning it to Trina in hopes that she would get the hint. Her reply was, “You always go to Opening Day at Chase Field.†Ah but this year Opening Day was in Denver Colorado. This led to several discussions where finally she relented and agreed that it might be best for my sanity and hers if I made the road trip to see the Diamondbacks even if she didn’t understand why I couldn’t wait 9 days until they returned home to Phoenix. Armed with my credit card and my wife’s permission I began making plans for my road trip. First I acquired game tickets and followed that up with hotel reservations. Now all that was left was to load the car, tune my XM radio to the Major League Baseball channel, set my GPS system and the cruise control, and head north. Early in the planning stages for this trip Trina has laid down the law that I was not to take the kids out of school nor would she accompany me on this boondoggle. I am not sure whether she thought that would persuade me that this idea of going to Coors Field in Denver Colorado was ludicrous. If that was her idea, she sorely underestimated my resolve when it comes to baseball. Instead I made arrangements for my friend Mitch Jarvis to accompany me on this trip. He has never been to an out of town baseball game so this is either going to be enlightening or frightening and he will come away a avid baseball fan or he’ll need substantial amounts of therapy. Either way I’ll be at the Opening Day game for the Diamondbacks so it’s all good.
Our plan was to leave at 6:30 AM in the morning. According to MapQuest the journey would take us 13.5 hours from Phoenix and cover a distance of 1378 miles. Before going to bed last night I loaded everything I would need for the trip. Mentally I ran through the checklist. Authentic Gray Road Jersey, Black and Sedona Red sweatshirt, Under Armor undershirt, authentic Sedona Red Hat, game tickets, temporary seat cushion, peanuts (you never know whether a visiting team has the necessities of life such as peanuts), black and Sedona Red jacket, and a pair of socks. I had all I needed for a successful road trip. We got in the car and headed north on the 101. Mitch and I started talking about baseball as soon as we got in the car and I have to admit I was more involved in the discussion than I was in my driving. I was not inattentive, just that I could have been paying closer attention especially to the speedometer. A flash of light came from the shoulder of the road and I looked down to find I was going 80 miles an hour in a 65 mile an hour zone. I’m not sure but I think I was just the victim of a photo radar. It looks like this trip just got a little more expensive. The most pathetic part is that I never speed and have never gotten a speeding ticket in my life. Well I guess I will get to experience an entire culture of the legal system and traffic school so that should make for some interesting blog entries.
We got on Interstate 17 and headed north and I paid much closer attention to my driving. According to MapQuest our journey would go up I-17 to Flagstaff where we would catch I-40 to Albuquerque New Mexico. We would then take I-25 north to Denver and in 13.5 hours we would be at our destination. The weather was beautiful with just a few clouds in an otherwise brilliant blue sky. Along the way we stopped for gas and pit stops. That is always an interesting experience. You come in contact with a demographic of people that few of us ever meet otherwise. Take for example the McDonalds we stopped at in Winslow. In the men’s restroom there was what looked like a homeless person and he was brushing his teeth. I never really stopped to think about the dental hygiene of the homeless but after this experience I am much more appreciative of their circumstances. I always felt that I took decent care of my teeth. I brush several times daily and even floss once in a while. But the actual time I spend doing this is trivial to the time the homeless put into this effort. There was a line to use the facilities at the McDonalds restrooms so I had 5-10 minutes to spend observing his effort. He was brushing when I got into the line and he was still brushing after I was done, washed and leaving. If I didn’t have a destination I was trying to get to it might have been educational to see just how long that guy did brush and whether there was flossing and mouthwash involved afterwards. I made a note to myself that if I ever go back to college to get a PhD in psychology I now have a subject for my dissertation. I can’t imagine that anyone has done research on the correlation of gum disease and homelessness. I’m also going to start taking all of those free toothbrushes that my dentist gives me and whenever I have a homeless person stop me for money I am going to give them one as it seems tooth brushes would be much more valuable than any change I may have in my pocket.
The drive was fun, we discussed the 25 man roster and how each of us thought the Diamondbacks would do this season. We talked about Robby Hammock and how cool it was for him to return from his injuries to make the Opening Day roster. The time flew by and before I knew it we were in Denver Colorado. MapQuest was relatively accurate in their directions and with only one wrong turn we arrived at the hotel where we were staying. I checked in and we brought out bags into the hotel. As we were walking through the lobby I saw Chris Young on his cell phone. It always seems so weird to see the players outside the field. As a fan you sometimes think these guys just live in their uniforms.
After a 13.5 hour drive you would think I would be exhausted but this was Opening Day Eve and I knew there would be little sleeping done tonight. Instead I laid there reliving the previous 9 Opening Days I had attended and wondered how this one would compare. I can’t wait for tomorrow to arrive.
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