The lost diaries of the SotTJ: Part 2

After a fun-filled first week in April for the Traveling Jersey, it got some down time for a little while before hitting the streets again. I kept it hanging on my closet door through the end of June, taking it down only to sew on a couple of patches. Then at the beginning of July I had another road trip planned and thought it would be a perfect opportunity to take the jersey on another adventure.

My boyfriend, Spencer, and I were going up to Northern California for a week to visit his family in Mendocino County, about an 11-hour drive from San Diego. It just so happened that the Padres would be kind of nearby, in Oakland, while we were up there, so we also made plans to take in a game at the Coliseum during our trip.

We packed up the car and, along with our dog Yogi, left San Diego early in the morning on June 30th. We made some pit stops along the way and took a detour through Berkeley so we could hit up Fieldwork Brewing Company and pick up some beer to go. If you ever find yourself in the area (or in Napa, Sacramento, Monterey, or San Mateo), make sure to check it out for some great beer and dog/family-friendly atmosphere.

After a full day of drivinf we finally made it to our destination and spent the evening resting up and getting settled in. Spencer’s family lives on a ranch about 30-45 minutes away from Mendocino and Fort Bragg, respectively. So we spent the next week splitting time between the country and city/coast. We were able to check out a couple more breweries out in Fort Bragg: North Coast Brewing Co. and the newer Overtime Brewing. I enjoyed the former, but wasn’t too impressed with the latter (though I did only try one of their beers, so I probably need to give it another chance).

On the Fourth of July we drove down to Oakland (about three hours away) with Spencer’s dad to watch the Padres take on the Athletics as I donned the Staton jersey. We got some pretty good seats in the field level where we got a great view of the action, even though we had to sit in the sun. But before we got to our seats we saw a couple of familiar (giant) faces walking the concourse and doing some pre-game fan interaction, so we had to stop and take some pictures. They didn’t seem to appreciate our Padres gear.

The game itself wasn’t super exciting. Luis Perdomo made his first start since April and had a solid outing of 5 2/3 innings with two runs allowed on four hits and four walks. The Padres got out to an early 2-0 lead in the second inning, but failed to score for the rest of the game while the A’s tied it in the 3rd and then took the lead in the 8th.

Still, we had a great time. In the 4th inning we went to meet up with some other Padres fans we knew who had also made the trip up north that week. It was so cool to see some friendly faces on the road and hang out for a little while during the game, and it was even better with the jersey in attendance.

On our last full day in NorCal we decided to go to a nearby park and go on a little hike. We brought Yogi with us, as well as the jersey, and drove over to Montgomery Woods State Reserve. There we hiked through the forest for a while. It was beautiful, despite our being attacked by mosquitos, and really peaceful.

Then Yogi decided he wanted to put on the jersey and become a member of the SotTJ, so of course we obliged.

We couldn’t believe how still he was while we took a million pictures of him. We were wary of letting go of his leash, as he has been known to make us chase after him when given the opportunity, but he didn’t move a muscle this time and had the biggest smile on his face, like he knew he was doing something important and was very proud to be a part of it.

Here’s Yogi showing off the jersey’s Belgium patch (hi sixpakfrombelgium!) after Belgium beat Brazil in the semifinals of the World Cup earlier that day.

We drove back home the next day, this time going through San Francisco on the way. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and got lunch at the famous Ike’s Love & Sandwiches (Burlingame location).

And that concluded another fun week with the jersey by our side. Back in San Diego, I prepared the jersey for its next trip by packaging and mailing it off to gkmandigo, who had the honor of taking it to Cooperstown after contacting me last Fall. You can read all about that adventure right here!

It has been such a fun season for the #SotTJ so far, and it's not over yet! There is more fun in the works for the jersey, but I'll wait to tell you all more about that when the plans are more concrete. And if anyone else would like to take the jersey on their own adventure, hit me up! You can DM me on Twitter at @gaslampball or @jodes0405, or shoot me an email (jodes0405@gmail.com). We'd love to welcome you into the Sisterhood!

UPDATE: Tomorrow evening, following the Padres game on Fox Sports San Diego, stick around for the latest episode of Padres POV. Myself and fellow Sisterhood member, gkmandigo, will be making an appearance and talking about the Traveling Jersey's 2018 season!