travel

Spring Training 2010: Day One

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It’s finally time for my annual Spring Training trip! Three days of baseball, beer, and brats. 🙂

My tech arsenal this year consists simply of my EeePC and iPhone. Between the two of those devices I should be able to handle any work-related emergency that might arise and still stay “connected” while traveling. The iPhone apps I installed specifically for this trip include:

  • Geocaching: for our hiking trip on Camelback Mountain tomorrow.
  • MLB.com at Bat Lite: to keep tabs on the other Spring Training games.
  • NCAA March Madness On Demand Lite: ’cause there’s some basketball going on right now too!
  • TripIt: I decided to test out the service with this trip and see how it goes, pretty cool.

I’ll also try using the WordPress app on my iPhone to post updates to this blog.

5:52am (EDT): I’m at the gate at the Tampa airport waiting to board my flight to Houston. yawn

8:27am (CDT): waiting on my connection to Phoenix here in Houston. The flight here was uneventful and I made some good headway on “Anathem” (about 68 pages). My connection is slightly delayed since the plane just came in from Peru and needs to go through customs.

10:56am (MST): in Phoenix! A broken seat delayed my departure from Houston more than expected, but I’m finally here! Now to find my brother (who should be here by now) and get my luggage.

12:23pm: we’re at the Goodyear Ballpark. Our (padded!) seats are in the second row down the first base line. It’s beautiful out.

3:44pm: we’ve finally seen a win at Goodyear (every game we went to last year were losses)! The Tribe beat the Reds 6-2. The park was pretty empty, only about 4,300 people in attendance. That’s surprising considering it was the two “home” Ohio teams playing, but it was also a weekday game.

5:15pm: we’ve checking into our hotel in Avondale and are getting cleaned up and ready to head out for dinner.

6:30pm: waiting for a table at the Yardhouse at Westgate Center in Glendale. Quite a beer selection.

7:40pm: dinner was fantastic. I had the (Mac + Cheese)2 and tried a six-pack sampler:

7:46pm: there’s a huge bike show going on here, it’s loud and there are some impressive-looking motorcycles.

9:00pm: back at the hotel, exhausted. Considering it’s midnight back home, and we’ve been up since 4am, it’s time for bed.

Back in Florida

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I know it sounds a little harsh, but after spending the past few days in chilly, snowy Ohio for the holidays, we’re glad to be back in Florida.

We spent Christmas Eve day doing some last minute shopping and preparations, which included cooking lasagna (in our hotel room) to take to dinner at my aunt’s place.

Christmas Day was relatively relaxing. After church and an early lunch a few of us went to see “The Princess and the Frog,” which my daughter enjoyed (it was a very different type of Disney princess movie … I particularly enjoyed the musical score and the trumpet-playing alligator). We cooked Christmas dinner at my brother’s and sister-in-law’s place and spent the rest of the day with the immediate family.

On the 26th, we had a family photo taken at a local Portrait Innovations studio. The place was pretty small, and apparently had a 40-person occupancy limit so they were asking people to wait outside (in the cold!) until they were called. Overall it was a poorly organized way to get a picture taken, but the end result was worth it. We spent that evening at another aunt’s house to visit with my mom’s side of the family.

Sunday? More visiting with family, of course! That’s also when the real winter weather started to move in. By the time we left my sister’s place that evening a good half-inch or so had fallen (and it was still coming down) so my daughter had her first experience with a snowbrush as she helped clean off some of the cars.

The drive back to the hotel was slow due to the deteriorating road conditions. Of course, we had to take advantage of the snow once we got back to the hotel: my daughter and I had a serious snowball fight, which was a lot of fun (mostly for her), and she got to make a decent snow angel.

Luckily, when we woke up early this morning to head to the airport, it was just freezing cold and no longer snowing. The crews had done their job overnight and the major roads were clear. Once we dropped off the rental car and got into the airport, though, the “fun” began. Thanks to the two Northwest Airlines incidents, security at the airport was crazy! You’d think the airport would have been prepared, but the line was a  mess: it switched back on itself several times so it was almost impossible to find the end. Plus it went past all the other lines to check-in so people were constantly cutting through with their baggage, causing general confusion. 40 minutes later we were finally through, without major incident (although once we got to our gate and settled down my wife realized she had accidentally left an opened bottle of apple juice in her carry-on that went through the x-ray machine and wasn’t caught. Oops!).

We had no return flight issues except for the slight delay for de-icing. Once back in Florida and the 60-degree sunny weather, we heard from my sister that it really started to get bad after we left, so we had made it out just in time. To celebrate being home, we had lunch on the deck outside at a Bahama Breeze near the airport. Ahhh. And yeah, we rubbed it in for the family up north by sending a photo. Love you guys! 🙂

Ohio for the holidays

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We’re up in Ohio  for Christmas … brrr!

Last night we checked into the Marriott at the Tampa Airport using their “Park Here, Fly There” package (a one-night stay with up to 7 days of “free” valet parking). This way we didn’t have to use the remote long-term parking lot and not get up as early to make our 8am flight to Cleveland. Once we checked into our room, we went down into the airport proper to grab a drink at Starbucks and people-watch. It was weird being in the airport without any luggage and not having to go anywhere (yet). As advertised, the room was very well insulated so we didn’t hear any of the airport traffic outside. I just wish they had insulated the door as effectively, however, because there were some noisy people out in the hallway pretty late that woke us up.

We had no travel issues to speak of this morning, which was a pleasant surprise. The security line was long, as expected, but we didn’t have any problems or delays. Our flight was smooth and perfectly on-time. Stepping off the jetway in Cleveland we were met by an unpleasant, but not unexpected, blast of cold, northern Ohio winter air. It was mostly just cold, windy, rainy, and overcast … just like I remember Cleveland winters. The rest of the day was spent running errands: picking up the boxes we had shipped up earlier, checking into the hotel, going grocery shopping for Christmas dinner, etc.

For dinner we met some old college friends and their kids at The Pub in Rocky River. The last time I had been down that part of Detroit Road, I think the old movie theater that The Pub is now located in was still a  movie theater! The food was great, though, (I had the Ham and Swiss Pub Pretzel) and the spirits were better (my favorite was the Monty Python Holy Grail Ale, of course!).

The next few days are going to be busy …

Back home, via the maze

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We left the panhandle this morning, bidding farewell to family, not looking forward to 8 hours in the car driving back to Tampa. We figured my daughter would need to burn off some energy before being stuck in the backseat for that long, so instead of going directly to I-10, we took US-98 along the gulf coast to Panama City Beach, home of the Gran Maze. My wife and I had done the maze over 15 years ago when we were still dating. Back then, the maze was still made of wood but it was destroyed by Hurricane Opal a few years later. It’s since been rebuilt using white vinyl fencing.

The goal is to enter the maze, visit each of the four towers, and get out as fast as you can. They keep a record board of the previous day’s top ten times. It took us 39 minutes and we were the first visitors of the day, so at least we were in first place when we left. Based on the previous winners’ times of about 16 minutes, I’m sure our time didn’t stand for long. But my daughter had a great time leading us through the maze, and that was the real point of the trip. Here’s a view of the maze from Google Earth:

I joked with my daughter we could use that and GPS to cheat our way through the maze. 😀 I grabbed that screencap on my iPhone. Oh, hadn’t I mentioned I got an iPhone yet? That post is still forthcoming … 😛

After grabbing lunch in Panama City, we settled in the car for the long drive. The weather was perfect and we even avoided the traffic we expected around Gainesville due to the Florida/Florida State football game. At least we have tomorrow (Sunday) to relax and recoup before heading back to work/school on Monday. Three more weeks until Christmas vacation!

Quick day trip to the Magic Kingdom

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We’re on our way to north Florida to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with family, but today we swung through Orlando to spend a quick day at Disney. We needed to renew our annual passes that we had purchased last November anyway in order to get the extra three months for free. Now we’re set through February 2011! 🙂 The weather today was perfect, but the park was a little more crowded than in the past when we’ve come around Thanksgiving time.

Since we were just coming for the day, we figured on just staying at the Magic Kingdom and not doing any park-hopping. Thus, we decided to try out a few of the attractions we either had never been on, or hadn’t been on in a long time. First things first, we got Fast Passes for Space Mountain. The ride had been closed for remodeling since April and is my daughter’s favorite roller coaster at Disney. It just re-opened this past weekend so we definitely wanted to get on it. No surprise, our Fast Passes obtained around 9:30am were for 5:30! That gave us the rest of the day to wander around. Thinking we could get a sneak peek of the Space Mountain changes, we hopped onto the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. To our surprise, the tunnel through Space Mountain is totally dark and you can’t see any of the ride anymore (we found out why later, once we got onto the coaster). Still in Tomorrowland, we rode the Astro Orbitor, another ride we hadn’t been on (in about 13 years). It was a first for my daughter though and she really loved it, considering it just goes up and down and around in circles just like the Magic Carpets or Flying Dumbos (just a bit faster).

After lunch we went to Fantasyland, rode the obligatory “It’s a Small World” and also went to see PhilharMagic (a personal favorite). In Liberty Square we went into the Hall of Presidents to see that show (I could have sworn I saw the Bill Clinton “robot” check his watch while Barack Obama was speaking! ;-)), which is now narrated by Morgan Freeman. In Frontierland, the river boat ride is now part of the promotion for Disney’s new upcoming animated feature, “The Princess and the Frog.”  The film doesn’t come out for another two weeks but there’s already a New Orleans-style parade featuring the princess (and prince) and some Mardi Gras-type characters and music. We rode the slow river boat around Tom Sawyer’s island (which we didn’t get to) with some great views of the back side of the Thunder Mountain Railroad coaster.

I couldn’t convince my daughter to go through the Haunted House, so we walked back to Tomorrowland intending to use our Fast Passes to Space Mountain and found it had been shut down! “Technical difficulties” the cast member outside the line said. He told me to check back later and any Fast Passes would still be valid. We snagged Fast Passes for Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and then had dinner. After a race over on the Tomorrowland Grand Prix, we went to the Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor where my daughter had a joke she had texted in read in the show!

By this time, Space Mountain was running again! We noticed a few changes while going through the line, primarily the addition of interactive video game screens on the standby side of the line and the “closed roof” of the waiting area. You can no longer see the coaster itself (what little you could see) while in the back-and-forth area of the line. This actually makes the ride itself darker because you can’t see the people in line. The “stars” seem to stand out more since there is less light on the ride. The coaster track itself hasn’t changed and it’s still my second-favorite Disney coaster (behind the Rockin’ Roller Coaster at Hollywood Studios and just ahead of Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom).

After our speedy space ride, it was time for our Buzz Lightyear Fast Passes so we got in line to “shoot some aliens!” It was getting late, so we found some seats near the front of the park for the SpectroMagic parade, which my daughter, who actually awake this time, loved. Since no view of the evening fireworks could beat our last trip we left the park and drove to our hotel for the evening. Tomorrow morning we hit the road for the panhandle.

Long(er than necessary) travel day

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This morning we checked out of our hotel and then headed to the Holiday Inn next door to have breakfast with the happy new couple and the other wedding guests. We bade farewell to family and friends and then it was off to the airport for our flights back home.

We were slightly delayed leaving Cleveland due to some mechanical jetway issues, but we still had enough time once we got to Charlotte to hike from the E concourse to our connection in the B terminal. Other than that, both flights were uneventful, which is always good. Little did I know what I was in store for …

Looking out the window on our approach to the Tampa airport, my wife noticed a lot of traffic on the Howard Frankland Bridge southbound. It looked like two lanes were closed and the backup was pretty bad. We made a mental note to take the Courtney Campbell Causeway home instead. Unfortunately my mental notepad didn’t work properly (too much partying over the weekend?) because by the time we got off the plane, gathered our luggage, and got out to the cars in the parking garage, I had totally forgotten about the traffic. My wife left the garage before me but was going to swing by the airport post office to drop off some mail. Thus, I ended up passing her and getting onto the ramp from the airport to I-275 South first.

stuck in traffic ... 7:30pmThe first indication that I was making a huge mistake was some guy driving backwards on the ramp towards me. Coming out of the airport to the split into the various highways and roads can get confusing to visitors (and even those of us who live here) so this backwards driver didn’t register as an omen of a larger problem ahead (again, my mental notepad breakdown). I figured he had just taken the wrong side of the split and was trying to correct his mistake (I gave him an angry honk on the way past anyway). A few seconds later, though, I realized why he was going backwards … the ramp was backed up with stopped traffic. At this point, I knew I was going to be stuck so I quickly called my wife and reminded her to take the other bridge … just in time. She was able to get onto the Courtney Campbell and she and my daughter got home at a normal time.

still stuck in traffic ... 8:10pm

For me, though, the only progress forward I made in the next 90 minutes was from other cars leaving the ramp by either driving in reverse (or turning around and driving backwards) back into the airport. I am not one of those drivers who will risk a moving violation (or accident!) and go the wrong way on a road even if it means being stuck in traffic. I saw more near-crashes take place as people were being stupid and impatient (at one point I heard a really loud squealing of brakes and was sure we were all going to domino crash forward into each other). I just sat in my car (turned off) and read on my Treo, watching the occasional tow truck zip by on the (now closed) southbound lanes of I-275. Finally, traffic started crawling forward but it took another 30 minutes to creep off the ramp and through the single lane on the bridge, surrounded by tow trucks and police cars. By this time (8:30pm) it was dark so I couldn’t see much but there were a lot of cars off to the side of the road. I was just happy to finally be moving again.

Watching the news that evening, I discovered I had been stuck in the aftermath of 19 separate crashes involving 64 different cars on the bridge, apparently caused by heavy traffic leaving the Bucs game in combination with some heavy rain. The first crash occurred around 4:53pm, almost a full hour before we landed! If they were closing the highway, why didn’t they (the FHP) also close the ramp from the airport!? What a crazy way to end a really fun weekend.

Heading to Ohio

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I’m flying home to Ohio today for my brother’s wedding on Saturday. Right now I’m in the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport (CLT) waiting for my connection to Cleveland.

It’s been a long time since I’ve flown through Charlotte, so I had forgotten what a nice airport it is: rocking chairs, free WiFi, a nice center food court/shopping area. One weird thing I didn’t remember though: bathroom attendants. Ugh, I hate that.

Anyway, the two hours I have to spend here shouldn’t be hard at all. Looking forward to seeing the (entire) family this weekend …

Labor Day Weekend @ Disney – Day 3

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This morning we ate breakfast over at the Contemporary and then headed out to enjoy some of the pools at the resorts. My daughter and I swam in the pool at the Contemporary for a bit while we waited for the water slide to open at 10am. Once the lifeguards arrived and the slide was on, my daughter went down that a few times. “That was awesome!” was her reaction. 🙂

With check-out approaching fast at 11am, we walked back over to Bay Lake Tower so my daughter could try the water slide at that pool (I went on it a few times myself).

Then it was back up to the room to quickly, shower, change, pack, and check out.

We drove over to the Downtown Disney area to do a little shopping and grab lunch. On the West Side they have this huge hot air balloon you can ride (for about $15) 400 feet straight up and probably get a good view of everything. I realized I actually saw this thing from the parks the other day … that’s how big it was:

My daughter wanted to buy a Lego set with some money she had saved up so we stopped by the LEGO Store. It was fun to watch her try and decide between Indiana Jones or Star Wars. I guess playing the Wii games and watching the movies has had an effect on her. 🙂 She finally decided on the Indiana Jones set since it had Indy, Marion, two bad guys, a boat, and a car (as opposed to Anakin’s Jedi starfighter with R2-D2).

We had lunch at Fulton’s Crab House (another first for us, and it was very good) and then hit the road back home. There was very little traffic again, which was nice, so we had time to unpack and unwind once we got home.

It was a great vacation, but it’s back to work tomorrow. All good things, right?

Labor Day Weekend @ Disney – Day 0

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This weekend is Labor Day Weekend, so it’s time for our annual mini (or should that be “Minnie?”) family vacation at Walt Disney World. We drove over this afternoon after picking my daughter up from school and hit no traffic going through downtown Tampa or across to Orlando on I-4, which got us to our hotel by 5pm. We’re staying at the new Bay Lake Tower at the Contemporary Resort, which just opened a month ago. This is the first time we’ve stayed in one of the deluxe resorts and it is incredible! Check out the view of the Magic Kingdom from our private balcony:

Cinderellas castle on the left, Space Mountain on the right

Still no free internet access, though … what’s up with that? Anyway, since we had arrived relatively early, we had time to wander around the grounds and also check out the Contemporary next door. Here’s a view of the tower from the Contemporary, near the walkway that connects the two buildings.

After dinner and a quick dip in the pool, we enjoyed the Magic Kingdom fireworks show back in our room:

What an amazing view. So far, this vacation is off to a great start. Tomorrow, we hit the parks …