Last Wednesday night my Tampa Bay Lightning lost Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals to the Washington Capitals, so there will be no Stanley Cup Finals games here in Tampa this year. đ Go Vegas?
With the end of the hockey season also came the end of the school year for my daughter. So with the upcoming Memorial Day holiday weekend, we headed over to Orlando for a mini vacation at Disney World. The 2018 hurricane season doesn’t start until June 1 but already the first named storm of the season (subtropical storm Alberto) was threatening to rain out our plans!
We woke up early this morning, grabbed a quick snack breakfast in the hotel lobby, then checked out and drove back to the airport. After returning the rental car, we just missed getting on the shuttle bus so were first in line for the next one (which took a while to arrive). During the ride to Terminal 4 I got an alert from American that our flight was delayed 30 minutes, so that gave us a little extra buffer. Once at the terminal, we checked our luggage and got through security (they had a dog working the line before we split into TSA PreCheck). Since we had a little extra time due to the delay we walked a few concourses over to get breakfast at Starbucks. Our flight ended up being delayed just over an hour total, but finally we were on our way back to Florida.
So another Spring Training trip is in the books. Thursday is Opening Day and it’ll be the first time since 1968 that all of the teams are playing on the same day. The Boys of Summer are back! Usually the Indians come to Tampa early in the season so I see them again quickly, but this year the Tribe won’t be in Tropicana Field until September! (I already have my tickets). But with baseball starting up that means hockey and basketball are getting ready for the playoffs, so I’ll be watching the Lightning and Cavaliers closely.
Due to scheduling conflicts, I’m heading out to Arizona for my annual Spring Training trip a little later than usual … actually the last weekend of the season! My brother wasn’t able to make it so it’s just me, my sister, and my daughter (who hasn’t been out to see Cactus League baseball with me since 2012). My travel tech hasn’t changed much from last year:Â iPhone 7 Plus, Canon PowerShot SX710, and FitBit Charge 2. The new addition is my Surface Laptop (just in case work calls while I’m away).
Today was quite the busy day. We started early driving over to Orlando for my daughter’s saber solo at the FBA State Solo & Ensemble contest at Lake Nona High School. After she received her superior rating, we started back west towards Tampa but made a quick stop for lunch at the Flower & Garden Festival at Epcot. After lunch we drove back the Tampa International Airport and my wife dropped us off for our flight to Phoenix.
The five hour flight to Sky Harbor was uneventful and our luggage arrived relatively quickly. The line for the rental car shuttle, however, was really long (not too surprising for a Friday night around spring break time though, I guess). After getting our car (free upgrade from mid-size to SUV!) we drove to Goodyear and checked into our hotel. By now it was 8:00pm Arizona time (11:00pm for us!) and we were hungry. Pulling a recommendation from a past trip, my daughter and I went to Bella Luna in Litchfield Park for dinner and then Yogurtini next door for dessert.
After dinner, I dropped my daughter back at the hotel and then drove back to Sky Harbor to pick up my sister. By the time we were all back at the hotel it was about 11:30pm (2:30am for us east coast travellers) so we crashed for the evening. Baseball starts tomorrow!
We rang in 2018 at Busch Gardens this year … watching the fireworks display through the skeleton of Gwazi …
The park was crowded, but nothing like we’ve seen when we’ve gone to the Disney parks for NYE. There were a lot of ride closures, but with Quick Queue we were able to ride all of the coasters.
Earlier in the day, my Cleveland Browns completed their perfect season, going 0-16 for the first time in franchise history (and marking the 2nd time in NFL history a team has gone 0-16, the 2008 Detroit Lions doing it before … and my Tampa Bay Buccaneers went 0-14 back in 1976 (before they were “my” Bucs). Let’s hope 2018 can’t get any worse for football in Cleveland.
This past weekend involved another road trip (July has been a busy travel month for us!).
My wife and daughter flew out to Houston on Thursday to kick off another week-long college visit road trip that will take them from Texas to Ohio. Friday evening, after work, I flew to meet them in Dallas. It had been probably over 10 years since I’d last been to DFW and was surprised to learn that you have to pay to go into the airport even if you’re just going to pick someone up! It cost my wife $2 to come in with the rental car and get me.
On Saturday, while my daughter was visiting with her boyfriend at UT Dallas, my wife drove me through the campus of SMU, which they had toured yesterday. We all met for lunch, and then at 1:30pm were on the road, heading north out of Dallas on US-75. At 2:20pm we crossed into Oklahoma and then three hours later were in Arkansas. We stopped for dinner in Fayetteville at Tacos 4 Life (great tacos!) at 6:30pm.
Back in March during our southwest road trip we had visited Four Corners. On this trip we wanted to stand on three states: Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. At this point we were racing the sun because the “monument” was (according to Google Maps) down a dirt road in a clearing in the woods and was not lit. We crossed the Missouri border at 7:45 and made it to the three states area at 8:30pm. There was still enough light to get our family photo with each of us in a different state. Heading east again on I-44, we stopped for ice cream at Andy’s in Joplin. We finally made it to our hotel in Springfield by 10:15pm. So it was a long driving day, but we hit five states!
Sunday morning we were on the road by 8:15am because I had a 1:00pm flight home out of St. Louis. We got to Lambert by 11:45am so I had no problems making it to the plane. However, I was delayed in Atlanta and didn’t make it home until 8:00pm.
So I’m back, but my wife and daughter still have a few days of driving (and four more college visits) ahead of them.
It was a strategic decision to stay at the Westin at the Denver airport for the past two nights: easy check-in for our late arrival on Thursday, and easy check-out for our flight home today. Plus this was the only time on this trip we were in the same hotel two nights in a row.
This morning was remarkably easy: we packed our bags, left the hotel, and walked across the bridge to the airport terminal. The bag check line for United was really long (I considered going out to the Skycap) but it ended up moving quickly and shortly we had turned in our bags and then breezed through the TSA PreCheck line at security. We still had time to grab some breakfast in the terminal and eat before boarding our flight back to Florida.
Another road trip in the books! This one took us 1,691 miles on the road (plus the 391 mile flight from Salt Lake City to Denver), through seven states, in seven days. Whew!
… and next weekend we’ll be doing a little more travelling. Stay tuned!
Denver, yeah! Today we spent the day in the Mile High City.
First on the agenda was another college visit at the University of Denver so we walked back to the airport, picked up a rental car for the day, and then drove to campus. The information session and tour took most of the morning. Afterwards, we grabbed lunch at the Denver Biscuit Company and then had to book it north to Boulder for our next tour at the University of Colorado. DU was nice, but the campus and surrounding areas of CU are incredible. That tour took up the afternoon so before we knew it it was 5:00pm. We braved the rush hour traffic back to Denver where we were having dinner with old friends at their house. It was nice to have a relaxing evening watching the sun set behind the mountains.
After dinner and visiting, we drove back to the airport, turned in the rental car, and walked back to the hotel. Tomorrow we fly  home …
Today is a sight-seeing day … no serious driving except around town as-needed.
After packing and checking out of the hotel, we left the car in the garage and walked to breakfast at Bruges Waffles & Frites (I had the Pig on a Cloud … yummy!). Across the street, near Pioneer Park, we spied a rack of rentable GreenBikes and decided to use these to get around ($7 each got us “unlimited” 30-minute rides for the day).
We got an early start this morning as we drove into Yellowstone National Park (crossing into Wyoming) hoping to beat some of the traffic and crowds. Driving into Yellowstone was incredible … steaming geyseys and hot springs everywhere. At times it almost looked like those post-apocalyptic (or pre-historic) wastelands you see in the movies, just amazing.
We arrived at the Old Faithful visitor’s center around 9:30am. I had called the park’s prediction line before we left so I knew we’d have enough time to walk around the grounds before the next eruption at around 10:15am. The geyser erupted just about “on time” as predicted and was a pretty cool site to watch. After spending a little more time in the surrounding area and getting some ice cream at the Old Faithful Inn we started driving back out of the park. We made a few more stops at the other hot springs and scenic views (like the Fountain Paint Pots). It was definitely getting more crowded and we were glad we were working our way out of the park by now instead of trying to get in.
At 12:30pm we were back in West Yellowstone and heading west on US-20 into Idaho ten minutes later. The route south on US-20 was very scenic and different from the plains and prairies of North Dakota and Montana. We stopped in Idaho Falls at 2:30pm for lunch at Smitty’s Pancake & Steak House (I recommend the potato pancakes and sourdough waffle!). After lunch it was back onto the interstate system (I-15 now).
Since we only had 8 hours of driving scheduled for today, we slept in a bit and were on the road by 10am after eating breakfast at the hotel. About an hour down I-94 we made a quick scenic stop at the Painted Canyon. Having just been to the Grand Canyon four months ago it wasn’t that impressive but still a pretty view. Half an hour later we crossed the border into Montana (with an 80MPH speed limit!).
1pm found us in Miles City for lunch (Subway) and then two hours later we made a stop at Pomeys Pillar outside of Billings. The Pillar is the site of the only remaining physical evidence of the Lewis and Clark Expedition: Clark’s signature (and the date, July 25, 1806) is carved into the side of the rock. Very cool!
At 6:30pm we were in Bozeman and left the interstate for US-191. The trip west across North Dakota and Montana on I-94/I-90 was scenic, but heading south towards (and through a small portion of) Yellowstone National Park was really impressive (and we’ll see more tomorrow). At 8:00pm we were in West Yellowstone and checked into our hotel by 8:30pm.
The town was hopping with July 4th activities and crowded with tourists (like ourselves). Our plan had been to go out to dinner before the fireworks show so we walked over to Wild West Pizza a few blocks from the hotel. The wait time was 40 minutes so instead we put in a take-out order which would only take 20 minutes. That gave us some time to pick up drinks at the grocery store next door and also wander through a few shops looking for souvenirs. We ate our pizza on a bench on Canyon Street, watched the sun set, and still had time to walk back to the hotel in time for the fireworks show at the end of Yellowstone Avenue.
