"Baseball, Hot Dogs and a Long-Ass Motorcycle Ride" page 4 (continued)
	My trip also afforded me the opportunity to spend time with family and friends, many of whom I had not seen in years. I visited friends in South Carolina, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Seattle, and saw my mom in northern California, but probably the most meaningful visit was with my dad. We saw a baseball game in L.A., something we had done only once before more than a decade ago. It was a sweet three hours he and I spent together. And of course there were the baseball stadiums. Yes, I did manage to visit all 28 ballparks including the two in Tampa Bay and Phoenix that would open the following year. (I brazenly walked into the Tampa Bay’s tropicana Field one day during construction. I acted as if I belonged there and, for the most part, was left alone while I took pictures of the renovation in progress. A short while later a Devil Ray’s employee almost apologetically asked if he could help me. I walked away with a free poster and a sticker with the team logo, and could have had some cake and champagne if I insisted. Unfortunately Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix was less accommodating; I couldn’t get past the construction trailers outside the ballpark.) Of all the ballparks I visited, my favorites were the old ones: Wrigley Field in Chicago and Fenway Park in Boston. I even liked Detroit’s Tiger Stadium. Very few sports retain a link to their past the way baseball does, and this is clear in our reverence of the older ballparks and in the design of newer ones with their nod to nostalgia. Each one of these great ballparks is worth a motorcycle trip by itself. I felt blessed I was able to see even one of these baseball meccas. Staying in a new place nearly every night I could not help feeling rootless, even a little homesick, but ironically I looked forward each day to riding my bike wherever it would take me. My little Yamaha became the one constant in the great unknown of my trip, and my confidence and faith in it grew each day it kept running. Because of this, I treated my motorcycle like a friend, a faithful assistant, and even talked to it on the loneliest stretches of road. For the duration of my trip, my bike was my Home. Nonetheless, the Virago lacked the shower and bed that accompany most homes. I attempted to control the largest of my expenses, lodging, by staying at youth hostels in the big cities, gaining access to some of the cheapest and most adventurous lodging around. Most were comparable to homeless shelters in odor and condition, but they were cheap and close to the ballparks, so I considered that a positive tradeoff. Perhaps best of all, I met some of the most memorable people in these hostels. The ultimate find was "David," a chubby, pale, redheaded fortysomething with the nickname "The White Man," or so he said. Being a psychic, a Buddhist and a marked man, David was quite busy both knowing the future and running from it, chanting all the while. For an average of fifteen bucks a night I couldn’t resist the chance that I would meet someone just as memorable as David at another hostel, seedy accommodations and all. The final stop on my baseball trip was the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. The town is important not only for the Hall of Fame but because it is the location where Abner Doubleday reputedly invented baseball. I slapped my forehead when I realized that visiting the supposed birthplace of baseball was an appropriate end to my baseball journey. The end of my journey at the beginning of baseball, the circle of life - it was so Zen-like. I slapped myself again for getting too philosophical. That night, the final night of my trip, the last few miles home were a blur. My heart pumped as loudly as the rumbling pistons on my noisy bike. For reasons I can’t explain, I began singing the National Anthem once, then again and again, more excitedly each time until I was sure people could hear me in spite of being muffled by my helmet as I negotiated my final offramp. Could it be, after nearly three months of encircling the United States by motorcycle, my trip was complete?
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