Truly a night for the record books!!!

PHILS WIN! PHILS WIN!! The Philadelphia Phillies won their first World Series since 1980 (first in my lifetime, for sure). It's also only their second championship EVER! My home city, the City of Brotherly Love, is alive tonight!

This is truly a night that I will never forget. I left Elgin, IL this afternoon after bidding many of my close friends and former co-workers/fellow Brethren farewell. As we made our final descent into Philadelphia, I was thinking just how great it would be to fly into PHL right by Citizens Bank Park. Well, I was fortunate to have the window seat on the right side of the plane (16F). I looked out my small airplane window and saw the stadium, all lit-up, with fans ready to explode! Sure enough, less than 3 hours later, we now have our chance!

The irony of it all is that I, a die-hard Phillies Phanatic and lover of all Philadelphia sports, have been silent through it all. I lost my voice earlier today after talking to everyone during my whirlwind trip to Chicagoland. It was quite an experience. I wrote notes and cheers and disappointments down on a legal pad that my mom read aloud to my dad so that he knew what I was trying to express. I'll admit, at times it was a little frustrating. My parents didn't quite always understand my short-hand. Nevertheless, this is definitely one baseball game that I will never forget.

All of my grandparents were Phillies fans. Both of my parents have always told me about how their parents would listen to Phillies games on the radio. I know they'd all be happy and celebrating here with us right now. The last time the Phillies won the World Series was 1980, the year my parents got married. Tug McGraw was on the mound. He struck out Willie Wilson to phinish the Kansas City Royals. 28 years later... same result. The most dominant closer in the league, Brad Lidge, struck out Eric Hinske and the Fightin' Phils ended the Tampa Bay Rays World Series historic run.

103. This is the number of games that the Phillies won this year. Incredible. So much excitement! So much phun. This is Phantastic! This is good-night for me but certainly not for the city that gave birth to our country--Philadelphia.

CONGRATS PHILLIES AND ALL MY FELLOW PHILLY PHANATICS!!

Day 18... last night in a motel!

I never knew how beautiful eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina are until today. Dad and I split the less than five hour journey from Nashville over the Appalachians (pronounced "ap a lay shin" or "ap a latch in", depending on where you were brought up) and through the valley of the Blue Ridge Mountains to Asheville. Asheville by the way is a pretty "cook" city as a friend of mine accurately portrayed it to me a while back! Upon our arrival, we ate Sunday dinner at Shoney's. I was my first time at a Shoney's since the last time I was in North Carolina--1995.

The rest of the day was pretty much spent watching football. The Eagles weren't on the local Fox station, so we were stuck watching the Cowgirls, as I used to call them when I was 8. Well, it turned out to be okay. The Eagles beat the 49ers, and the Cardinals stunned the Cowboys! It's always a good day when the Eagles win and the Cowboys lose. Unfortunately, our string of good luck ran out tonight: the Phillies lost pretty badly to the Dodgers. The series is now 2-1, Phils.

Highlights from today:

• Autumn foliage all around in the Blue Ridge Mountains
• Pumpkin pie blizzard for supper tonight
• 5, count 'em, 5 servings of Sweet Tea today

Tomorrow, I'll be driving the first 5 1/2 hours of our journey. We're headed up I-81 to the Shenendoah Valley! I'll be disembarking in Bridgewater, while my parents are continuing on to South Jersey. I'm pretty jazzed. This will be my first time in that area.

What a great trip it has been! I am thankful for lifetime memories and safe travels.

Day 17... Nashville Skyline

I felt it fitting to listen to one of Bob Dylan's most country-sounding albums, Nashville Skyline, today as we drove through the "Athens of the South". I love the sound of Bob's music on that album. It's so carefree and relaxing; soothing to the ears. I love Bob Dylan.

Unfortunately, we never made it to any of the hotspots in downtown Nashville. Exhausted, not from today's travel but the previous two days' travel, we arrived at our motel and relaxed. Dad and I watched some big college football games. Penn State won big tonight over Wisconsin. They remain undefeated! For dinner, we walked across the street to Cracker Barrel for the second straight night and the fourth time this trip. We hurried through the meal to get back to watch Penn State dominate the Badgers.

Tomorrow night will be our last night staying in a motel for a while. How will I ever live? Subtract the "N" from Nashville and add an "e", and that's where we're headed tomorrow: Asheville, NC.

Day 16... looooong travel day

After about 11 1/2 hours on the road, we arrived in Little Rock, Arkansas. Our trip, for the most part, was uneventful. It did, however, take us a little while to get out of Odessa this morning due to some confounding construction. The highlights of our journey:

• low price of gas was $2.79 a gallon just outside of Dallas
• Waffle House hit the spot and gave me Alice's Sweet Tea to-go
• We picked up the Phillies/Dodgers game on Espn Radio and were able to listen to the game for most of the ride
• Phils won, 8-5 and now lead the series, 2-0!!

Tomorrow we're only going as far as Nashville, TN. The 350 miles we have to travel tomorrow will seem like nothing following the 670 we did today. I am grateful for this time with my parents, no matter how interminable the car-rides have seemed.

Day 15... back on the road

After a final breakfast with Katie at Paradise Cafe, we left Tucson and headed for Texas. The drive was a little somber as we had to say hasta luego to Katie. It wasn't quite as sad for me because I will see Katie in ten days in Boston!

Our travels from Tucson to Odessa, Texas were very uneventful. Dad, Mom, and I had periods of good discussion about all kinds of topics. I drove two shifts and dad drove two. One of mine was 3 hours and 20 minutes. I hadn't drove that long straight through since going out to Juniata a few years ago. We covered around 620 miles today. The bad news, tomorrow we are hoping to go 640.

When we arrived in Odessa, the Phillies were trailing 2-0 to the Dodgers in the first game of the NL championship series. Within a few minutes of turning on the game in our motel room, Chase Utley hit a 2-run home run to tie the game. Two batters later, Pat Burrell hit a solo shot to take the lead! Brad Lidge came in to save the game in the 9th. The Phils won the first game of this series! It was a good way to relax after a long trip. Let's hope for the same result tomorrow, when the Phils play the Dodgers in Game 2.

Day 14 - Katie's birthday!!... day 8 in Tucson

Today it is Katie's birthday. We met her for breakfast at the usual time. We went to Breugger's Bagels. It was very good. We split a bagel bundle and shared some cream cheese. The best part is they had pumpkin spice coffee. I love when autumn rolls around and I can get pumpkin almost anything. After a great birthday breakfast with Katie, Mom, Dad, and I headed down to Tombstone. Upon our arrival, I felt as though we had stepped back a century. The first thing we saw in Tombstone was an historama on 19th century, Tombstone, AZ. The rest of the time there we walked around the small wild west town. We also got to see the building where the newspaper, the Tombstone Epitaph, was printed.

One of the coolest things about Tombstone was the O.K. Corral Museum. The Corral was the site of the infamous gunfight which took place between Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and company and the Clanton brothers and some friends. They had life-size representations of the eight men involved at the scene of where the gunfight occurred. There was an audio commentary that gave an account of what really took place on October 26, 1881.

Once we got back to Tucson, we cleaned out a lot of papers from the car and began to pack up our things in the motel room. Tomorrow we hit the road again. Our first stop on our trip back is in Odessa, Texas.

After Katie finished her classes, we went to Sweet Tomatoes for the second straight Wednesday. This time, we went to celebrate Katie's 26th birthday. We had a great time. In addition to the food being plentiful, fresh, and savory, the atmosphere was wonderful. I think it was one of the best meals that we've had together.

After the meal, we came back to the motel so that Katie could open up some presents. We all relaxed and enjoyed watching some of Mr. Deeds and the Daily Show and Colbert Report. This time together as a family has been very special. I look forward to when we will have time like this again. I love my family very much.

Day 13 - day 7 in Tucson

After a full night's rest, I was ready to start another day in Tucson. We picked up Katie at a local farmer's market where she volunteers each Tuesday morning. It was a pretty cool market, located in South Tucson a.k.a. "Little Mexico". I walked over to where Katie was vending some local produce and heard almost exclusively, Spanish conversations. It's great that Katie is able to do some good volunteer work while using her Spanish skills.

After dropping off Katie at her apartment, Mom, Dad, and I went to the Arizona State Museum. This place was great. It's located right in the middle of the U of A campus. In addition to its stellar location, it does a tremendous job covering the history of the American Indians of the Southwest. As Dad commented, "it's a half-day museum". We only spent 2 hours there. Needless to say, we didn't see everything or spend as much time as we should have on some exhibits.

Then we had a nice lunch at Marie Callender's. Since we knew we would be eating relatively early in the evening, we just had the soup and salad bar. Later for dinner, for the second straight day we arrived at a restaurant only to find that it was closed. Yesterday we tried to eat at Caruso's, an Italian restaurant in the downtown of Tucson. Caruso's is open every day except Monday. Today, it was Mi Nidito, a Mexican restaurant in South Tucson. We got there after much debate (we were warming up for tonight's event) over where to go to dinner, only to find that Mi Nidito is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. What are the odds that two days in a row we would go to two different restaurants and be turned away from both on account of them being closed during the week. I guess, being from the East coast, we just aren't accustomed to things being closed at all. We wound up going to Lovin' Spoonfulls, an entirely vegan restaurant in Tucson. It was delicious. They had the most amazing spiced iced tea. I had around 3 glasses of it since it was so good. I think we all enjoyed our meals. Dad and I got the special: sweet 'n sour "chicken". Katie got some stuffed pasta dish. Mom got tomato basil soup and spring rolls. I really enjoyed the ambience of that restaurant.

After dinner, I went to La Aldea (name of her apartment community) to watch the 2nd Presidential debate. They had sugar cookies and punch for those in attendance: blue icing(Obama), red icing (McCain), and no icing (undecided). I thought it was a unique idea. At the end of the debate, there were a lot of McCain cookies left. Judging by that "cookie poll" I'd say that Obama has a commanding lead among likely voters in La Aldea of the University of Arizona (located in McCain's state!). After the debate, Katie and I hurried over to where her Tuesday night bible study meets. It was nice to meet some new people and see some familiar faces that I had just met, again. Katie baked banana bread WITH sugar since she knew I was coming to Arizona and knows how much I love her banana bread. It was stupendous. We all enjoyed some at the conclusion of bible study.

I can't believe that we only have one more full day left in Tucson. It's a big day, though. It's Katie's birthday!