Day 1 ...

(182 miles; Fresno, Calif. to San Jose, Calif.)

SAN JOSE -- If you stumbled to this blog by accident -- and really, what other reason could there be? -- you are the luckiest surfer on the web. You have arrived on the first day of my summer road trip, as explained here in this handy-dandy column from Sunday's Fresno Bee.

The short version is that I'm on a road trip around the country trying to find former Fresno athletes. It's sort of a "Where are they now?" on wheels, a journalism idea that just never gets old. Or maybe it does and no one can think of anything better. I'll be out here until the Bee credit card stops working or I'm out of clean clothes. (Actually, I have to be in a wedding in Seattle in August, so I'll probably be back just in time for that.)

I have some notion of where I'm headed, a rough outline, but to some extent the idea is to wing-it. Editors hate that. They hate winging of any kind. If editors had their way, they would have signed documentation of exactly what I was going to write about and on what day I was going to write it, two years in advance. They want planning and I would rather decide one hour before deadline whether I'm even going to work that day.

Anyway, for whatever reason, editors have agreed to this trip. They have agreed to give me a Fresno Bee car (oh yeah, we have a whole fleet of them) and I left Fresno this afternoon (Monday) heading north on Hwy. 99. My first plan is to find Rodney Wright, former Fresno State wide receiver. Wright is playing his third season for the San Jose Sabercats. The Sabercats won this weekend and advanced to the conference championship of AFL, as now seen on ESPN and all affiliated stations.

This would seem like an easy get, just three hours from Fresno on a team still in the playoffs, but Wright has not been all that talkative since the summer of 2002. After being drafted by the Buffalo Bills that April, he drove his Cadillac into a van in Fresno and nearly killed a couple people, then fled the accident. Then barely a year later he caused another accident in a Buffalo suburb, and was charged with a DUI and a bunch of other stuff, like not having a driver's license. That time, the Bills cut him.

That was a few years ago, and Wright has been making a living in arena football. I've been trying to line up an interview with him for the last week and haven't gotten him to call me back. I'm not taking this personally because I've been told that most of the time, he doesn't return calls from his own team's front office. Today was an off-day for the Sabercats, so I just drove around San Jose all evening waiting for him to call or hoping to miraculously stumble upon him, you know, the way college kids find house parties.

I'm sitting in a Motel 6 right now just a few blocks from the Sabercats office and hoping to interview Wright at the Sabercats practice tomorrow morning. It's at 8:30 a.m., and he's supposed to be there. So there is hope. Speaking of the Sabercats office, I was there today. Here is visual proof.

Yes, I'm the dorky guy carrying around a camera everywhere I go. I'm also keeping a journal. I'm snapping pictures of strangers. I'm taking notes while driving with my knee in San Jose rush-hour traffic because I don't want to forget anything. A road trip needs to be documented.

And now, introducing a couple recurring blog segments for the road trip.

Scariest Driving Moment of the Day: Realized at the last minute I was about to miss the right exit from Hwy. 152 onto Hwy. 101 north and had to do one of those eyes-closed, do-you-belive-in-God, two-lane merges. I cut off a purple sports car that looked like an extra from the movie "Fast and the Furious." Not nice enough to be one of the main cars, but maybe one of those lining the street at the big race, just waiting to drive away when the cops show up. It had passed me many miles back and must have stopped for a complete engine overhaul.

Did I mention I'm driving a 4-door Honda Civic Hybrid?

Memorable Radio Songs of the Day: "Ocean Front Property," by George Strait; "How Sweet It Is," James Taylor; "Meant To Live," Switchfoot. (A little all-over the map, musically, I realize, but it's early. I'm using the scan button a lot.)

Last thing. You may have noticed I'm staying at a Motel 6, which is not what you might call "4-Star." I'm a big believer in cheap hotels. I watch TV. I sleep. I take a shower. I leave. That's it. If I'm alone and you give me the choice of paying $60 or $120, I'm taking the $60 every time. No matter who is paying the bill.

So I drive by this motel earlier and decided it would be the one, but when I went to the front desk "Mary Helen" informed me that they only had smoking rooms available. I am far too lazy to look for another motel, but not too lazy to make a concerned face, so she said ... (this is big) ... "We're supposed to have this machine that kinda sucks up all the smoke."

Let me just tell you that the machine that they might have, and might be using, is not at all effective. But the smell is not nearly as disconcerting as the large sign on the door reminding me how important the deadbolt is, or the woman outside screaming obsenities, or the two quarter-sized burn holes that go all the way through the comforter in my room.

That's a wrap on Day 1. Gotta get up early for arena football practice, which I believe will be outdoors. I will report back tomorrow, probably with emphysema, which should not affect my typing.