Spring Training Vacation...

It has been nearly a month, and if I'm ever going to post on our jaunt to South Florida I must get to it. We travelled by bus to O'Hare, and then flew to West Palm Beach via Philadelphia (pretty direct flight, huh?). Our trip went without any significant issues and we were able to make it to the Bed and Breakfast (Tropical Gardens B&B) we stayed at by 7:30 PM on Saturday. We were greeted by the proprietor's Steve and Evie, who live on-site. This is a wonderful plus to any B&B in my opinion. Steve offered us a drink and gave us the tour of the grounds. There are only four rooms for rent, so it quickly felt like we would get all the attention we wanted. Steve was very pleasant to talk to and the free reign of the bar and fridge were a great touch. We had delivery salad and subs prior to settling in for the evening.

Sunday morning the weather beautiful when we finally got ourselves out of bed from our pool side cottage for breakfast at 9:00 AM. Steve offered a fresh fruit bowl for our first course of breakfast and it was wonderful to have the full flavor of an orange for the first time in many months. Steve cooked a Brie and asparagus omelet for the entree, which was succulently rich and very filling. We then drove to Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter to catch the 1:00 start of the Cardinals vs. the Braves. We had good seats, which there aren't many bad ones in the park, but the Cards did fall 3-2. The highlight of the game for me was catching a foul ball from a Brave reserve. After the game, we walked around the stadium village and I found a nice cigar shop. Being late afternoon, we had to make out to find a sports bar to watch the Badgers play for the Big Ten title against Illinois.

On Sunday evening we decided to head to downtown West Palm Beach to check out City Place and find a place to get some dessert. This area is quite nice, be it that a lot of stores were closed after 6PM on Sunday. We ended up eating at a City Cellar, a wine bar that carried half bottles of Ken Wright pinot. We decided on the Shea's and enjoyed it with a flat bread pizza, while seated on the mezzanine of the City Place Plaza.

Monday brought another huge breakfast featuring biscuits and gravy with southern scrambled eggs. Steve, once again, delivered on his promise of a huge breakfast. After getting to the game early to see if we could get Berm seats (we couldn't), we got to watch the Braves in batting practice. It is quite impressive the physical size and strength differences between the players on the field. Some, Teixeira and Jones for example, really do look like men amongst boys standing and hitting beside the twenty-two year olds. Following the Cards victory (Reyes looked good), we headed to the coast to at least say we went to the beach when in Florida. The beach was nice, though the wind made it a bit chilly. It was fun to go out on the pier and watch the Sunshine State's surfers, which is to say watch some people sit on surfboards in the water waiting on a half wave to scoot on for a couple of seconds. We ended up in the pool and ordering in Chinese, so we could watch Dancing With the Stars (an addiction).

Tuesday began with a Sweet Potato pancake breakfast followed by check out. We spent the early afternoon at City Place again, and enjoyed some window shopping at the stores. Of particular note, we found a "European" coach for $15K -- which to me should come with a flight to Europe. We returned to the airport to be greeted with the probability of a delay due to President Bush flying into PBI. I got to see Air Force One landing, which was admittedly pretty cool. This delay ended up not being that big of a deal, since we were delayed a lot in Charlotte anyway. The wife showed me her way of spending time in an airport is to walk around the whole thing... and to think I thought I would get off with no working out. Once we finally arrived in Chicago, I raced to the baggage claim and she tried to hold the last bus back to Madison. This attempt failed and our luggage came out about 10 minutes after the last bus out of town (it came out first, I might add). After futile attempts at one-way car rental and the sticker shock moment of my life at the Airport Hilton ($450 + taxes for one night), we finally took a cab to a hotel.

Following a night of not so great sleep in a smoking room, we awoke and grabbed the bus back to Madison. We were happy to be back home, but got the greeting from Mother Nature of a nice six inch snowstorm two days later. Overall, West Palm Beach isn't the kind of place I would visit without the Cardinals being in Spring Training there, but since they are I anticipate we will return again in the next few years. The discussion with the locals, however, always seemed to bring up crime and/or hurricanes... the latter or which means there is absolutely zero chance of ever living or time-sharing in South Florida for us.