Thursday & Friday (In One Post)

The Internet at the condo was mis-behaving last night, so I couldn't post our Thursday adventure and here it it Friday night already!

Once again we left early Thursday morning for Clearwater for our final ball game. Phillies were playing the Minnesota Twins at 1:05 PM. We lucked out again as Cole Hamels pitched. Unfortunately, he gave up 6 runs before he was taken out in the 7th inning. I was thrilled to see Jim Thome play, even though he is now a Twin!

We had GREAT seats about 17 rows up from the third base line behind the Phillies dugout. The not so great part was the heat! The sun was so intense, even with tons of sunscreen we felt like we were burning up! Andy had a great idea with the towels! You should see how burnt the front of his legs are!

We left after the 7th inning, as did quite a few of the fans in attendance. I found out later in the evening that they lost 6-3, so they second stringers got several runs, which is a good sign. I was not at all impressed with Luis Castillo, the 2nd baseman they just picked up from the New York Mets. Seemed like a lot of he folks around us felt the same way and hope they keep the some of the younger guys on the squad until Polanco and Utley are able to play.

Leaving the ball park early got us home a little earlier and we chilled for the rest of the night. I ended up packing since we planned since mid week to leave a day early.

FRIDAY:

Not too much to report for Friday. We sadly left Florida around 8:30 AM to head back home. We stopped for some Florida oranges and then lunch in Georgia. Right now we are a few miles north of Charlotte, North Carolina for the night. Plan to head out in the morning and make it home sometime Saturday.

Super Day of Relaxation

Today ended up being a day of relaxation, starting with not waking up until 8 AM. Can't remember the last time that happened, oh yea.......Sunday morning after our auto train adventure! This is truly a vacation when you can actually sleep in. Not sure how I will do when the alarm goes off on Monday to wake us up for work, but for the next few days, I am going to enjoy it!

After doing some laundry and catching up on emails, we headed out for our "adventure". We ended up driving around looking for Quiznos for sandwiches and ended up finding one of the two in the phone book.......OUT OF BUSINESS! So we went to PLAN B and ended up eating at Smokey Bones. YUMMMMMMMM......we ended up having ribs, with Andy choosing brisket as his other meat and I had chicken.

Off to our adventure in Downtown Disney!

Characters in Flight Ride!

This is similar to the Zoo Balloon in Philadelphia. It goes up about 400 feet in the air and you can see all over the Disney area. We drove in to Downtown Disney in the 90 degree heat to take this ride up to try and get some fantastic pictures on this clear day, only to find out......

It was quite breezy when we got over to where the ride was, but I never gave it a thought that they would have closed the ride. We ended up getting some ice cream and sat for awhile watching the riverboats and doing some people watching before heading back to the condo.

We opted for some pizza for dinner and are calling it a day by watching Survivor. Tomorrow will be an early day.

PS: Found out last night that my Mom was in the hospital for pneumonia since Monday. She is doing better, and I spoke with her to confirm that this evening. Hopefully she will be out of the hospital tomorrow. Just like my mom, she wanted to know who had won the Phillies game today, thinking we went today, and wanted to discuss all the games we have seen so far. Felt better after talking to her and home she is back to normal once we get home this weekend.

Spring Training Game 2

Headed out an hour earlier today for Dunedin, Florida for the 1:05 PM game - Phillies VS Toronto Bluejays. It was almost the same distance as we traveled yesterday to Clearwater, but we knew we wanted to get decent parking so filled up the cooler with bottled water and took off. Stopped on the way in to town for some Subway sandwiches. Great parking across from the stadium in the VFW parking lot, another $10 but they offered us great prices for hot dogs, burgers and drinks. It is a shame we stopped for sandwiches ahead of time because I would have loved to support the local VFW.

Stadium was a lot smaller that Brighthouse Field in Clearwater, only holding 5500 people.

Again it was a sellout, but for the Phillies being the away team, there seemed to be way more Phillies fans that Blue Jay Fans. We were so excited to see another one of the top four pitchers - Cliff Lee. He only gave up four hits, but one was a home run, and he threw a lot of pitches through his 6 innings.
Thrilled to see Ibanez hit a three run homer early in the game.

AND we won again! It was a nail biter at the end as the bull pen (Romero and Baez) gave up 2 runs in the ninth to make it a close game.

Tomorrow is a rest up day, with a local "adventure" in the afternoon. Gotta to stay out of the sun for a day since I look like a well cooked lobster right now.

Stayed tuned for tomorrow nights post with our latest adventure!

Clearwater Adventure

Headed out of Orlando by 9:30 AM on our way to Clearwater, Florida for our first Spring Training game. Philadelphia Phillies vs Boston Red Sox - Game time 1:05 PM EST.

We arrived in Clearwater around 11 AM and as we passed through the town noticed a lot of people sporting Phillies apparel, walking towards the ball park. It was amazing, seeing the sea of red as we tried to find parking.

On our way in to the ball park, we could view one of the training areas off the main entrance of Brighthouse Stadium, and lo and behold, I spotted one of my favorite players -

This is how he fielded ground balls! He didn't even stand up to throw the balls back.

Once in side the stadium, it was an electric feeling! Sure there were some Boston Red Sox fans intermingled with the Phillies fans, but everywhere you looked there were people sporting some kind of clothing, hats, or bag with the Phillies logo and colors.

We really saw a great game! Halladay pitched 7-2/3 fantastic innings, and even the Red Sox fan next to me commented on his spotless pitching. He also got the first hit for the Philllies.

Little scare midway through the game when both Victorino and Ibanez both went for a fly ball and collided. It looked serious when Victorino didn't move let alone get up for a few minutes. Had to come home and check out the website to find out he bruised his eye. He finally did get up and flashed a smile to the crowd as he left for the dressing room. He is one cool player!
















Here are a few of the 60+ pictures I took today of my favorite players as they played in the game as well as signed autographs. They were so accommodating to the crowds of people lining the left field fence. Attendance was a sell out; 10,000 people and the stadium has 7500 seats! Lots of fans were out in he grassy areas in the outfield and standing throughout the stadium.

Ryan Howard


Jimmy Rollins

Check out the scoreboard:

Phillies WON!

Tomorrow heading to an away game against the Toronto Blue Jays.

Sorry! No bloopers today!

Sunday Adventures

You know you are REALLY on vacation when you don't set the alarm clock!
Woke up ready for our Sunday "adventure" after almost 12 hours of rest. Guess we didn't sleep as well as we thought on the auto train. Exhausted Saturday night and ended up calling it a night after Temple lost the basketball game after two over times. Still a good game!



Left our condo at Cypress Point around 11:30 AM, Here is a picture of the entrance in to the resort. The picture doesn't do it justice with all the amazing flowers and shrubs.













And here is another picture taken looking back at the Resort check in area. AHH, I LOVE palm trees!









Headed out to gather some information for our possible Wednesday "adventure". Don't want to give too much away right now, but our first "blooper" for the day was driving into where we thought we should be, only to end up at the parking area for Universal Studios. Luckily we had a really nice woman at the toll gate when we explained we really didn't want to to go to the park and she put a receipt on our car and directed us where to exit. Whew, almost wasted $15!

Blooper two was trying to find a Quiznos for lunch, only to see the sign for one, pull into the parking lot and finding it out of business. Luckily there was a Subway close by.


Headed on to our adventure for Sunday. So what was our adventure in Kissimmee Florida? Well to keep the suspense a little longer, we made our reservations and had some time to kill so went to one if Andy's favorite places no matter where we go-









The local airport.













Where we parked for a few minutes to see some small jets take off and this Blue Heron walking around the parking lot.
















Our adventure for the day!

Airboating on Lake Tohopekaliga. I wasn't
sure what to expect when Andy saw it in one

of the local brochures. It was so cool! I wish I
could have taken pictures of us going over the
grasses in the swampy areas at speeds up to 35
to 45 miles an hour and turning sharply at some
areas.










We saw quite a few types of wild life, including alligators! Can you see one in this picture? Hint.....I cut the front part of his jaw off!






Give up?
It is to the left of this writing, head in the lower left corner.



We ended the day with a nice dinner at Crackerbarrel and are relaxing in our living/dining area ready to sip on some wine coolers and nibble on some cheese and crackers!


Tomorrow?
Off the the ball park for our first Spring Training Game!

The Auto Train

Friday we pulled out of the Wawa parking lot in Souderton at 7:43 AM, after fueling up, both "Baby Blue" our new Escape as well as both of us. Only I would schedule blood work the morning before vacation.

Around 12:30 PM after picking up some sandwiches, we arrived in Lorton, Virginia - the northern home of the Auto Train. It was amazing how fast we were checked in and wisked out of our car. We watched it being loaded on the train car.

Of course we had a few laughs prior to this picture being taken. Andy left the tip for the worker who loaded our car on the dashboard accidently and he let us know we "forgot" it. Then we started walking towards the ticketing area and the guy called us back - Andy put the car keys in his pocket! Chuckle chuckle..........We pulled out of Lorton at 3:30 PM.

We just booked lower level coach seats, and figured we'd sleep in the reclining seats rather than pay for the sleeper. Next blooper occurred as I led the way to our seats, well at least I thought they were our seats. We got all settled, leaned the seats back, put up the seat rests and then an elderly couple stood right next to us wondering where seats 82 & 83 were......only to find out that we were back a row too far. It was a really enjoyable trip and I would do it again in a heart beat! So after hearing all kinds of "stories" about other peoples experiences, here are my 5 top observations.

1. There was tons of leg room and seats were wide - so much better than coach airline seats.

2. I didn't have to go through computer withdrawal. There is no wireless service, but they do have 120 volt services at our seats, so I could have done some "work". Will remember this for the next trip.

3. Train is a lot slower in certain areas than I thought it would. I thought it was one of those "high speed" trains you see in the movies.

4. Scary when you pass another train, or go over water.

5. Wasn't near as bumpy as I thought it would be and I slept most of the night.

So finally at 8:15 AM this morning (Saturday) after a great continental breaskfast we arrived in Sanford, Florida. They allowed the passengers off the trains and we started waiting for the vehicles to come off the train cars. There were 380 passengers and 168 vehicles on the train. They told us with the passenger and vehicle cars the train was 3/4 of a mile long.

Anyway.....we waited and waited and waited for our car to come off. We had heard the first cars on are ususally the first off when we boarded. We were probably the 20th car on, and guess what?

We were the LAST car off the auto train! I was starting to get upset, since I would never have thought we would be the last off. But we were, and we actually won a prize! A cooler........

Here is a pitcure of Baby Blue coming off the train car.

It was a piece of cake getting out of the terminal being the last to get their vehicle at 10 AM, so we headed toward Orlando for our home away from home for the next week. Check in at the condo wasn't until 4 PM so we drove through Downtown Disney whose entrance is less than 2 blocks from the condo.

Had lunch at Ruby Tuesdays and decided to see if we could get checked in early. So we lucked out and are now back up with internet, feet propped up ready for the Temple Owls basketball game. Stay tuned.........the brochures are out and we are planning for another adventure on Sunday!

Getting "Outta Here!"

One more sleep before The Boy (aka Andy) and I will be taking a break from my part time "crafty" job of hosting card making workshops and our "real jobs" where we actually bring home a pay check after a 40+ hour work week.

I decided to change my Stampin Up business blog temporarily to our adventure blog for the next 10 days so friends and family can follow us as we travel from Pennsylvania to Florida and back. Someone needs to make sure the Philles are going all the way to the World Series this year, and we assigned ourselves to this job! Got to check out all those injuries. Seems there is a new injured player for each day of the week, and we need to cheer them back to being healthy.

Before we head out early tomorrow there are a few things on the agenda tonight.

First and foremost, doing some laundry and PACKING!

Yup!

I bought some new tee shirts, one for each game and a few I borrowed just to have some spares! We each bought a hat as well in hopes of getting a few autographs from some of the players. So looking forward to ditching the work clothes and shoes, and bringing out the short, tee shirt, bathing suit and flip flops.

Tomorrow will be a long day as we head to Lorton, Virginia to pick up the auto train. Unfortunately I don't think the auto train has Internet, so my next post will be sometime Saturday when we arrive in Florida. Need to make sure I pack a journal and pen so I can document tomorrow the "old fashioned" way!