We shacked up, paying a total of $12.00 for three nights in tropical paradise. Our hostel was right on the beach - more like a bay with bath temperature water. The water was not crystal clear and the sand wasn’t white, but we knew that the clear water and the white sand were only a mile or so away in West Bay.

In front of the hostel was a small, elevated pier that rose about 15 feet in the air, with a bench that ran out along the wall toward the bay. The bench then went into a wall that had a large flat top surface along the viewing area of the pier. I took a walk out there because I had noticed some people jumping off the pier. Naturally, my eyes lit up. There were four guys jumping, three Canadians and a Dutchman. The water below was only about four feet deep, but that didn’t stop these adventure seekers from enjoying the opportunity the pier presented.

I quickly asked if I could join them. I started with a basic flip for the first jump. The sand on the bottom that we slammed into was so soft, there was no pain at all. I didn’t even think about the risk once I had done that first jump. After running along the bench and doing dive flips for about 30 minutes with a few back flips and spins mixed in, we sat down to rest. We took time to have a beer, get to know each other and do what every backpacker loves more than anything - sharing stories about places they’ve been and places they’re going.

These guys were on the last day of their two weeks in Roatan. They had dived, snorkeled, relaxed and enjoyed the warm Caribbean sun. They were flying out to San Pedro Sula in the morning and making their way back down Honduras to Nicaragua. Since that was the route we had just taken, I offered advice. We said our goodbyes, I went back to the hostel for Jake and for the evening’s festivities.

There are small boats that you can take to West Bay for a king’s ransom of about 50 cents, but we decided to walk along the coast. It was a thirty-minute walk and very pretty. We passed through a few deserted beaches and secluded beachside restaurants and resorts. Finally we came upon a 30 foot high pedestrian bridge that crossed over a small inlet for boats to enter. For us, this was a major discovery.

Standing upon this metal bridge looking down into the dirty inlet water, we wondered how deep the water was. It was tough to tell and we debated a bit on who would be the one to try the jump out. Neither of us seemed keen. After about a minute of bickering, I hopped over and plunged thirty feet down into the six-feet deep, smelly water. Jake soon followed and we each jumped about ten times. Occasionally, we would see the taxi boats taking other tourists to West Bay and we would jump for their camera entertainment.

Moving to the beach, we saw two British girls walking towards the bridge. Naturally, we had to show them our macho side and jump for them. After we did, they seemed curious, asking lots of questions about doing it themselves. We pitched them into doing it and when they got up there, the first girl to go stood on the ledge clasping the rail for ten minutes before we said to forget it and we were leaving.

That was all the incentive she needed. To our surprise, she hurled herself down into the dirty water. After she popped up, she complained that she swallowed a lot of water and that it smelled. We thought this was hilarious. We told her it was toilet water and that she was swimming in other people’s bathroom waste. For all we know, it may have been. We had to calm her down, though, and tell her we were just joking. Looking back now, we both swallowed a lot of water as well and we were fine. Who knows what was really in the water, but it makes for a better story if it really was sewage.

After a good chunk of the morning at our bridge, we made it to West Bay. We were staggered by its amazing beauty. It was practically empty and looked different than every other beach we had passed along our way. The water was crystal clear and the sand was shimmering with whiteness. We plopped down in front of one of the small resorts dotting the beach. We then jumped into the water to get the sewage water off of us, and snuck into the resort pool area to grab an outdoor shower.

After a few hours of sunbathing, we decided to go snorkeling. The Bay Islands are famous for their coral and the extreme immensity and clarity of their caverns. It was a mystifying experience. I had never seen such underwater scenery. The Great Barrier Reef and the Red Sea pale in comparison to the quality of the Bay Islands. The clarity of the sea life was great and the variety of fish that we saw was unreal. The actual coral formations were beautiful with plenty of deep caverns for closer exploration and little crevices for fish to hide out in.

Our stay on Roatan, as short as it was, will always be a special memory for me because we managed to find ourselves our own private bridge that most people didn’t even know existed because they were lazy and took the boat. We refer to it as our bridge in Roatan. I think that is pretty cool and mixed with all else that Roatan had to offer, I can see why people are starting to flock to this island paradise.

It gets a bad rap because it is in Honduras and that will scare many tourists, especially Americans. I hope it remains a secret and doesn’t become an expensive over-touristed island like so many other Caribbean islands. Recently I saw it advertised in the New York Times travel section. Time may be running out to see it raw and unspoiled. I will keep my fingers crossed and remember Roatan as being perfect.

The border at Jericho is the strangest I have ever seen because it is a demilitarized zone. You have to ride on a special military bus through the barbed wire jungle until you finally reach the other side. Then you have to deal with customs formalities and attempted shakedowns in Jordan. Finally when we were through with all of that nonsense it was about nine in the morning and we needed to get a bus to Amman which was about a half hour from the border where we would figure out our plans from there.

We arrived in Amman and had no idea what we were doing or where we were supposed to go. We literally got off a bus and there was a man sitting on a bench and he asked us if we needed a ride. At first we ignored him, figuring he was just a beggar or something like that. However, he was very persistent and he weasled his way into getting us to look at a book he had in his car. It was a book of people that he had given rides to from all over the world and it was full of praise. Andy and I asked him if he would drive us to Petra and back to the Israel border in a few days. He was very excited and he offered to be our guide for the next three days and he would show us everything between here and the Gulf of Aqaba. He seemed sincere and legitimate so we got in and we started south toward Petra.

Semi, our guide, spoke very good, if broken, English. It was certainly enough to understand and communicate with him. As we toured around Amman he pointed out all the local landmarks and everything else we never needed to know about the capital and then he laid out our course of action for us. We were going to head down to Petra along a route that would take us to the Dead Sea for a dip and then past some Bedouin camps and into Petra for the night. Who were we to argue? We said, “Semi, it’s your show”.

After a few hours we arrived at the Dead Sea. It looked a lot different on this side than it did in Israel with a big Sheraton Hotel and lots of tourists. In Jordan there was no easy way to get there. We had to scale down the cliffs to get to the water where we had our own private swim with no one to disturb us. Of course it sounds great and romantic and all (not with my cousin of course) but for anyone who has ever been in the Dead Sea, it is far from comfortable. The salt is over apparent and it gets into every orifice in your body creating burning and very uncomfortable feelings. Going underwater is also a no-no. Andy went under the water and opened his eyes and couldn’t see for a half hour. After we got out of the water we were absolutely filthy with salt and needed a place to hose ourselves down. The one disadvantage of the Jordanian side was that there were no showers on site so we had to drive a few miles to a place where Semi knew of a waterfall that we could rinse off in. It really did the job and we were able to enjoy the rest of the drive down to Petra in comfort.

We arrived in Petra and Semi brought us to a cheap hotel where he knew everyone. We said he could bring us into the Petra archaeological site at 7am. We went out and had some dinner and came back to the hotel to find Semi sleeping in our room. We looked at each other in bewilderment because we didn’t know he would be staying with us but we just shrugged and dozed off to excited sleep.

The days in Petra are long and very hot. Temperatures get up over 100 degrees with high humidity. We came prepared with lots of water and lots of film. Semi was not to join us inside the park, he said he would meet us back here at 6pm. We waved goodbye and entered the ancient city of Petra.

I wish I was more poetic, to be able to aptly describe what the opening walk in Petra is like, but I will try my best. Entering the city, you first see various different sculptures along the road that winds into a mountain. As you enter the Siq, it seems like you are walking aimlessly for a very long time. After about 20 minutes or so you see an opening in the narrow slit in the Siq. As you approach the ending the narrow gash gets wider and more and more light shows itself and the temperature starts to get hotter as your heart starts to beat heavier. Finally as you are about to exit the pass you are blinded by the rush of light and as you clear your eyes and continue walking out the tunnel you are greeted by the single most amazing site ever concocted by mankind. Right there in front of you is the Treasury, Petra’s most famous and magnificent structure.

Made famous to the modern world in the third Indiana Jones film, the Treasury has been looming in the middle of these mountains for centuries. It is a perfectly constructed, pillared building carved into the side of a flat mountain. It is majestic, worthy of being called the Treasury to fittingly store all the city’s riches and treasures. Standing at the base of it, next to hundreds of other mystified tourists, is truly surreal because you don’t notice a single other person around you. I could not take my eyes off this structure carved into this mountain in the middle of absolutely nowhere. To see Petra is to realize that at one point it was the preeminent spice trading post for Europe and Asia. Petra’s importance is glorified by the sheer size of the city and the great lengths the people went to make it so metropolitan. The city contains an amphitheater and many other civic buildings.

Way up at the top of a three hour hike up a mountain there is the monastery where the Bedouins still live, selling their crafts to infatuated tourists. The red rocks of Petra gleam in the hot afternoon sun where camels and donkeys may be the preferred mode of transport. We rode donkeys up a steep part in the mountain to the monastery. At one point we were alone with the donkeys and we yelled to the guide what we should do. The guide replied, “The donkeys know where they are going.” That was truly reassuring to me because I never had to rely on an ass before to get me up a hill where one slip could mean death. However, as it usually does, everything worked out well and it once again proved that an ass is still smarter than the dumbest tourist, which in this case was me, for questioning the guide or the donkey on their home turf.

After a very long and very hot day roaming around the city of Petra, we had to get back to meet Semi and get back to the hostel so we could rest our weary bones to see the rest of the sites in the morning. We literally were asleep by 8pm that night and were up again to view the last remaining sites we had missed the previous day. We were out by noon because we had to ride the Kings Highway up to Amman and back to Israel because we had a flight in Tel Aviv in two days to Moscow.

We cruised up the highway into the mountains for some of the most beautiful panoramic scenery in the world with steep cliffs and close calls near the edge. The six hour drive passed by like nothing because we couldn’t stop staring out the window at one amazing scene after another. We arrived at the Allenby Bridge border crossing again and said our good byes to Semi. We signed his book in a most glorious fashion and gave him a handsome tip (at least by Jordan standards). We crossed back to Jericho and then back into Jerusalem.

We had gone exploring some of the most ancient territory on Earth with no real plan or course of action. We loved every second of it. My only regret is that we didn’t have more time to see the rest of the country and to stay in a Bedouin camp. However, nothing will ever top the site of the Treasury at first glance. It is truly mesmerizing by modern standards, but in a land where time stands still, it is in a class by itself.

A personal sidenote from that game is Oscar Gamble, a former Yankee playing for the White Sox at that time homered. Twenty two years later at the Yankees old timers dinner last year, Oscar was there and I introduced myself to him and told him that he homered at the first game I ever went to at Yankee Stadium. He looked at me and said, “Man, I wish you came to more of my games-I would’ve hit a lot more home runs!” I thought that was priceless and really made my night.

From 1985 until 1993, the Yankees were a bad team and never made the postseason. In fact, I remember going to games in the early 90’s when the Yankees actually lost over 100 games a year and the stadium had hardly anyone in it. That didn’t matter to me because I used to love sitting down the third base line near the foul pole because thats where nobody sat and it was my best chance to run down foul balls and home runs. I got four and still have each one of them and could tell you who hit each one.

In 1994, the Yankees finally turned a corner and had the best record in baseball when the strike cancelled the season and kept my beloved Yankees and my hero Don Mattingly from playing in the postseason. I was crushed, devastated and still haven’t got over my disappointment with that strike that nearly ruined baseball.

The following year, 1995, started a string of 13 consecutive playoff appearances for the Yankees, an epic streak unequalled in baseball history. They would go on to win four World Series, six pennants and numerous division titles and I was there for several of those games including a few unforgettable moments.

I was in the stadium for games four and five of the 2001 World Series against the Diamondbacks that would go down as the greatest World Series ever played. After September 11th, the city was in ruins and still coming to grips with what had happened. That 2001 postseason had some amazing memories leading up to the World Series including the infamous Derek Jeter flip game in Oakland. However, nothing could possibly compare to how the stadium shook to the core and lifted a city and a nation when the Yankees made back to back bottom of the ninth, two out, two run down comebacks with home runs on successive nights by Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius follwed by extra inning heroics by Jeter and then Alfonso Soriano. It made us all forget for a moment or two about friends lost in 9/11 and feel good again-it was incredible and very powerful and anyone who saw will never forget it. I remember after the Yankees won game five looking at Rudy Giuliani going nuts and I remember thinking it will get better for New York.

Again a personal sidenote, the night of game four of that World Series was October 31st, Halloween, and my grandfather passed away that afternoon. I decided that he would certainly want me to go the game and I am convinced to this day that he had something to do with the magic of that night and the following night. I remember walking out of the stadium with Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York blaring over and over on the loud speakers just thinking how amazing it was to have happened on back to back nights and how truly special Yankee Stadium is.

In 2003, I went to the stadium early in the day to try to scalp tickets to game seven of the ALCS against the hated Red Sox. This night was another of the greatest all time games but there is much to my memory than just the outcome. I ended up only being able to get two tickets for $250 each but it was me, my friend John and my friend Mike was coming to meet us after he got off of work. But there wasn’t another ticket to be found-anywhere. So when Mike arrived he was disappointed and just figured he’d go over to Stans and watch at the bar but I had other ideas.

We were standing outside the right field entrance where there is an outside bar that’s fenced off and it’s located right next to the concession entrance. So I grabbed a kid selling sodas and offered him $100 to borrow his uniform that my friend Mike could wear to sneak in through the concession entrance. Needless to say, it worked like a charm with the only thing left to do was find him a seat. The seats we had legitimately bought were literally seven rows off the field behind the Red Sox on deck circle and right in front of the Red Sox family section which included Nomar Garciaparras then girlfriend Mia Hamm. We snuck Mike in through all of the security and we stood cramped for the entire game but it was amazing as we taunted Hamm and the rest of the Red Sox people. Ironically, in the seat next to me I met my travel agent even to this day, Daria. The rest of that game is history as Aaron Boone hit that memorable walk off 11th inning home run off Tim Wakefield into a screaming sea of people and the Curse of the Bambino was extended for one more year.

Ironically, the only big postseason home games I’ve missed since 2000 were game six of the 2003 World Series where Josh Beckettt shut down the Yankees and the Marlins won the Series. I was miserable because I had a wedding in Philadelphia that night and my girlfriend at the time would’ve killed me if I missed it. I did manage to catch most of the game at the hotel bar and I was actually glad in the end because I would’ve been miserable if I was there.

The other game I missed was a blessing in disguise. For game seven of the 2004 ALCS against Boston, my friend Mike was given the task of scalping tickets to the game as I was at work and I had gotten the tickets the prior year. He called me and said he got tickets so I was naturally excited and he got them for only $200 which led me to ask if he was sure they were real. He assured me they were real and when I go there I took one look at them and said they were fake tickets. He disagreed, I said OK try to use them and of course they were fake. I was very unhappy and tried like hell to find other tickets but there were none. The rest of course is history as the Yankees got blitzed that night and became the first team to ever blow a 3-0 lead in a playoff series. I still blame A-Rod.

There are so many other great times, games and memories from the venerable ballpark but these have to be my top moments and I feel priviledged and extremely lucky to have been a part of them and a small part of the history of Yankee Stadium.

As I’ve gotten older, I have been fortunate to have met many of the Yankees former players and all stars at the annual old timers dinner that I have attended the last three years as my Uncle works for the Yankees now. Additionally, I’ve had friends play for and against the Yankees at the stadium and as you realize that ball players are real people and they come and go-the one constant has always been the Stadium. Each person that has ever attended a game there has their own story or memory and that’s why it’s special. I have been to many ballparks around the country and I could barely even tell you anything about them because none of them can compare to Yankee Stadium.

It is a special place with some of the best memories of my life having taken place there. As Joe Dimaggio famously stated, “I want to thank the good lord for making me a Yankee”. Tonight, we’re all Yankees and I feel like that same six year old kid back in 1985.