Well, for the third straight year, I'm doing a travelogue about my USL soccer travels in North America. But I very nearly didn't do one this year, and this year's trip is a little different. First of all, it's not nearly as amibitious as the last two trips were. In 2003 I travelled over 5,000 miles in 17 days, and in 2004, more than 3,000 miles in 12 days. This year my trip is just 8 days long, and the travel by car will be relatively short.

My only real goal for this year was Puerto Rico, the only city in the USL First Division where I have not seen a game. So I decided to go visit when my hometown Portland Timbers played there, on June 6. After checking the schedule I worked out I could add the Timbers games in Rochester and Toronto as well (on June 3, and June 4) so this year's trip will be a Timbers-centered one. But I still like to write about my travels, though this year, my match reports will be on my own Timbers fan site (http://www.soccercityusa.com/timbers) rather than on USLFans.com.

Wednesday, June 1

Today was a travel-only day, from Portland to Buffalo via a changeover in Newark, NJ. Everything went very smoothly.. the planes were on time, my luggage showed up exactly where it was supposed to be, and even the 6-hour flight to Newark was relatively claustrophobia-free. I drove the two hours from Buffalo to Syracuse, staying in the same hotel I stayed at in 2003, and in an interesting quirk of fate (or maybe because this is programmed into their computer), I am in exactly the same room as I stayed in back in 2003. So why did I drive past Rochester to spend two nights in Syracuse?

Thursday, June 2

The reason I drove to Syracuse is that back in 2003 when I travelled this way, one thing I missed was a trip to see the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta, NY (http://www.soccerhall.org/). Located about a 2-hour drive southeast of Syracuse, this was a trip I was determined to make this year, and so I went a little out of my way to make the detour this year.

Central New York state is full of rolling green valleys, much like Western Maryland where I grew up. I went south from Syracuse on I-81 then cut cross-country on a state road towards Oneonta to get a little better scenery along the way. I always find that when you have the time, driving is so much more pleasant when you get off the interstate and see the small towns along the way.

Oneonta itself is a small city, with the Soccer Hall of Fame prominently advertised along the interstate that runs by the city (yes I had to get back on the interstate for the last few miles).

The Soccer Hall of Fame is located on the west end of town, in a largely undeveloped area so it has land to expand to, if it ever needs to. There are a few soccer fields out in front (one with some small grandstands, where the MLS Hall of Fame Game is played). The building itself was pretty empty the day I was there, with only maybe a dozen cars in the parking lot, fully half of them probably for hall employees.

One display that particularly interested me was a computer screen that had a button for "USL" and listed the league champions for the past eight years, though somewhat amusingly, the Long Island Roughriders were listed as the A-League Champions in 2002. Not so surprisingly, attempting to access that file resulted in a "disk error". I'm not sure that fans of the late great Milwaukee Rampage would appeciate being excluded.

Was the National Soccer Hall of Fame what I expected? Not exactly, It was a little smaller than I expected, and frankly, the interactive displays were more geared to children than adults. I would have liked to have seen more interactive displays with video and computer touch screens, and something more challenging in the interactive displays. But was it worth the trip? Absolutely. It was nice to see some of the actual jerseys from important events in US soccer history (like a 1950 World Cup jersey), and the original MLS 1996 jerseys brought back a lot of (bad) memories. But it was well worth the trip, and is something that I think every US soccer fan should check out at some point if they are in the area.

I took another backroute on my way back to Syracuse, this time going north first which took me right through a much more famous home to a sports Hall of Fame, Cooperstown. Now, there is no comparing the notariety of the two Halls as the Baseball Hall of Fame is much more famous, but Cooperstown itself is a smaller town than Oneonta is, and it must be said you can't get within 20 miles of Cooperstown in any direction without knowing the Baseball Hall of Fame is there.

Baseball fields, shopping centers, arcades, cafes, you name it. Nearly everything is baseball-related. I actually got tired of seeing it even before I got to Cooperstown itself, but nothing prepared me for the street where the Hall of Fame is located. It's actually in downtown, which would resemble any other small-town downtown except EVERY store is a baseball store of some kind. It was rather humorous how over-the-top it was, and I wonder what locals think of the fact that their town has turned into a bit of a baseball Disneyland. The Baseball Hall of Fame itself is actually a very non-descript building at the end of the small downtown street (as compared to the garish stores I had seen for 20 miles), and I actually passed it the first time without seeing it. I did not stop at the Baseball Hall of Fame, nor at any of the several hundred baseball-related stores that I saw, and was glad when I finally got far enough away to get away from baseball overkill.

But if anybody ever asks me if I've been to Cooperstown, I can say that I was. If they asked me what I think of it, I'll tell them it's like an outbreak of the Ebola virus in a small town, only this time the virus is baseball.

I'm not sure if the creatues themselves have turned to stone, or are just really scared of the dinosaur on top of the sign (near Springfield, NY)


10% off, and just look at that selection! (near Richfield Springs, NY)


I love it when signs tell me what NOT to do (German Flatts, NY)

Friday, June 2

A short trip today, just an hour and a half from Syracuse to Rochester. Having killed as much time as I could reasonably get away with without going insane, I finally just headed into downtown Rochester at about 4:30, with a quick diversion to check out Paetec Park before heading over to Frontier Field

Paetec Park is a few blocks west of Frontier Field, in what is currently somewhat of a residental neighborhood, right on the edge of the more industrial area where Frontier Field sits. There weren't many places to get a good look at it, but it looks like many of the bleacher structures have gone up and the basic shape of the stadium is taking shape nicely. I probably won't be able to check it out when (if?) it opens later this year. But eventually I'll make my way out here to check it out after it's finished.

No problems with getting my press pass at Frontier Field, and spent the few hours I had talking to many people in the press box (who were very nice as always), and ran into Timbers broadcaster Andy McNamara too Then I went and checked out the pitch, which the more I looked at it, the more worried I got. The dirt infield is left uncovered, which is better than sod, but makes for a tricky surface. Two of the corners are covered with sod, and one of these corners caused quite a bit of concern for the refereeing crew as the seam ran at least an inch above the rest of the grass, and though they talked to the grounds crew for several minutes about it, I guess in the end there was nothing that could be done about it so it was left as-is for the match.

Finnegan (from the soccercityusa.com message boards) showed up as the game started, as did Aaron Heinzen's parents. It was good to have a small Timbers supporters group there, though as for the match itself, well, it seemed as if we showed up but the team did not. Rochester pressured them into defensive mistakes and by the half, the Timbers were lucky to only be losing 3-0. During halftime, Finngean and I talked to a few of the Rhinsos supporters, including "Slick" who I had talked to when I was there in 2003. We all pretty much agreed that this was just one of those games when one team just has things going their way. 3-1 was the final, a game to forget, but overall I had a pretty good time. An hour or so to my hotel in Buffalo..

Which was NOT a good time. The desk clerk didn't want anything to do with me, and only confirmed my reservation once I dug out the confirmation number from the e-mail (which I had fortunately printed out). Apparently my key card only worked on one outside door in the general area of my room, not on the one closest to the room itself. But the main frustration was the internet connection. A wireless connection was the only way they had to connect to the internet, but my room was so far out at the edge of the hotel layout, that I was lucky if I could hold a connection for 45 seconds. Also, there was no FTP connections allowed, and my e-mail dropped after a few minutes every time. Calls to their tech support were unhelpful. "Tough break" was basically the reply that I got to their tech support.

And I was going to stay two nights here, so for those two days, other than an occasional post on a message board before I got dropped, I was out of luck.

Saturday, June 4

Another hour and a half up to Toronto. The border crossing was pretty easy, and by 5pm or so had found my way to Centennial Park, pulling in just a few minutes after the Timbers team bus.

The press table wasn't set up yet, but I wandered in using my USL All-League pass and greeted several of the Timbers players as they went out for practice. I caught up with Andy McNamara in the press box again, and also talked to a reporter for the Globe and Mail who was pretty surprised some of us had made the trip all the way from Portland. Finnegan was there too, as were Mr. and Mrs. Heinzen, and after taking pics on the pitch in the first half, I would sit with them for the second half. During halftime, as I had promised on the Toronto Lynx message board, I wandered up into the Ultras section, and was flagged down by Rob Lynch, USLFans.com match reporter. I talked to a few other members of the supporters group too, and they were very welcoming, though not happy about the officiating, which they had felt had given the Timbers a soft penalty kick (which I tend to agree).

The early Timbers penalty kick would hold up, so the Timbers did get the 1-0 lead, which was pretty important after the loss in Rochester the night before.

An uneventful drive back to my hotel in Buffalo, with my internet connection still dodgy at best.

Sunday, June 5

All travel today, flying from Buffalo to San Juan, Puerto Rico via Atlanta.

The first flight of my day into Atlanta was quite harrowing as we had to come down through a thunderstorm and it took us on a very wild ride. Then, as we were landing, probably no more than 100 feet above the runway, the winds suddenly changed and we were being pushed too far down the runway so the pilot had to abort. With no headwind he had to seriously dip the back of the plane to get lift (it was a rear-engine MD-88) and for a few seconds there were screams and gasps on the plane as it was a big surprise when the back of the plane suddenly dropped like it did as he applied full throttle. But he did the right thing and explained what he did to all of us as we circled back around and landed in the opposite direction about 10 minutes later.

The flight from Atlanta to San Juan was much more uneventful, and I was at the San Juan airport. Now, I've never been to Puerto Rico before, and had no idea what to expect. One thing I've noticed so far (and it's not necessarily surprising) is that things are just a bit different here than I'm used to. Not necessarily bad, but just different. For example, trying to get to baggage claim.

It was a pretty long walk from the end of the concourse where my plane had landed, and I followed the signs (and the crowd, though there was only my plane and maybe one more heading that way). Then, suddenly, people were backed up and it took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on.

For a reason I'm not quite sure I understand, to get from the concourse to baggage claim, everyone was required to go through one small revolving door. And "small" is the key word here. It's not like the large revolving doors I've seen in other airports like Portland, to get from the street to the inside of the airport. This one took only one or two people in each "section", and to filter several hundred people through it was taking quite a long time. Then, just as I got to the front, after probably waiting ten minutes, someone's bag got caught, and the revolving door (which was motorized) stopped. It took a few minutes just to extract the people out, and the door was now broken. So what now? Well, they pointed us to the other side of the airport, where we had to go through ANOTHER revolving door, and again we were backed up. I couldn't see the need for the revolving door, as it wasn't a one-way door like you see at some stadiums. I guess the purpose was simply to slow entry to the main part of the airport from the concourses, which it did very well. I was in no hurry so this was more amusing than anything, as the doors seemed completely pointless in doing anything but frustrating the incoming passengers.

After collecting my bags I walked out to the roadway to get my rental car shuttle and that's when I got hit with what is the most memorable part of Puerto Rico for me so far.. the humidity. It wasn't actually that hot, in the high 80's, but the humidity is stifling and hits you with a blast every time you walk out of an air-conditioned room and into it again. Within 15 minutes I was dripping with perspiration. I am not exactly used to the tropical climate, it would appear.

After I got my rental car, I found my way to the Hampton Inn in Isla Verde, east of San Juan and just on the north side of the airport. On the other side of the street, behind the line of much more expensive resort hotels is the Caribbean. I found myself dinner and crashed into my air-conditioned room. The promised DSL connection in my room was not even set up yet, but the wireless worked well. At 5am a trip to the bathroom gave me a nasty shocked as the toilet literally gushed water onto the floor of my 4th floor room. Five bath size towels thrown to the floor hardly touched it. Maintenance came up and fixed the leak and mopped up the floor. I can only hope if the people in the room before me got a shower of water from above because there was 2-3 inches of water on the floor, going out onto the carpet too.

Monday, June 6

This was my first full day in Puerto Rico, and the weather was cloudy but still hot and humid. Before deciding what sightseeing I was going to do today, I had to buy a few things (including CD-R's to clear off all the pics from this week because my laptop was full). After getting out on the highway to find a store that had the few things I needed, I ran right into the other thing that stands out in my head about Puerto Rico other than the humidity, and that's the traffic.

It seems that no matter where you go in Puerto Rico, everyone else wants to go there too. Combine that with various construction sites (or some where the road just seems to have been completely torn out, or not yet completed), and simply getting from point A to point B is an exercise in frustration. I also don't speak Spanish so just interpreting some of the road signs has been a bit of an adventure. I'm sure I made a few illegal turns at some point, but after a few hours I had the supplies I needed and made my way back to my Isla Verde hotel. Based on this first experience out on the road I decided I might be best off keeping my sightseeing close to my hotel.

But today's main goal is the Timbers vs. Islanders game of course, so at about 5:45 I set out towards Bayamon, which is on the opposite side of San Juan from my hotel, about 10 miles away as the crow flies.

Once I got past downtown San Juan, the traffic came to nearly a dead stop (not surprising, as it was rush hour), but I had learned something else interesting about driving in Puerto Rico, which is that it's perfectly acceptable to make your own lane in none already exists. As soon as traffic backed up on the freeway, drivers started heading for the shoulder and would speed down the shoulder at full freeway speeds until the shoulder itself was backed up, or they had to get back into traffic after getting stuck behind a disabled vehicle on the side of the road. On the whole, drivers in Puerto Rico are much more aggressive than those I've seen on the mainland, with the possible exception of those in Los Angeles. But everybody also seems very skilled at the aggressive, constant lane-changing, and I even found myself comfortable with it after awhile. Once you understand that it's the way things are around here, you can anticipate it, but you're also going to end up in traffic jam after traffic jam no matter where you go.

It took me about an hour and fifteen minutes to get to Juan Ramon Loubriel Stadium, or at least to the point where I could see the stadium. It took me another fifteen minutes just to find the entrance, as I got caught up again in a sea of confusing road signs, and a traffic light that only allowed three cars per green, and it took me about 5 cycles to get through.

After being told I was parking in the season ticket holders section and had to move (I didn't' see any sign, but wouldn't have been able to read it had there been a sign), and found a parking space, and unable to find my press pass, was directed to the pass gate where I was greeted by several Islanders fans who said they had been waiting there for me! Now this was something I had never encountered before, and they said they were happy to see me there and knew my work, and hoped I had a great time while I was there. While I still had to find my pass, they were able to direct me to someone in the Islanders front office, who also gave me a welcome greeting and directed me to the press box to get what I needed. To everyone who gave me such a warm greeting (and whose names I have already forgotten, unfortunately), I am very appreciative, and it was only a taste of the warm hospitality that I would experience that night.

I found my way to the pressbox and found my press pass, along with meeting a few more very nice people from the Islanders front office, and eventually found my way down to the field, where the Timbers were practicing.

The stadium is a baseball stadium, similar to Portland's PGE Park, except that it's a bit smaller and has grass. The field itself is a raised pitch and it slopes away from the touchlines to the stands, which are actually somewhat far away from the pitch on the sideline (where most of the fans would sit), but pretty close to the pitch behind the one goal (much closer than where the supporters sit at PGE Park), though few fans would sit in that area. But as a soccer stadium, it works pretty well even though the stands are only on two sides. It was also obvious that the stadium is no longer being used for baseball, which helps in that there is no dirt on the pitch at all.

View from the pressbox


The games are broadcast on local TV, with the broadcast "booth" being on this platform along the far sideline


5,580 enthusiastic fans filled the stadium on this night

A group of drummers provided the soundtrack

I don't know what this is, and I don't really want to know

The humidity had backed off significantly since mid-day, and it was actually a pretty pleasant evening. Though still warm, a somewhat cool breeze was finding it's way into the stadium. Being as Puerto Rico is in the Eastern Time Zone, but quite far to the east of the US east coast, by the time the game started it was completely dark, which I thought was very unusual. It was time to learn the low-light capabilities of my new camera, which fortunately seemed up to the task.

My match report is posted elsewhere (link to the left) so there is no need to recap it here, but at halftime I moved to the press box and met USLFans.com reporter Jorge Carillo, and was introduced to everybody else in the press box as well, most of whom worked for local media outlets. It was good to see the coverage that the Islanders are getting, as well as the enthusiastic crowd. Though a bit small as the game was on a Monday evening (5,580 was the announced attendance), as USL First Division crowds go, it was quite a lively one. There were a group of drummers up near the top of the stands who provided the constant background, and the fans were loud, and enthusiastic, and shouted their "ooh's" and "aah's" and "boo's" during what turned out to be a pretty wide open game, with 31 shots between the two teams. Finding an atmosphere in this league that is not drowned out by constant music and commercials over the PA system, and actually creates their own noise is very encouraging, and I only wish more stadiums would turn down the PA a bit so their fans could create an atmosphere of their own.

Just as the game ended, the sky opened up with a heavy, but warm, tropical shower and I was drenched by the time I made it back to my car. Traffic on the road at 10:30pm was still surprisingly heavy, but at least the traffic jams had cleared for awhile.

Tuesday, June 7

Today was my free day in Puerto Rico, so I decided to head east, away from San Juan, to get a little bit of the flavor of the island. Once I was east of Isla Verde, the presence of hotels and resorts on the coast severely dropped off, and the road itself stayed along the coast for about ten miles. Instead of seeing a multitude of surf shops, beach clothing stores, and trendy restaurants, as you see along most beaches, the main focus of the small shops I saw along the northeast coast of Puerto Rico seemed to be alcohol sales, with most of the stores having been supplied banners by their suppliers which draped the outside of just about every store that I would run across. Eventually I would turn south from the coast to catch the main road towards the east side of the island, and got a good view of maybe the most surprising thing I've seen in Puerto Rico: The Mountains.

Other than an image of a "tropical island", I had very little idea what to expect Puerto Rico to look like, but having a mist-covered mountain range running through the center of the island was not one of them. The mountains are only about 3,500 feet high, quite small compared to the 10,000 foot + mountains I'm used to on the west coast, but considering these mountains rise from sea level to over 3,000 feet over a distance of maybe only 5 to 10 miles, they are actually quite spectacular. From most places in San Juan you can see them rising to the south, and on this morning, with the temperature a bit cooler, and a warm shower now and then, some low clouds clung to the side of the mountains.

Eventually I turned east onto the main highway, and almost immediately was once again immersed in a heavy dose of American free enterprise: OfficeMax, Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, Dunkin Donuts, Walgreens, etc, all dotted the freeway, and with the low green mountains in the background, seemed more like driving in my native Western Maryland than a Caribbean island just a few hundred miles from the South American coast. The presence of these types of American chain stores is common is most of the areas of Puerto Rico that I visited, though just because the parent company is American, it doesn't mean any of the employees will speak English, something I learned very well on Monday night when I tried to grab a late snack from a Burger King just down the road from my hotel.

That's one thing I should comment on, which is the language barrier. When I originally knew I was coming to Puerto Rico, I assumed that everyone here would have some rudimentary English, as this is a US territory. And though many people do, and in fact many people speak English as well as I do, occasionally I have run into a situation where I just ran into a blank stare when I tried to purchase something, or ask a question. Usually I've been able to get my point across by pointing, and I'm not saying that anybody has been rude that I don't speak Spanish, but to anyone who thinks that just because it's a US territory that everyone will speak some English, or even that road signs or signs posted in stores will be in English as well as Spanish, it's definitely not the case, especially once you leave the San Juan area. But on the other hand, breaking through the cultural and language barriers is half the fun, isn't it?

Attemting to get a shot of the mountains through the clouds


Driving in Puerto Rico: Always an adventure


A better view of the mountains from along a main highway

I actually did not make it all the way to the east side of Puerto Rico as I hit a major backup about 10 miles from my goal, and while I was sitting for awhile in the Wal-Mart parking lot, trying to figure out what to do, the sun broke through for awhile and I remembered that one thing I wanted to check out was the angle of the sun, which unlike in the US mainland, can be directly overhead as this is south of the Tropic of Cancer. It was close to noon when I checked out the shadow on my Dodge Neon rental car, and the shadow was almost completely under the car, and doing a few quick checks of my map, I found out the sun was actually passing slightly to the north in the sky. While I'm sure this is far from exciting for most soccer fans, having been a former Astrophysics major in college, it was interesting to me as it's something that can only happen when you're below 23.5 degrees (San Juan is at 18 degrees north). I found out later the sun was at nearly 86 degrees up from the northern horizon at 12:20. In Portland, the sun never gets above about 68 degrees above the southern horizon.

Eventually I headed back towards San Juan along another route, and spent the rest of the day making little walking trips exploring my Isla Verde neighborhood. I did finally make my way to the beach, experiencing the warm Caribbean waters for the first time, and was surprised at how few people were along what is clearly a major resort beach. It being a weekday certainly kept the crowds down, and the weather has been dodgy all week, and the sun hasn't really broken through for any significant amount of time, but I expected to see more than the few dozen that I saw along the expanse of the beach.

The beach at Isla Verde


A small hotel and restaurant at Isla Verde


Another shot in my hotel's neighborhood

As I sit here in room 455 of the Hampton Inn, at 12:01 in the morning, a quick look out the window and I notice the stars have come out for the first time on my trip. I might have to make another trip out tonight as that means there are stars to the south that I've never seen from my life further north. The chance of seeing much from Isla Verde as I'm still "in the city" are probably pretty slim, but it's worth a shot.