Having been to the Cactus League for Spring Training a couple times, I was looking forward to the dry Arizona sun. Shanon and Stephanie were "anxiously" awaiting our arrival in Tucson. My only hope was that we didn't run into Vincent Price at any of those ghost town jails from The Brady Bunch.
One of our regular fast food stops was Wendys. ("I thought it said Honolulu") While eating their combo meal #1 (no cheese, no tomoato), I recognized that we were getting further away from our comfort zone. The West Coast was familiar turf. I grew up in the Northwest, went to college in Santa Barbara, visited relatives in Oregon...etc. But now we were Eastward bound. A chance to see the country - live like a local....stuff like that. It brings about a little personal reflection. As I mentioned before, had Al Gore been a little quicker with his invention, we would have been totally plugged into our happennings at home, NBA playoffs, important stuff like that. But in reality, we weren't. Ten days on the road and I was feeling a little out of sorts.
Jase, while digesting his chili, always had a knack for keeping things light, keeping it real. He needed us to pull over for a little bathroom break. (Chili goes through the system real quick by the way) He yells from the backseat, "We're really breakin' out aren't we Nine?" And in a lot of ways, we were. It's not too often you can find somebody that quits their well-paying job to take a four-month hiatus across the country in a rented Bravada to see a game at every Major League Baseball stadium. To say the least, it was very liberating. A great feeling. No responsibilities, no wife, no kids, no job....when's the next time we're gonna to have an opportunity like this?
But on the other hand, it made me a little nervous. What am I going to do, get a job with one of these teams rakin' the field during the 5th inning? Settle down in Key West Florida with hopes that they get a baseball team nearby someday? You see, I'm a very practical person and practical people don't do trips like this. They don't just pack up and leave and say "I'll leave for tomorrow what I could have gotten done today". They just don't. But what I didn't realize is that I needed a little bit, or maybe a lot, of Jase's mentality in me. We NEEDED to do this. It forced a new way of thinking. It made me recognize that I'm the one (ME) responsible for my own happiness in life. Nobody else is required to bring it to me, just me. Let's tour this country and find out what it, and more importantly, what WE are all about. This can be cool. We can rock this anthem, y'all.
So after about 20 minutes, Jase came back from the honey bucket and we continued on our way to Tucson. Somehow, he found the Garth Brooks CD that Sem had been requesting since Santa Barbara and we listened to it for a while (maybe two songs), before reverting to our favorite band of the day, Jellyfish. At that point, all was well with the world. We were getting along great and excited for the weeks ahead.
Rolling into Shanon's place around dinner time, we quickly threw our suits on and headed to the hot tub. Sem had a lot more dead skin he hoped would float away. There was a pool, and a pond, in the middle of their complex just waiting for us to dive into. All of us agreed, the pond would be good for us. Later, after I shot the moon (again) in hearts, we retired for the evening, knowing full well that tomorrow would be a new adventure. Let me know if you're interested in getting on the mailing list for Click's Billiards. Jase has their number.
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