Day 13...The Longest Drive

We had to wake up fairly early on Saturday morning because we had quite the drive in front of us: nearly 875 miles from Baltimore to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, where Eric's girlfriend lived. I'm not exactly sure why we incorporated this into our trip, but we had to get him back to Northwestern for summer classes, and though Manitowoc certainly wasn't on the way, it didn't add that much to our trip.

The plan was to hit the road by 6:00 am, so I was up and in the shower not long after 5:00. While the water fell on my very tired body, I heard Eric’s voice in a loud whisper from the bathroom door asking where I put the keys to the car. The night before, I had borrowed them to get something from the car. Unfortunately we soon came to find out that I must have set them down on the dashboard and locked them inside the vehicle because that’s where they were!

After the two of us tried fruitlessly to break into the car, Eric called AAA. They said they’d send someone out and they’d be there in the next hour. Or two. Long story short, by the time we actually got out it was after 8:00 EDT. After a later than anticipated start, we were on the road. 

There are two other things, I remember about that day. When we arrived in Manitawoc it was 10:30 pm CST. The reason I remember that is that the opening to Saturday Night Live was on as we came into the house. The other thing I remember is that in the 15 1/2 hours on the road that day, we played A LOT of Strat-o-matic baseball.

The trip was winding to a close, but what an adventure it had been!

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Miles driven today: 873 miles

Total miles driven: 3,245 miles

Days 5 & 6...Buffalo

My paternal grandfather (after whom I'm named) passed away when he was still in his fifties, and four years later my grandmother remarried. Not only was it a wonderful thing for her to be able to spend the next couple decades with the man we referred to back then as "Grandpa Jim," we also got the benefit of adding more people to our family, as Jim had four children of his own. Included among these was his daughter Kathy who lived in the Buffalo area with her husband and three children, who in June of 1992 ranged in age from 10 to 14.

So it was that Buffalo served as a nice mid-trip rest stop for us. It was good to have a chance to kind of catch our breath. While there, we were treated to wonderful hospitality and a family Wiffle ball game in the back yard. If we couldn't watch baseball, we'd play it!

Later Friday night, we took in game 5 of the NBA Finals. With the series tied at two games apiece, a certain future minor league baseball player led the Chicago Bulls to a 119-106 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers.

After Friday night's fun, we spent a good portion of Saturday, sitting out back of their house, playing Strat-o-Matic. We had a little portable TV out with us, on which we watched the NBC Game of the Week. The Red Sox were still in Toronto and it was fun to follow the action as we had just seen these two teams play each other a couple days earlier, and had a heightened level of familiarity with them.

What made it even more interesting was the fact that when Boston won by a score of 5-3, Jeff Reardon picked up the save (the 341st of his career) tying him with  Rollie Fingers for the all-time Major League record. After a visit to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, our next stop on the trip was going to be Boston, so there was a chance looming in the not too distant future that we'd get to see Reardon become the all-time MLB saves king.

Well, if we were going to be ready for a full day Sunday at the Hall, that meant we needed to get to Cooperstown Saturday night. So we loaded up the car and headed east late Saturday afternoon, arriving about four hours later at Glimmerglass State Park, just across Otsego Lake from the Baseball Hall of Fame. We set up camp there and prepared for our visit the next day. 

Miles Driven Today: 236
Total Miles Driven: 1,431

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Day 1...The Trip Begins

When you come up with a plan to travel across the country, there are a number of details you have to take care of. One of these is answering the question, "How are we going to get from one city to another?" This question was especially pertinent to us as neither of us owned an automobile. Fortunately for us, Eric's dad had a Nissan Sentra that he was willing to loan us. He lived near the hospital at which he worked, and this time of year he could ride his bike there.

Eric was still taking classes at Northwestern, which ran on a trimester schedule that was different from most schools. In order for our schedule to work, I was going to have to get the car from his dad and meet him on campus in Evanston, just north of Chicago after he finished final exams. My mom dropped me off at Mr. Hendrickson's house to pick up the vehicle, I loaded it up with my things, and I was on my way.

The drive across Illinois was a nice, uneventful one. I had gone on a trip to Florida with Eric and his dad the previous summer, so I was familiar with the vehicle. I imagine that these days, my 6-foot-4 frame might not fit as comfortably in that vehicle, but my young knees didn't have any problem back in 1992!

That night at Eric's (mostly cleaned out) dorm, we spent the evening watching the Cardinals play the Cubs on WGN and playing Strat-o-Matic baseball ourselves. For those who don't know, "Strat" is a baseball board game that has been around since the early 1960s which tries to replicate the players' actual performance with a  high level of statistical accuracy. Each year, Eric and I would get the new year's player cards, draft a couple teams worth of players, and play countless games against each other. We figured to play a lot of Strat while not at Stadiums over the next couple weeks.

It was a Monday, and the Cards and Cubs had a doubleheader. Neither team was all that spectacular in 1992, with the Cardinals finishing up at 83-79 while the Cubs went 78-84. In the first game, the two teams were scoreless in the sixth when Cubs relief pitcher Jim Bullinger hit a home run off Cardinal hurler Rheal Cormier. The Cardinals answered in the bottom of the sixth when Todd Zeile doubled home Felix Jose.

Neither team would score again until the 13th inning when the Cubs tallied four off Juan Agosto. Jose hit a homer in the bottom half to cut the lead to three, but almost four and a half hours after the game had started, the final score was 5-2. And they had another game yet to play!

In the second game, the Cubs jumped on top in the first and never relinquished their lead. Future Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg hit a home run along the way, and after 8+ hours of baseball, the Cards had dropped two to their rivals from Chicago. Nevertheless, our spirits were high: We had spent the evening enjoying Strat (if not the Cardinals) and we knew that the next day would finally bring the first game on our trip!


Miles Driven Today: 321
Total Miles Driven: 321

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