Carrie Underwood Mesmerizes The Internet With Her Beauty & Bread, Sad Vols Fans & Are The Yankees Cheating?
I'm officially back in Ohio after a beautiful Spring Break, it's cloudy, humid, cold, wet, I have my space heater on and my 11 & 12U team has baseball practice tonight
Where do I even start after disappearing from the Internet for 10 days? Let's start with the weather in Florida over Spring Break. It was between 79 & 88 with beautiful blue skies for 9 & ¾ of the days we were there. The only time it rained was Saturday night after dark.
We're talking nearly zero humidity for those 9 ¾ days. Yes, there was a pleasant breeze. Just enough to make those 88-degree days comfortable.
After enduring the unreal heatwave in Florida two year ago when it was 115 with the heat index on Siesta Key, we were due.
Mother Nature delivered on this trip.
Trip highlights, details & observations:
- Let's start with high-fives to my parents who have places in Florida. My mom is in Largo and serves as the quasi-Uber driver for her trailer park, so she is great at picking us up at the Tampa airport. My dad has a place just off Collier Blvd. before you go over the causeway to Marco Island. We're very lucky to have two solid bases of operation.
- This trip, we added in three nights at the Grand Wyndham Bonnet Creek in Orlando and ONE day at Epcot. The Grand Wyndham hotel was great. Five pools to use, pool bars everywhere, great weather, lazy rivers, kids throwing balls until their arms fell off, water slides, magicians performing sets at night, pools and hot tubs that don't close until 11 p.m. on weekends, March Madness on the pool bar TVs, nobody yelling if you brought in your own beer, people grilling steaks on resort grills, great poolside pizza.
- No, we DO NOT have a Grand Wyndham timeshare share. We stayed in the hotel, which is open to the public and includes all the hotel grounds amenities that timeshare visitors get. We never encountered a single worker who mentioned buying a timeshare. The hotel is a hotel. There aren't guys with frosted tips yelling at you to sit through their presentation. Check-in took about 2 ½ minutes. Checkout took about 30 seconds. The valet staff was great.
- Shocker: Epcot was packed, but it was annoying. It was my first trip to the park. I'm not sure it would be necessary to return, especially at the prices Disney is charging. The park was fine and I had fun watching the boys having fun, but I probably wouldn't desire a return trip. Leave me at the Grand Wyndham pools. I will say that the grounds were incredible. For those of us who have the utmost respect for the landscape engineers of the world, the real highlight of the park is the grounds. I'm not sure I'd ever seen so many flowers. Mrs. Screencaps was gasping around every corner.
- Screencaps the III will never forget how we got stuck on the Three Ccaballeros ride. His heart was pounding as we were stuck dead in the water with the animatronics moving, but the sound was off. I'm sure he's telling everyone about it at school today.
- Yes, we stayed for the fireworks show. It was fine, but it was better from our hotel room where we could watch the show, and then I could go back to watching March Madness from the comfort of the hotel room couch.
- From Orlando, we headed down FL-17 out of Winter Haven to Punta Gorda where we met up with I-75 for the NASCAR-like drive to the Marco Island exit where my dad has wintered for about the last decade. That part of the trip included a visit to Alfie Oakes' Seed To Table grocery store — it was SLAMMED on a Tuesday night to the point where it was a fight just to find a place to sit — which could easily double in size and people would still fill the place.
- Dad & my stepmother also scheduled a boat day on their 19-foot Hurricane that's housed at Port 32 boathouse on Marco. I'm convinced that one of my dad's proudest life accomplishments is that he has enough money to store his boat that place. The boathouse guys drop it into the water, and it's ready to go when they show up. To him, that's the I made it moment.*Dad would like to add that it pays to have the 19' boat without a fixed top. There's cheap space in the boathouse for the 19-foot Hurricanes, according to dad. On Thursday, he took us to Keywaydin Island to go look for seashells and see the dolphins, which the kids loved. Dad was nice enough to buy the famous Keewaydin Island beachy burger which have been featured on Food Network. Confirmed: the burger is insane.
- Friday and Saturday were back up in Largo where my mom had us on the run to reptile stores, on the Little Toot dolphin excursion boat out of Clearwater and we even took the kids to a couple of dive bars/restaurants for a real Florida feel. The Little Toot delivered. We had dolphins jumping and doing barrel rolls off the side of the boat. The kids were going nuts. Success!
Quick hitters:
- Florida drivers might be the worst in the nation. Save the emails. I'll die on this hill. Florida drivers are horrible. Why are you driving 80 mph in the left lane and then slamming on your brakes on I-75 from Naples to Bradenton when it's bumper to bumper? It's absolute chaos. Don't even get me started on I-4 from Tampa to Orlando. I don't know how people drive that highway more than once a year. No thanks.
- I received mixed messaging from my mom on why so many Canadians are selling trailers right now. She says the No. 1 reason is that they love where the USD is sitting. The cash is good, but then she added that there is a segment that are selling over politics. Mom has been at the Largo park since 2020. I'd never seen so many trailers for sale as I did on this trip. It's officially a buyers' market.
- We took a drive from John's Pass into Treasure Island and then back up to Indian Rocks. There's still unbelievable destruction with many hotel buildings boarded up, but travelers are coming back. John's Pass was busy.
- I'd forgotten just how many personal injury lawyers there are in Florida. The local TV stations love those ad dollars.
- I'd also forgotten just how often you'll get an only in Florida moment. The drivers might be horrible, but Florida is just so full of content that I can't turn away. It's the world's best people-watching. Horrible drivers, great content creators.
- The trip was a complete success. No issues. No drama. No kids melting down. The parents are healthy and enjoying their lives. That's all I can ask for.
Baseball starts tonight
Before I get out of here, thought I'd provide a rec ball update. Spring Training starts tonight when I get my hands on seven 12Us and 5 11Us. I spent part of the trip trying to visualize how I'm going to spend the 90 minutes.
It's time to figure out who can pitch. Who can catch a ball and who is new to the sport. I know that travel ball coaches don't want to mess with the kids who can't catch. More and more, I find myself thinking about how I love the challenge of taking the kids that can't play and turning them into ball players.
Tonight, year three of this adventure begins. This challenge will consume me for the next 3 ½ months.
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That is is for this final Monday in March. Just like that, a quarter of the year is over.
We'll get back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow. I have so many emails to go through. Hang with me as I get things sorted out.
Let's go have a great day.
Email: joe.kinsey@outkick.com or use my personal Gmail.