Pre-Spring Break Vacation

So its almost time for Sring Break season to start; Since we are not too big on crowds, we decided to head out before the whole world rushes to Florida's beautiful beaches. I've been wanting to try Panama City for a long time, however due to the low temperatures we decided to head to south Florida. South Florida has stayed amazingly warm during these cold weeks that we've had in the Central Florida area. So why not South Florida to warm up and hit the beach? We have Ft. Lauderdale which is such a beatiful area with and so rich with history. This is perfect weather to head south. The temperature in the Ft. Lauderdale area will stay in the mid to low 70's during our trip, so it will be perfect to spend a nice day at the beach. We can bring out the shorts and t-shirts again, leave the jackets at home. We might bring a windbreaker jacket just in case it gets a bit windy during the night time walks on the beach.

There is however no better feeling than sitting at the balcony with some Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra in the background while you cuddle under the moonlight and watch the beatiful waves with the nice ocean breeze. Talk about a perfect post-valentines day adventure. This trip is sure to keep that fire alive between your partner and you. If the kids decide to come along, remember there are plenty of kid friendly activities around the area. Some of the hotels in the area have video game rentals available. So you could always keep the valcony door open and enjoy a night of "Rock Band" with the family. Dad's are normally best with guitars or drums lol.

Once we arrived to our hotel, we immediately drop off our bags, kicked off the shoes headed down for the beach. The water was actually warm, so we decided to stay at the beach for a while. The wife decided to stay at the beach and tan while I headed back into the room to get the a few drinks and our Ipod's. Relaxing by the beach is an unique feeling, it's so relaxing that you could sleep for days. We had dinner reservations for later that night so we stayed away from the alcoholic drinks down by the beach. Ft. Lauderdale has many nice restaurants and the majority have a very nice wine selection. About half an hour later we felt was enough tanning, we went to the pool for a bit, they had a basketball hoop right by the pool. We met a another couple by the pool and started a pool basketball game with them, after about fifteen minutes of play we came up a few points short of swimming away with a win. It was a lot of fun, during the game we found out that the couple was there on their honeymoon. They were from Colorado and had met in Ft. Lauderdale during a school trip a few years back, John(the husband) was down with his friends for an early start for spring break and Lisa(the wife) was there with the school trip, they met by the pool at the same hotel and 3yrs later they felt it would be romantic to have their honeymoon where they shared their first kiss.

This area is so wonderful, full of nice and friendly people. The tourists are all so excited to have a good time, everyone is just in a very pleasant mood the entire time. The wife and I ended up not going out for dinner, instead we had take out from one of the local restaurants and came back to enjoy it in our valcony with the beatiful moonlight and some scented candles(her idea). The remaining days of the vacation we spent down by the beach enjoying our youth.

Vancouver, Canada

So we are still in Vancouver Canada and we got the opportunity to see a few more of the games, we even got moved closer to the city because our old hotel kinda kicked us out. Apparently they gave us a room that that was supposed to be occupied two days later, when they realized we were in the room they moved us t a Marriot hotel that’s twenty minutes closer to the big games, now it’s only an hour and a half to get there. We didn’t realize it till yesterday but the roads aren’t really clogged up. When we went to the Daytona races you couldn’t move twenty feet in ten minutes, here everything is moving pretty smoothly. There are long walks to the events but it really isn’t that bad.

We went to Granville Island yesterday; you take a ferry over the water to this small island just outside the harbor. It’s a winter wonderland on the water, all these miniature houses covered in snow that you could walk in, and then have your wife clean your wallet out. Yea all these little houses decorated in Christmas lights (I guess all year round?) were filled with restaurants and souvenirs, the perfect solution for a day filled with me toting bags while she laid hands on everything overpriced. I began to wonder if they raised prices since the Olympics came around or if it’s like this all year round.

Anyhow we saw some women’s speed skating events and Ill tell you what they can fly. Watching them on television you can’t really see how fast they are going. When they fly by you in the seats and you can feel the wind on your face you quickly realize that their speed is crazy! We also got to see some bobsleigh racing, my wife took a ton of pictures, but the bobsled always turns up blurry. I didn’t realize that these guys and girls are going faster than some cars are even capable of. We got to meet a few of the Olympic participants in the crowd, although once again they just shook our hands, I don’t know if that means they cant speak English or are purposely avoiding drawing a crowd.

We are gonna hang out here for a few more days, the games are starting to get exiting as the days are winding down, and if I can keep my wife off that blasted island we might have enough money to get home in this Ford Focus were still renting; its nice on the icy roads.

Vancouver, Canada

It’s quite simple to see why I agreed rather rapidly when my wife suggested we go up to Canada and get in on some of the Olympic action. So with only a few days preparation we had a full trip to Vancouver planned, however staying in that area would be almost impossible, there are just too many people there and prices have skyrocketed on all the hotels and places to stay. We decided to fly into Washington and drive up from there, just a simple car rental in Washington and we would be set.

We didn’t pack a lot, of course the camera was a must but truthfully we didn’t expect to do anything but watch the games. That and we were also told that the customs inspections would be ridiculous but we understand the reasons. We rented a Ford Focus from Budget, we set it up online and at the terminal we were handed our keys, a quick and simple exchange. Get across into Canada was a pretty long experience; they checked everything, although they seemed to dismiss my pocket knife so I am not sure exactly what they were looking for. The cool thing is that it is right on the boarder and they offer to mail things home if their in violation of their policies. Lucky for us there was nothing that they cared for.

When we go to our hotel we asked around about how to go about seeing the events and what was coming up. Well there was Curling and a Biathlon the next day, so, we decided to hit the hay and wait till morning to enjoy some of the sports. We had to get up early because we were about two hours out from the course, they searched long and hard through our bags, they even used something to scan my wife’s camera, and then they sent us in. We decided to watch the Biathlon for a few hours then go see the curling event. My wife got some really good pictures of the men; a few times she even got pictures with the flash of their rifles as they fired at the targets. It was the women’s event and some of the guys standing next to us at about the midway point were from the men’s team. None of them spoke English however, but one of them had a bronze medal on, my wife got a picture, were still trying to figure out who it was.

We went over to the curling event later in the day; apparently my wife had a friend back in college who was on a curling team. She explained just about the whole sport to me, otherwise I would be totally in the dark about how it’s played. The PA announcer was talking about how one of the women on the ice was three months pregnant, and I guess if you train for a year to be the best then being pregnant isn’t something to pass up the Olympics for.

We plan to hang out up here in the cold whether for a week or so. You might be hearing more from us if we can find another internet café, or if we return to this one.

Michael Jackson in Disneyland with Rafael 2010

I was never a huge fan of Michael Jackson, but my good friend Rafael is one of the biggest Michael Jackson fans that has ever existed. Since I was in need of a vacation and he really wanted to see Michael Jackson we decided that we would take a trip. Even though we could have just went to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Rafael decided it would be a much better idea to go all the way to California so he could visit the Neverland Ranch. I’m not new to driving from coast to coast, but Rafael has never been in a car for more than 4 hours. We wanted a car that would be able to pick up all of the “hot mommas” while we were in California because Rafael seems to love those California girls. We went to the Alamo located at the Orlando International Airport the first car that came to sight was the Chevrolet Aveo and without thinking Rafael immediately made his decision. He picked the red Aveo so it would match his Thriller outfit that he was so excited to wear. We couldn’t travel such a far distance on empty stomachs so we decided to stop and eat, the first place Rafael wanted to go was Macaroni Grill because he was in the mood for some “smokey macaroni” we had a great lunch at that restaurant and made our way in the direction of California. Rafael was in such a rush to see Michael Jackson he put the pedal to the metal and pushed that Aveo to the extreme, I actually don’t think he was physically able to go any faster in that car. We ended up in Louisiana before we even knew it; I actually fell asleep in the car and when we woke up in Missouri I asked Rafael if we were almost there and he replied with his signature “CorrectExactly.” We stopped in Texas for a few minutes and stayed at a nearby hotel. I usually hate to waste time by sleeping in when we have to be on the road so I woke Rafael up, instead of getting ready to go he shouted out “Excuseme?!” and went back to sleep. After pouring cold water on him, he finally woke up and we were on the road. I decided to drive this time and we were on our way. We zoomed through Texas and switched drivers in New Mexico. Rafael then again got excited and zoomed all the way through the state; I’ve never been in a vehicle traveling that fast without the intention to win a race or something. Unfortunately, we got an intense speeding ticket on the way there. The officer actually said he was debating sending Rafael to jail for his speeding. We then decided it would be a better idea for me to drive, we drove all the way to California in a few more hours and stayed the night because it was pretty late. We stayed the night with intentions of waking up super early in the morning to see Michael Jackson at Disney Land. The next morning we woke up ready for the day, we made our ways over to Disney Land and checked out this 17-Minute show the whole entire world was talking about. I’ve never seen pure epicness before until that point in history. It was an amazing film and I’m glad they brought it back instead of keeping it a secret. I would say it was honestly worth the drive even though I could have seen the same exact thing in Orlando but it was alright. After the show we went to Neverland Ranch it was kind of weird that Rafael was wearing the same “Thriller” outfit that he has been wearing for the passed few days but that’s okay. I won’t judge him for that. Overall it was a great trip; even through next time I would much rather fly to California next time or just go to Orlando and watch the movie there.

Ichetucknee Springs

So we have kinda been on a relaxing streak since we got back from our New York trip and when we decided we wanted to do something stress free. We rented a vehicle from Enterprise; we chose a Chevy Malibu and headed north to Ichetucknee springs. Now the state park is where the spring is actually located but literally just across the road from the parks boarder is a large camp ground. Now we are getting a little to old for camping but the park offers several small cabins, each with two queen sized beds so we made reservations to rent one of these cabins. We had to wait an extra day for a vacancy but we got the cabin nonetheless.

The campgrounds are actually quite large and at this time of year there really wasn’t a lot of people there. We dropped our stuff in the cabin and made a walk about the campground just to get our bearings. Now on the Ichetucknee River or Spring you generally float down on tubes, so at the front desk or shop we had to rent our tubes for the next morning. We got a large three person raft and figured we would use the extra room to spread out. It was a good idea because I don’t think I could have sat cross legged for three hours… yes the ride is that long.

Don’t get me wrong, every minute of those three hours is filled with incredible sites and animals. We went down the river and saw an abundance of fish in all sizes. The plants and water are beautiful, and every corner presented a new photo opportunity, my wife was aggravated that we hadn’t taken the camera. But the fact that we were riding on water seemed too dangerous for her expensive camera. We saw a few otters and a few water snakes, not poisonous but still snakes none the less.

One you get to the end you can either return your raft or take it back up to the half way point and ride half way down the stream again. We decided that we really weren’t up to riding down again, so we returned our raft and hopped on the tram to return to our car. There was a food stand and we decided that we wanted some hot fries, so when we ordered them we sat down by the river and ate. Keep in mind that this entire time I wanted my fishing rod, the fish here are monstrous, and because the water has less oxygen than the lakes in the area the fish have to jump to collect it. But as far as I see it, the fish are just jumping to taunt me.

This is a fun and very inexpensive vacation for us. We only went down the river once but we think if we ever visit again we may try to do it three days in a row. And my wife is already online looking for a waterproof case for her camera, she seems really exited about going back, so it appears as if I will have to book another trip soon.

The Osceola County Fair 2010

Every year around the second week of February you can always count on the Osceola County fair to come by, from miles away you can see the bright shining lights on the 125 foot Ferris Wheel. In fact the Fair and Rodeo is such a big deal, everyone in Osceola County has been getting a day off of school for 66 years! This day off is called “Rodeo Day” sometimes when you get out of this small town and tell people you get a day off school for Rodeo Day they wont even believe you! They’ll think you’re making up your childhood or something, but there’s nothing made up about the Rodeo Day it’s probably the most looked forward to day in February for Osceola County. As long as I’ve lived in this county I have been going to the fair and rodeo, this year was no different. No matter how old the rides at the fair are, people will still ride them except for the select few who will always be afraid.

The day started off as just any other Thursday, my buddies Brock and Cesar were at work with me and we decided it would be a good idea to go to the fair, after we got off at about 8 o’ clock we headed straight to there. It wasn’t even a far drive from our office so that was the best part. Since Cesar had to get his girlfriend Brock and I went to a local Burger King and ate as we waited for the two. We finally got a text message from Cesar saying he was on his way so we finished up our food and made our ways into the fair where we met up with our good friends Danielle and Nicole. The first ride we went on was called “The Fireball” which is a huge loop with a train on it, the train swings back and forth and completes the loop, as we waited in line Danielle decided it would be a good idea to chicken out and not ride the ride, but it was okay we really didn’t need her to have fun, at that point no one really cared anyway-it was actually a good thing because we had someone to hold our stuff so it wouldn’t fly out during the ride! I honestly cant even remember the name of the second ride we went on, all I know is it wasn’t as thrilling as the first one, and for the record Brock and I have been on a popular attraction in Fun Spot Kissimmee called “The SkyCoaster” which is a 330 foot swing, we’ve done that about 5 times each and it has seemed to mentally scar us because we are no longer afraid of any rides, but that doesn’t stop us from having a good time though. One of the rides that people seem to hate is the Starship 2000 which can be described as a gravity defying spinning mechanism or the vomit machine. Luckily no one threw up this time around but that ride is infamous for that. Another ride that’s infamous at the fair is the “Zipper” you are put into a cage and flipped around as you go up and down, usually you are only supposed to sit 2 people in there and it was originally going to be Nicole and I but since Danielle “The Wuss” decided it was a good idea to not ride it, we crammed Brock in so he could join in on the fun.

The last ride we decided to go on was the Ferris Wheel, which is not really a ride it’s actually just a big spinning wheel but you can’t go to the fair without going on it! I got yelled at a few times for trying to stand up on it so that made the experience not so fun after all but its okay I feel like it was worth it. It was getting late and we decided it was time to leave and get a good night’s rest so we could come back on Friday and watch the Rodeo.

I woke up on Friday to the vibrating of my phone, over and over again. It turns out that my buddy who was entering his prized pig into the fair was having a hard time because his truck broke down and he had no way of getting his pig to the fair. There was no way I could fit it in my 2-Seater so I decided to do him a favor and rent a truck so we could tow the animal in a trailer. We rushed down to the Orlando International Airport and rented a Chevy Silverado from Hertz and drove back and attached the trailer with the pig and rushed off to the Rodeo, After all of that hard work he didn’t even get a prize for his pig but that’s okay because there’s always next year. Overall we had a great time at this hometown event and I plan on going as long as I’m anywhere near the Osceola County area!

Deep Sea Fishing

So we got back home late last night with our Chevrolet Cobalt from Hertz and decided we wanted to keep it for an extra day, and then return it to the airport tomorrow. We always liked driving so we came down from New York via our rental car, snapped a lot of photos on the way and stopped at a few restaurants we had read about online. Now that we were back in Florida we just wanted to relax. However after a long time listening to the many messages on the answering machine I was devastated when I heard one message.

Unfortunately before leaving I had totally forgotten to check the calendar for the days preceding our return. Remember we went to Long Island for a few days? That was all unplanned and now we missed the biggest event of my year! We had chartered a deep-sea fishing boat, and the message simply stated that we had missed our boat, and to call about our money being returned.

When we called they told us that we there were two options; have our money returned or take the next available boat which happened to be the next morning. We wanted to rest but I convinced my wife that resting on a boat is better than on the couch to Nascar, so we took the boat the next day and we were on the water by 5am. Since we still had the Cobalt we took it. You have to get out of the channel as early in the day as possible, you spend two hours just getting out to “deep-sea,” so wasting your chartered boat hours on the trip is unnecessary. Besides we pretty much slept on the boat for those two hours, they had comfortable benches.

Our captain was a smart guy and about 7am he and I were going over all his instruments before he pointed out we were very close to his favorite fishing spot. Now I brought my own rod and he just laughed and told me to leave it, which was later understood when we caught ourselves a massive Tuna. I can’t remember how much it weighed but I couldn’t pick it up alone. Interestingly enough I must have fought this guy for thirty minutes, at one point I even handed the rod to our captain and took a three minute breather. We plan to eat this sucker tonight, and I definitely want to go out again. One of the guys on the boat with us caught two medium sized Kingfish and my wife got to real in a very small Barracuda, but she wouldn’t touch it.

If you get the opportunity you should really go fishing out on the ocean its great fun. It really isn’t as expensive as you would think and it’s worth every single cent you spend on it. I wonder if we got enough of the fish smell out of the trunk to the Cobalt, if not the next renter is in for a surprise.

UFO Sightings in London, England 2010

I used to have a friend that always used to say “out of this world” when describing something, but nothing was ever really “out of this world” so I’ve never had the opportunity to use it, until recently of course. We have been planning a trip to London, England as far back as I can remember yet I have never been able to convince my friends to go until this past week. We all took a trip to the United Kingdom just for fun. Unlike many of our other trips we decided it would benefit us more to fly there, instead of driving. Flying has its perks especially when flying somewhere far like London. For one, it would take forever to drive there if the car was an amphibious vehicle, but it wasn’t so a plane would just have to get the job done and we would just have to rent a car when we landed. We wanted to start as early as possible in the morning so we weren’t wasting time in the air because it is a long flight from Orlando Florida to London England. For about 10 hours we would have to be sitting for a pretty long time before we landed. But that was no problem I figured it would all be worth it when we got to the airport because we would just be able to rent a car and then drive on to wherever we wanted to go. Usually on flights I can’t help but fall asleep, this time it was a lot different, I couldn’t sleep until we were about 4 hours in. I was too busy reading this weird magazine and UFO sightings in London and it just captured my attention to the point where I could not divert it for anything! Not even the stewardess trying to give me a drink! After I got done with my reading I quickly began to doze off and had one of the worst nightmares of my entire life! We finally landed and I was feeling refreshed from my short nap, we quickly hurried to the baggage claim and went to go see a man about renting a car. The first rental car place that we saw was a Thrifty Car Rental; the car that caught our eye was a Jaguar X-Type from their Premium Line. Without questions we just went with that car because we figured if we’re going to be riding in London we’re going to be riding in style. Our hotel was not too far from our airport so as soon as we landed we dropped our bags off and went off to see what London had to offer, the first place we stopped was a coffee shop so we could energize ourselves before we went on some more adventures. At first we were wondering why everyone seemed to be talking to each other but we could not understand them clearly until one man invited us into the conversation, we then found out about the United Kingdom actually letting out files about UFO’s we were surprised because back home in Orlando almost no one believes in aliens yet over here everyone can vouch that they’ve seen one, it had already been late in the afternoon so we were getting ready to leave and as we were leaving we looked into the sky and saw a large flying disk! At first I thought I was just seeing things because there was no noise associated with this disk so it was just odd to see something so big just float across the air with no sound, and when it was floating it was going at the fastest rate I’ve ever seen anything move! It was a crazy sight and I wish I was handy enough to carry a camera at all times so I could have snapped a quick shot, but it was okay at least I got to see it with my own eyes even though no one will ever believe me. We have a few more days in London and I’m beginning to love it already!

Long Island New York

We are still in Warwick New York, but we plan to visit some friends from our old church in Patchogue Long Island. So with our Hertz rental car a Chevrolet Cobalt we departed from our family and headed east to the island that used to be our home. It is still snowing really badly up here but the Cobalt is holding out just fine, and when we arrived in Long Island we realized that we didn’t have to warm her up in the morning. What I am trying to say is that as cold as it is I expected twenty minutes of heating the car up before takeoff.

The first thing we did on Long Island is go by our old house; it was interesting to see what the owners had done with it. It used to be a light blue color now it was a deep yellow. Deep yellow wouldn’t have been our first choice however it looked okay on the colonial house. They also removed the full wrap around porch, which was a real, real disappointment. My wife always liked the full wrap around porch it’s just what makes a 100 year old house beautiful.

Our old church is still standing, well still standing under hundreds of pounds of snow. A lot has changed inside however, all the pews have been upholstered and the entire building has been re-carpeted. There really wasn’t anyone there, the janitors and maintenance crew there knew who we were so they let us in. We are going to go to the Wednesday night service tonight, might write about it in my next blog.

We visited the harbor and it is iced over bad. That was fine for us though, I mean we would have enjoyed going on the boat, and I really wanted to go clamming but hey, it is what it is. Were staying at a friends house not far from the center of Patchogue, and we plan to spend the next few days just driving around and meeting our friends again, its going to be a good vacation if the whether allows.

Valentines Day at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa

Usually Valentines Day has always been a stay at home and goes out to dinner type of thing but this year it was totally different, we went online to see some deals that they had going on and stumbled upon one of the greatest deals of all time! Now, you would think that a nice romantic getaway would be to the cobblestone streets of Italy or at a tropical beach in the Caribbean. We chose none of those; instead we went to a good old place called Phoenix Arizona. In Phoenix we booked a great package with the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa. There we were entitled to anything we could possibly imagine, including strawberries and truffles with more rose petals that one could imagine and champagne to our likings. The part that I enjoyed the most was the couples massage, even though I’ve never had a massage before I was looking forward to this more than anything else. Actually the best part of the entire stay was the three course dinner in any of the restaurants in the area, the food was amazing and I would honestly take another trip over to Phoenix just for the food at Ristorante Tuscany. Even though the vacation we had in Phoenix was mesmerizing we still drove all the way there from Orlando, Florida so it was quite the travel if I do say so myself. The overall travel time was a day and about 9 hours but for some reason when you are driving it always seems to feel either longer or shorter depending on where you are and who you’re with. This trip felt a lot shorter because we were just cruising through state by state and not worrying about stopping at all. Before we even left Florida we were amazed at how cold it was there compared to us down in Orlando. Unlike many of our other trips we used my vehicle instead of renting a car but as usual, something went wrong and we had to leave my car at the UWF campus and rent a new car up in Pensacola. We ended up renting an Infiniti M35 from Avis, having rented the car before I knew exactly what I wanted so I was able to save even more time just telling them! Usually when I’m on a road trip I make sure I stop every now and then to make sure that I’m able to roam around and enjoy the scenery but not this time, it was getting a little to cold for my blood so I decided the best thing to do was to keep on truckin’ as they say. State after state it felt like we were flying through each and every destination until we got to Texas. That’s when it felt like it took forever, but it didn’t bother me one bit, I love the way Texas looks and it would sure be fun to drive there anytime, except during the summer without air conditioning! We drove right through Texas into New Mexico were we stopped at Las Cruces to grab something to eat and stretch our legs for a bit, we were so tired of sitting down we ordered fast food and walked as we ate it! When we felt it was time to move on we quickly scurried over to Arizona, the weather was beautiful, it was about 71 degrees with almost no wind, it was my ideal day and could imagine spending every day like that for the rest of my life, but now that I think about it I would never want to live in Arizona because even thought it might be beautiful in the spring from past experience I know that the summer is brutal! We quickly made it to our hotel and checked in and that’s what began on of the greatest Valentines Day of all time.

Warwick New York

We are back in Central Florida after a very long trip to Texas, where we visited just about every single attraction in the entire state. We even got to enjoy the All-Star game in Dallas from an abandoned parking lot with other fans, an experience I liked, but don’t ever to do again. Anyway now that were back I am really in the mood just to relax, and when we got a phone call from some family way up north to come enjoy ridiculously cold whether and their company seemed like fun. I mean I really like the concept of splitting wood and sitting next to the warm fire while it snows outside.

My family lives up in Warwick New York, a small town just outside of Poughkeepsie… yes that is actually its name. Anyhow, this time we decided to take an air plane, something we don’t usually do. When we arrived there was a Hertz right in the airport terminal so we decided to rent a vehicle right from there. We picked out a Chevrolet Cobalt, because of the small nature of the town we expected that they wouldn’t have a wide selection of vehicles, boy were we wrong.

Anyway the Cobalt suited us just fine and in no time we were on our way to our relatives. Now before I go on you gotta understand this area of New York. When most people think of the New York area they instantly think of Manhattan and the city… however, ninety percent of New York is beautiful rolling hills and rocky hillsides. This is the reason it is so relaxing, and when it’s covered in snow its even better.

Were up here feasting on deer and bear now, something they shot during the hunting season. I love the outdoors lifestyle but what’s even more fantastic is relaxing on a giant bearskin in front of the fireplace while watching a movie with family. Yea I’m getting old, but hey the enjoyment I get from watching my grandchildren is great.

Winter Olimpics 2010

Shaun White is nothing short of amazing on a skate board and even better on a snowboard. So when I heard that he will be competing in the 2010 Winter Olympics I was stoked! Almost immediately I called up my friend Ryan and Cesar and we made plans for our long drive to Vancouver, Canada. While planning our trip we ended up having a problem with transportation. Our problem was that my truck was stacked with miles and wouldn’t make it to Canada, Cesar’s car could fit four, but did not have nearly enough room for the rest of our luggage and Ryan drives a two seater car and I’m not one to share seats. To fix this dilemma, we decided to run down to Avis and rent us a sweet new ride.

We made our way down to Avis and discussed with the sales man what the best type of rental car would be. Since we were going to a world wide event and we were going to be seen by many people around the world we figured that we needed to roll up in style. This being the case we decided to rent us an Infiniti M35. Oh baby this car was sweet. This thing came with a Bose sound system, air bags and would get up and go when you hit the gas. I was excited for our drive up to Canada.
We packed up our bags and put the peddle to the metal as we made our way up to Vancouver. I decided that it made the most sense to make as little stops as possible on the way up there. We did have no stopping in mind, however we did think that it would be fun to stop in New Orleans, Louisiana and see what the new super bowl champ city was like. While driving up to Louisiana I had only one thing in mind, Bourbon Street. We wasted no time and headed straight for the famous street to investigate the cool things that we constantly hear people talk about.

We made our way down Bourbon Street and investigated every little store and shop that caught our wandering eyes and discovered some pretty interesting stores. After a few hours of investigating the scenery we worked up a killer appetite. As my stomach was cursing and growling my eyes found their way to the Hard Rock Café and I immediately knew it was going to be great. We walked in, got a table for three and sat down. I must say that Hard Rock lived up to their well deserved reputation and we enjoyed one of the best meals we have ever had. We paid our dews and walked back out onto the street. It totally slipped our minds that we were in New Orleans right at the time of the Mardi Gras festivals and oh man were we in for a wild night.

I had always heard that you aren’t living until you have experienced one night at Mardi Gras and it was nothing short of a great time. With crazy parties, loud music, beads, women and drinks it was a successful night. With every great thing there always has to be an end and this unfortunately was one of those times as we had to get to bed. With a late night and an early morning we were all running on a few hours of sleep and an excessive amount of Red Bull. I decided that I would drive first and I put the peddle to the metal as we made our way up to Canada. The Mardi Gras event ended up taking up much more time than expected so we were not able to stop at all except for gas and food.

After countless hours of driving, Red Bulls and pee stops we had finally made it to Vancouver and I was psyched to finally get to see some Olympic action. We made it there just in time to see the opening ceremonies and man was it impressive. My favorite part was for sure the gaffe heard ‘round the world. Even though there was a slight mechanical error, I thought it was noting short of amazing. With the opening ceremonies being so great and Shaun White representing the US, I know that this is going to be a great year in the Winter Olympics.

Dallas Allstar Basketball

So we were in our Saturn Vue on our way home when my wife hopped on her cell phone with a friend. She was talking to one of our friends up north when I heard her say something about “Oh I wish I was there.” When my wife told her about all the stuff we had done and that we were just now passing through Dallas on our way home I clearly heard the words: “Oh I thought you guys were there for the All-Star Celebrity Game.” Now I almost feel bad for what happened next, because I slammed on the breaks and pulled of the nearest exit and headed back in the direction we came.

We talked it over… or I ordered her that we had to see this. She argued that all the seating will be taken but I promised her that there had to be a way for us to get up closed and at least view it from a block away. Besides one of my favorite things about big sporting events are all the trailers outside selling teams merchandise. All the hype is up now and we had to get another room, but were in town and I plan to get every ounce of basketball out of this situation that I can.

We just got back to our room after browsing around town, and we asked a few of the fans how they plan to watch the game. Apparently there are a few areas in large open fields where a bunch of fans have set up large screens and projectors and are gonna camp it out and watch, true fan style.

So we are with a group of basketball enthusiasts and were gonna do the whole bring a hotdog or burger package, chips and dip and just join in the entertainment. We have never done this kind of thing before. It’s more unnerving than it is entertaining, but if it gets me a shot at standing outside the stadium and watching the game, then I’m ready for a tailgate party. We met up with a nice family that brought their kids, and were anxiously awaiting game night.

Well tell you if we survive the night, but I’m kind exited and nervous to see how this tailgate party deal works, can’t wait to get in on the game. Were heading over to the trailers now to check out some of the merchandise, see if I can find some of my favorite players gear. Well check back in when we check back in, as for Dallas, it’s crowded!

Lone Star Park Race Track Texas

Now I think in the past I have expressed my passion for racing, however, my wife does not. And for this reason I only get the opportunity to watch the races on television, which really isn’t as enjoyable as hearing the roar of the engines and having that burnt tire smell in your nostrils. So while we were in the state of Texas and since the trip was kind of all about me I decided to look up local race tracks because the Daytona races are coming up and I wanted some sort of action.

We had to go online and extend our car rental, this is the first time we have ever had to do this and it was easy. The Saturn Vue was still keeping up, two blogs later and we were kind of growing fond of the low purring engine. Anyhow I found the Lone Star Park Race Track, now this isn’t car racing, this is horse racing, something I have never experienced before. So I want to see some Jockey’s and I wanted to see some horses flying down a dirt track, and my wife agreed to allow me to see some of these races.

I had to make a pact with here that I wouldn’t place down any bets since I have had no experience with this kind of racing. However, while we were there I learned an abundance from the folks that sat next to us. Still, it wasn’t enough to convince my wife. Anyhow the races were pretty straight forward, fire a gun and race around the track one, three or five times.

The most interesting part about the races was watching the horse’s paces, because as the guy next to me explained the ones that start out fast will end slow. It’s just like running an actual race; if you push to hard you’ll get tired fast. The jockeys have to pay real attention to keeping the horse moving fast as well as keep him from getting warn out to quickly. While we were there we never got the exact distance of the track, in my opinion it doesn’t really matter, I mean all the horses are running the same distance.

Anyway it was fun; my wife got a lot of great pictures of horses flying through the air and huge plumes of dirt and dust flying behind them. If we ever go back to Texas this is a must, I really enjoyed it. There are so many attractions in Texas, probably because of its enormous size, either way getting the time to enjoy the whole thing seems like it would take years.

Boca Chica Texas

Since we were already on the southern boarder of Texas we decided that we would spend a little more time down here doing… something. Now my wife is a star gazer, I even bought her a ridiculously expensive telescope back at home to fulfill her dreams. Now, if you have ever kept up with my other blogs you know that I am a huge fan of fishing, and so we decided to compromise to do one or the other. Luckily for me there is a massive state park called Boca Chica.

Now we didn’t bring her telescope but she could still stargaze, so we set off to find out about the park. And that’s when we heard about the camping grounds. Now we are still in our Saturn Vue from National Car Rental and its still just running that silent little purr that I have fallen in love with. Anyhow we bought a small tent and sleeping bags and decided we would stay a few nights at the camping ground. Luckily for me it’s just a miles walk from the beach.

Now I did bring my rod but unfortunately its not a saltwater rod, now if your any sorts of a fisherman you know that’s there is a difference, my small little rod wont real me in anything bigger than 15-20 pounds without a sharp crack and my hopes and dreams of a weeks fishing disappearing. However I was ready to take this risk and journeyed down to the water as soon as we arrived. About noon our camp site opened up and the previous owners left a still blazing fire.

We set up the tent and then went down to the water where my wife waited while I fished. I caught an abundance of meager little fish that weren’t worth keeping, however as the sun came down I caught this great two foot kingfish. Now I thought kingfish avoided land, but I wasn’t about to question the reason he decided my hook was worth leaving safety for. As the sun went down we ate my fish that we cooked over the open fire, oh yes it was perfect. My wife used her camera to take pictures of the stars, how do you do this? Well she tried to explain to me how she used shutter captions and so on to get the right picture, truthfully I just pretended like I understood.

The following days seemed to be just the same, fish, eat, stargaze, a really relaxing trip. Were about to head back to Florida, however if I could have started out my retirement like this I would have, don’t doubt me!

Denny's Free Grand Slam 10'

Today was one of the best days of my life; I’m usually never the type of person to eat breakfast mainly because I’d rather sleep in to the point that I only have a few minutes to get ready to eat. Today was a completely different story; Denny’s was advertising a free grand slam for customer’s from 6am to 2pm. And of course me being the deal seeker that I am I decided to check it out and see what it was all about. I did not embark on this journey alone, in fact I brought along my friend Brock. We had a huge Chevrolet Silverado that we rented for a hunting trip we went on yesterday and we figured it would be an even better idea to bring along some more people. After all in the wise words of our co-worker “the more the merrier”. We brought along our buddy Omar, Jimmy, and Danielle and we planned on meeting up a few others there. To get to the Denny’s in time to not affect our work and school we had to arrive there at 6a.m. and in order for me to get to a Denny’s by that time I needed to leave my house at 5:15 and in order to leave at that time I needed to be awake at 4:50! That’s honestly probably the earliest I’ve ever woken up in my entire life! But there were two pancakes, scrambled eggs, 2 sausages, and 2 slices of bacon calling my name so there was no way I was able to sleep in. Once we hit the road we were all pumped for our meals it felt like we only took a few seconds to get there! Once we got there the line was minimal, of course we were the only people crazy enough to be at Denny’s so early in the morning. We walked right in and got a seat and the waitress already knew what we wanted, just to honestly say I got everything for free, I got a glass of water. It was great to see that my bill came to $0.00 I wish there were more restaurants that did that. Not only did we get a free meal we got a ton of free coupons for the next time we come back! There was a grand total of 8 of us at a table and you wouldn’t believe how fast we got served. Then again I would assume that the cooks were wise enough to prepare enough “Grand Slams” and have worked in restaurant before I can say, it’s not that hard to make the same thing over and over again especially when you know that there will be a lot of people are going to come. By the time we left we were surprised at how quickly the restaurant filled up, it was just amazing how quick the word spreads among everyone. We left the restaurant looking at a line that was almost wrapped around the entire building! We were pretty thankful that we got there early enough to enjoy our food without having to wait in such a line. After we used our Silverado that we rented the other day to drop everyone off I went to go take it back to Avis at the Orlando International Airport. Everyone else got on with their every day lives and I went to go return the Rental Car. Hopefully Denny’s decides on continuing the Free Grand Slam tradition for the years to come because we had an outstanding time today, and we had a great time last year. I don’t think I would mind waking up at 4:50 every morning to a freshly made all American meal from what is now my favorite Diner! If you missed out today its alright our lovely waitress told us that they are offering free grand slams on your birthday! If that’s the case, the year is still pretty young so a majority of the population is most likely still eligible for this meal; I know I’ll be at Denny’s in a little over a month when I turn into the birthday boy!

Cathedral of San Agustin in Laredo, Texas

So after the big game and my team lost I, or we… no I was in desperate need of a vacation. After giving up an entire year of games (My seasonal passes) to get into the big game, my Colts let me down. We however did get those souvenirs for cheap, since they lost all the items went down in price at the tent and trailer shops. But my wife suggested we go far away and to get my mind off of the game I was kind of exited to make a quick getaway. Normally I would wait a good week before going on another vacation/trip but it seemed like a good idea.

We decided to head off the Laredo in Texas; my wife was desperate to get some photos of the Cathedral of San Agustin. We were reading online about how this huge structure is one of the oldest cathedrals in America and were kinda anxious to go see it. However we weren’t going to plan a trip around it, we were going to just visit at some point when we were in the area. However after the game I just wanted to get out of the state, so off we headed to the Texas border and the city of Laredo.

We rented a car from National, we got a Saturn Vue, and man was that a smooth ride. The engine doesn’t give you a loud rev, or create turbulence when you hit high speeds on the highway, it just keeps this soft steady purr, and it was fantastic. My wife slept the entire ride there; it really was just that smooth.

Now the city of Laredo is located just along the Mexican boarder, the city is actually on both sides and is only connected by a few bridges. These bridges are really closely monitored, and we didn’t plan to cross over to the other side, however I would assume you need visas and other legal documents.

Anyhow we arrived at night, so we got a hotel and the next day we were at the Cathedral. This thing is massive, it apparently ministers to over 222,250 Catholics in the area. We paid for a guided tour through the large church and we got some fantastic pictures. If you ever get a chance to look at this place than I suggest stopping, it was fun and we defiantly got to see the whole thing. I mean they took us through a thorough tour, every nook and crack of this large church we saw. The architecture is Gothic Revival and wow, I’m telling you this is one structure you cant miss (Unless your team is playing in the Super Bowl).

The restaurants in Laredo Texas are great to, we intend to stay here for another few days, but we have the car for a week. Planning our next move and getting ready to enjoy some of the other attractions around town. If you get a chance go to Laredo, it really is fun.

DAY WITH CHAD OCHOCINCO and Tiger's Cousin

So last week we partied down in Miami for the Pro Bowl, since we did not believe we would be able to attend the Superbowl weekend activities. During our fun adventures, We actually ran into OchoCinco. It just seemed to good to be true, but here we found ourselves actually partying with Chad OchoCinco, The Chad OchoCinco. Since none of us wanted to approach the superstar, we drew straws for it. My friend Big D got the short stick, he went up to him and posed as Tiger Woods cousin. This was so funny because D really does look like Tiger Woods.

Surprisingly OchoCinco actually bought the story and invited us to party with him. So here we are in Miami partying with Chad OchoCinco and Tiger Woods cousin. This was such an amazing weekend. We ended up club hopping with OchoCinco all weekend long. South Beach will never be the same again. There is no way to party unless you party like RockStars with Superstars. We enjoyed ourselves to the point where he actually invited us back to party this weekend.

We finally made it to Miami yesterday. After an entire week of bragging to our friends and family and even co-workers, we came back to party with OchoCinco. We had pictures of tiger woods cousin and OchoCinco partying it up together in Miami.

The last night we decided to contact OchoCinco and meet up, after a few drinks we started the club hopping again. We talked about his games and how the preparation for the games actually took place. We partied until we could barely walk. Something very interesting happened towards the end of the night, We arrived at one of the clubs in south beach and the security did not allow us in because apparently OchoCinco was already inside of the club.

The entire time we partied that night and last week, we got in for free into all the clubs and enjoyed the freebies of partying with a Superstar. We decided to pay the cover charge so we could find the impostor. Once inside the club, we came to find out the gentleman with had been partying with, had been lying to us as we had been lying to him. He was simply a look alike and was just an average Joe and not a superstar unlike Tiger's cousin Mr. "D". We ended up calling it an early night since we could not afford to continue to party it up like the other superstars. However it was very nice to experience the superstar party life for a few days, and no matter what the Miami crowd believes, We know that here in Central Florida we can find Tiger's cousin traveling down some of Kissimmee's main roads every now and again.

Super Bowl Game Day

Now as every single person in America knows the big game day is coming up and my team is going to win. It’s just a fact; the Colts are the best team to grace the earth, who could possibly stand in their way? Well I had to sacrifice my season tickets to buy Super Bowl tickets, on account that my wife would have it no other way. It was a minor set back for my fan ego, but now that this momentous occasion is coming I am quickly beginning to enjoy my decision.

We decided that we would stay in a local hotel and booked literally months in advance, and decided we would go down a few days early and check out the attractions that are going around. What I am trying to say is that it’s always fun to see what some crazy fan has going and maybe even participate in it. While we didn’t break out the barbeque in a parking lot and invite everyone over for some beer we did enjoy some of the large stands around the stadium.

They are selling every piece of memorabilia known to man under closed trailers. The funny thing is that we talked with some of the sales men and they said “if” they haven’t sold all their merchandise and their team loses, all the items will go down by nearly 50% in value. Apparently field side team uniforms and team products that have the year on them and the special “Super Bowl” sticker are worth outrages prices years down the road to collectors, as long as the team wins. We plan to go back and buy some things if our team loses… and probably if they win to.

It looks like its going to be a fun weekend, the games coming up, we got a few autographs and the fans here are absolutely crazy. The streets are packed, so if your not here, it’s going to take you a week just to drive to the stadium. Watch the television; you just might see me, now I’m not wearing a wig or painting myself, but you can bet that I’ll be screaming at the top of my lungs for my team.

Shark Attack in West Palm Beach 10'

Along with my good buddies Brock and Cesar, we decided we wanted to do something completely new with our lives and wanted to take up the wonderful sport of kite boarding. Its almost like every time I’ve ever been to a beach I’ve always seen the bright colorful kites with people flying right behind them, but I’ve never been able to actually get down to the nitty-gritty and try kite boarding, in fact the closest thing I’ve done to kiteboarding is controlling a sailboat! And that’s not close at all if you know anything about the two sports. Usually when we try something new we look to find an instructor but we were not able to find and instructor that was able to work with the random hours that we wanted to kite board! Especially since the courses were anywhere from 9 to 12 hours! There was no way we would be able to find time to do that and still have fun in the same day, the sun is only up for a portion of the day! And I don’t know about Brock and Cesar but after my life threatening experience while skinny dipping in the dark, the last thing I want to do is be caught in the water at night. From local kiteboarders we found out a great place to board, it was off the coast of West Palm Beach, Luckily West Palm Beach isn’t too far from us, its actually only about 3 hours away! The only problem is that with 3 very large kite boards and all of our supplies it wasn’t too easy to fit everything inside of my 2-seater, or Cesar’s sedan. And since Brock doesn’t want to ever put miles on her truck we decided that it would be a lot easier to just rent something a lot bigger and drive it down since we were only going for the day. After renting some kiteboarding gear from a local shop we made our way down to the Hertz at the Orlando International Airport, We wanted to rent the biggest baddest pick up truck they had but we realized that a Ford Explorer would get the job done since it came with roof racks and all. We drove the Explorer back to my house where we strapped up all of our kiteboarding gear and we hit the road. We made one stop on the way there at Okeechobee so we could get a little something to eat, we each went with a “$5 Footlong” from Subway and got back to hit the road. We got to Vero Beach in almost no time! Once we got there we went directly to the beach we were already dressed for it so we walked right up with our kite boards. Off in the distance we could see what seemed to be a professional kiteboarder just doing his thing but we decided we didn’t want to go that far because we were just amateurs and didn’t want to embarrass ourselves, the first hour was nothing but pure failure, Cesar was the first one to actually get the right idea, he said he was just copying the guy we saw off in the distance, so when I looked for him I couldn’t find him. All of a sudden a lifeguard in a boat zoomed right by us, we automatically knew something was wrong. It was almost just like the movie jaws, all of us afraid of getting eaten by these massive creatures of the sea we quickly rushed out and darted for the shore. We met up with some officials on shore and they told us that a kiteboarder was found in the ocean severely bleeding with a group of sharks surrounding him. The scary part is that the beach was still left open! According to Shark Professionals there is only about 4 fatal shark attacks a year it is very rare for this to happen, 4 seems like a pretty risky number for me so I decided to sit the kiteboarding out for the rest of the day, Cesar did the same. Brock’s always the crazy one and he was still in the water kiteboarding like there was no tomorrow as Cesar and I watched him hoping he wasn’t next on a shark’s hit list. After Brock was finished we went over to a local restaurant and had a light meal where we relaxed. Overall it was a nice day, besides the fact someone was attacked by a shark of course.

Groundhog Day 10'

Usually when I see a rodent I try to get rid of it as fast as possible, today was the complete opposite. It was almost like the tables were turned with the rodent and I and it actually wasn’t that bad! Cesar and I drove all the way to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to go see the famous groundhog. Everyone though we were crazy to drive that far just to see what they called an obese squirrel but we though it was a once in a lifetime experience to see the groundhog we’ve known about since we were in grade school. For those of you who don’t know about Groundhog Day, its really not that hard of a concept to grasp. Basically a popular groundhog by the name of Punxsutawney Phil comes out of his hole on the morning of Groundhog Day and if he sees his shadow then winter will continue, however if the groundhog does not see its shadow, Spring will come sooner. Cesar and I did not only go to groundhog day to watch the groundhog come out of the hole, there was a collection of festivals and parades that also honored this traditional day as well. Our trip started off pretty easily actually, we went directly to the Enterprise Rent A Car in the Orlando International Airport and easily rented a car, I’ve always rented cars from there but I’ve just come to notice that how well they treat every individual customer, since it was just Cesar and I traveling for a day, we decided that we needed a car that was pretty small, and good for the snow. Ever since Cesar was part of an unbelievable snowmobile accident he hasn’t been able to get in a car without good traction for snow but that’s okay we ended up going with the Ford Escape, which wasn’t the smallest car but it probably was the best for driving on snow, and on top of that it was also as fuel efficient as any car I’ve ever been in. So we made our way up North, our first stop was the good old Jacksonville, I’ve never been able to actually drive past Jacksonville, even though its been the same since the first time I’ve stopped there I always have some excuse to stop for a little, sometimes I’m hungry, other times I’m low on gas, or sometimes I’m just tired of sitting. Either way I end up getting out at Jacksonville. We went right on up to Georgia and ended up in Savanna in no time, it was almost like we zoomed right through that state. We entered South Carolina and stopped at a town we’ve both never been to called, Rock Hill. We didn’t stay very long, just enough to have a snack at a local McDonalds and head back out on our journey. The states I’ve always loved driving through was the Virginias because for some reason the whole highway setting is a lot easier to drive on, plus its like everyone there knows how to drive rather than a select few normal drivers and a million old people who seem to think the speed limit is 25. Before we knew it we were in Pennsylvania, we could just tell that it was freezing outside and we didn’t want to come out of the car even though we knew we had to get out soon. Once we arrived at our destination, we dreaded the fact that we had to get out, after watching the parades and meeting new people and learning about the groundhogs its now time to watch this creature come out of its hole!

Gasparilla Pirate Festival 10'

Compared to our other entire massive road trips, going to Tampa wouldn’t even be classified as a road trip. But since we planned it months ahead and rented a car for the event, we decided that we could fit it in with the rest. I went with my buddies Brock and Cesar and surprisingly enough none of us have ever been to the Gasparilla Parade before! It all started when just a few months ago I heard about it from a co-worker, after I did some research on this event I decided it was a great idea to go, and who better to bring than my best friends Brock and Cesar. Since Tampa was only about an hour and a half away, we didn’t have to take any time off work t enjoy this one of a kind festival. We left early in the morning so we could get there in enough time to get a parking spot and get to roam the city before the event started. Since all of us drive small cars, we decided it would be a lot more comfortable to just rent a sedan for the day and ride to Tampa in that. We went to the Dollar Rent a Car kiosk in the airport at Orlando and quickly rented a Chrysler 300. Boy was that car amazing, from the outside it looked like your everyday sedan but on the inside it felt like a SUV. I wanted to take the privilege of driving but since Cesar is what you would call a “backseat driver” and it gets really frustration at times I just figured I’d pass the task on to Brock. On the way there we thought it would be an even better idea to reserve a room at a motel seeing as we did not want to be stuck in immense traffic on the way home let alone drive home without rest on such a long day. Time really flied when we went to Tampa, that hour and a half really only felt like 10 minutes! Once we got there it was jam packed, we thought we’d be able to find a parking spot but we were so wrong, it was like people were already there just waiting for a parade to happen. It was news to us that the parade went on during the day as well, for some reason we thought it was only a night thing. Without hesitation we went directly to a motel to reserve a room, there was no way we were going to try and drive home a long with thousands of other people. The first motel we went to was full, as was the second, the third motel had a few rooms left so we decided that was where we wanted to stay, but of course it’s not like we had any other options! We didn’t really pack anything which was great because we didn’t really have to worry about anything at all, and the best part of the motel deal was that we got a reserved parking, so that was one thing we didn’t have to worry about at all. We could have driven around looking for someplace to eat but that would have taken forever seeing as the roads were packed with cars and people all together. We went to a nice restaurant near Bayshore Boulevard called Mad Dogs and Englishmen, what really brought us to that restaurant was the name. We wended up having some of the best food we’ve ever had, I ate the Lobster Ravioli and every bite was amazing. Once we got done with the food it was almost like the parade had already started, we saw tons of pirates and people dressed up in colorful costumes dancing around to loud thumping music, it was great. Day quickly turned to night and it looked like the parade had just got more intense, we were all having a great time with all of the people around us for hours on end, when it was time to leave and head back into the hotel we could barely even walk, our feet and legs were so sore, so next time we know that we need to reserve some bleacher seating, because standing up and jumping around while watching 90 floats, 14 marching bands, and over 50 pirate crews can be tiring after a while, considering that you’re doing it all day without sleep or eating. Overall this trip was a success and we can’t wait for next year to do the same! I’m actually about to see if I can get my reserved bleacher seating in advance before I forget!