On The Road Looking For Sports and Competition

Lady Rebel planned our family vacation (for the third year in a row) during the MLB and CFCL trade deadlines, thereby trying to undermine the efforts of Rebel management to build a championship team. I’m not usually the carpenter blaming the tools, but three years in a row? C’mon. That being said, we were able to experience plenty of examples of sports and competition during our week away.

We stopped for dinner at Cracker Barrel on the way to Florida. We took turns engaging in fierce games of checkers in rocking chairs on their “front porch”. Katelyn couldn’t decide between two items on the menu. I suggested going with the local fare (open faced roast beef with gravy – she loved it). Sadly Indiana is not real friendly whether we were at gas stations or Cracker Barrel.

Because of the strategic timing, the Rebel front office completed their first ever trade via text. While I was driving, I dictated to the Lady Rebel what to text back to the Ruffins to complete the trade. The texts flew back and forth with the Ruffins to finalize Hiroki Kuroda, Eli Whiteside and the Rebels 10^th round pick for Rubby De La Rosa. Word came from Rebels Headquarters that fans were lining up outside Confederate Park awaiting their new cult hero. Rubby is going to sell a lot of jerseys in Fort Payne, Alabama. And immediately following that announcement, the fans with the DeLaRosa jerseys went to Mount Fort Payne Memorial Hospital recovery room to look at Rubby’s new Tommy John surgery scar. Baseball technology gods are not fans of Dem Rebels.

While we were driving through Indiana and Kentucky Sunday night, we listened to Cubs vs. Cardinals on ‘GN. I swear to Hank Aaron I was ready to jump out of the car moving at 70 mph every time I heard Pat Hughes say they were in “St. Loo”. Cubs won every day we were gone. They proceeded to lose the first game we came back into town.

We reached Louisville around 10pm or so which was a real treat. Louisville is a beautiful city, all lit up as you cross the bridge and the Ohio River. Right there is the baseball field for the Louisville Redbirds, also all lit up. Can’t get any better than that.

On our first full day in Florida, we went to Magic Kingdom. While we went on almost every ride and/or attraction, Cooper sadly decided to pick the most boring ride (People Mover in Tomorrowland) as his favorite, wanting to ride it at least five times.

Speaking of competition and sports; I happened to run into Survivor celebrity Russell Hantz (picture above because I'm not technically smart enough to put it here) in Tomorrowland. He has finished second on Survivor two different seasons. The only problem is he is also Kim’s all-time favorite contestant. It was pretty amusing to watch her run to catch up with him to get a picture and shake his hand. Of course, then for the rest of the vacation I had to hear “I can’t believe I met Russell!” All I have to ask is ‘Where the hell was Diane Lane during this week?’

While all this was going on, we missed two Cub wins in Pittsburgh, including Rebel favorite Derrek Lee’s two homeruns and a Cub six homer game. The sacrifices we make for our children.

Two other days we spent at the water park. So Kim and I took turns having races with the girls down the body slides at Typhoon Lagoon. The results were not favorable for the parents.

While we were on the road we also challenged ourselves to see how many different license plates we could tally. Turns out we saw 35 including two Canadian provinces and on plate from Mexico.

Overall it was a good vacation, though I did have people suggest we leave town again until late October to help the Cubs get back in the pennant race. I’ll contribute a week of my life to the cause. The rest is up to Ricketts.