By the numbers,
9:00 Am departure
91 degrees
70 miles
4 stadiums
2 hours
1 great ride
I drug my trusty old mule outa the garage.
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I didn’t really have a plan when left the house, I just wanted to ride somewhere......anywhere. I pointed my bike towards the spring trading complex in Surprise , it’s where the Kansas City Royals and the Texas Rangers play.
The season that never was......
“Just to hit the ball, and touch 'em all, a moment in the sun
It's-a gone and you can tell that one good-bye“
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Right next door to the spring trading facility is an Ottawa University campus and the city of Surprise municipal complex.
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So then I was thinking , where else could I ride to? How about another spring training complex? Sure! How about the Dodgers and White Sox complex in Glendale?
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As long as we’re in Glendale, the Arizona Cardinals stadium is just down the road.
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Are you guys familiar with Pat Tillman? He was an Az Cardinals player when the twin towers were taken down on 9/11. He wanted to do something so he joined the Army and became a member of Special Forces, he was killed in a friendly fire incident. A lot of folks here wanted the Cardinals to name the stadium after him. That’s his statue behind me, it’s actually much taller than me, I had to stand well in front of it to fit it in the frame.
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How about one more spring training facility? This time I’m heading to Goodyear Az to the Cleveland Indians and Cincinnati Reds complex. You know what’s weird? This virus has everything just shut down, these places are never usually deserted, there’s always workers around, but today they look like ghost towns. And nobody to tell me I can’t park on the sidewalks and take photos!
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I want to show you one last thing before I’m done. Very close to the ball fields is this place, across the field behind my bike, see the passenger jet tails sticking up?
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There’s probably 75-80 of them over there right now. That’s a company that takes in passenger jets from all over the world for refurbishing and dismantling. They are all planes that have exceeded their maximum airframe hours.
They take some of them and refurbish / rebuild and sell them to poorer countries, some get turned into cargo jets and some are just dismantled and disposed of.
So with that I point old trusty back towards home and head for the barn! About a 20 mile highway blast back home.
I just have to say a word about this bike, when I first got it, any of you who ever read “ My 60th Birthday Present” knows how much I struggled to make this bike road worthy. Everything was shot, suspension, charging, brakes, and OMG the carburetors. It took me a long time to get this bike dialed in, but now? It is the picture of civility, I was thinking about it today while I was riding home. I pulled off the freeway after a sustained 70mph blast, and it was hot out. As soon as I came to a stop light. It never stumbled it just dropped down into a perfect idle. And my gearing and handlebar / windshield set up have turned it into a surprisingly comfortable highway bike. So until next time.
See you on the road,
Bob