Sunday, September 28, 2008

A Weekend Away from the Beach

Like the longroof, and the bus, and the horsefarmer, and most likely everyone else, my weekend was spent way too fast.....the kid's little sister plays softball, not leisurely let's go to the park and have a game, softball, but very serious softball....so we traveled down by Mickey's Home and took in some ball games....now when I say serious, I mean serious......I always thought that the kid and I had a pretty good tailgate set-up.....couple of sunshades..... plenty of camp chairs....cooler packed with lots of goodies....toys to take up the slack times......but this weekend we learned how serious softball families tailgate.....

now these people are SERIOUS about their softball.....these guys showed up around 9:30 in the morning to set up camp......around lunch time another three campers arrived and the party began.....they set up a horseshoe camp that would be the envy of any race team.....after visiting with them I learned that they don't go to campgrounds, they don't go to the races, they don't have motor cycles, race cars, and I soon realized, a life.......they live, breathe, and die by their daughters softball games.....way too serious for us.....but then they are last year's state champions and this year' number one ranked team in the state.....VERY SERIOUS about their game......even the Florida State football game was relegated to a small radio set up by the last camper to arrive......so as not to distract them from the live ball games.....the kid figured that if we bought a camper to pull behind our truck, calculating the cost savings of a hotel room, factored with the loss in fuel economy, we could break even in about 8 years......of course air conditioning would be a wonderful thing......


back to our games.....the kid's sister played her heart out.....Saturday's games....three of them starting at 11:00 and ending about 7:00......were a wash.....the kid's sister caught the first game, pitched the second, and caught the third......while we were unable to score a victory, the girls played very well....the first two games were lost by 2 and 3 runs respectively, and the last game against the above mentioned state champs was the best game they had.....what was expected to be a major blow out was finally called on time, not runs....they might have lost by 9 runs, but even the coaches on the other team commented about how good a game we gave them.....seems their average margin of victory is 20 runs......what we couldn't understand was why they even played in this league.....retired to the hotel Saturday night and the kid and I took in the local surroundings while Mom and the kid's sister studied science and history......have never seen so many tourist in my life......with kids too......guess school is not in session in the European Countries at this time......Sunday brought a new game and a new opportunity.....played the 'B' team from the same team we lost to last on Saturday night.....as usual we started out strong and then withered in the later innings.....the kid's sister caught the first three innings and then was called upon to go to the mound and stop the slaughter......she came on with runners on first and second and then struck out the side to get out of the inning.... gotta love the heart in that little kid......


at bat and then scoring a run......

the windup.......

in a sidebar, the longroof's day was spent at a VW convention that included some sweet old rides....on the way down to the ball field on Saturday we saw a bunch of the old rides heading east on I-4 out of Orlando.....at the rest area in Orlando there were about 20 of them taking a road break....all lined up in a row that was a blast to see.....nice cars that have way too much time and money invested in them for a jeep fan.....but sweet none the less.....gotta admire the guy that restores rather than destroys......got another ball game weekend coming up and then it's back to the beach......see ya then.....

Celebrate Life..............

2 comments:

Lil Jim said...

I know a guy who could prbably give you a good deal on an Airstream...

d5thouta5 said...

yea, that's what I'm afraid of... those deals that are too good to believe.....