For some reason I'm looking forward to this one - FL trip. I'm just as excited as the kids. We'll start out at my wife's sister's place in Orlando. Her husband is lining up an Atlantic Coast saltwater fishing trip. Last time we about killed ourselves in a storm (full of lightning and a few tornados) at sea - scared the bajeebers out of me - I've already been in 1 boat that sank at sea. Then we'll head over to Gulf Coast for some beach and baseball. We'll start off with some fossilize shark tooth hunting on Caspersen Beach in Venice. Then, we've got tickets to Reds vs Red Sox in Sarasota and Rangers vs Red Sox in Port Charlotte - my kids love Nomar, Arod and Jr. I've gotten a dozen good baseballs for the kids to get signed by someone (anyone). I planned on getting more but good ones are so expensive - @$10 a piece. Plus I bought a box of baseball cards for the kids to open and trade on the way down. Oh, and by the way, does anyone have any good tips on getting good autos? Then we'll spend a few days at my wife's mom's - she has a summer place on the lake in FL - take the kids out for some fresh water fishing. I really need a vacation. I just hope it's nice weather and it doesn't go by too fast. Anyone out there have any exciting Spring Break plans?
That sounds like fun. RM95's Girl and I drove to Florida last summer, but we had more fun in the car actually. Not to say we didn't have fun there, we just like road trips. I'm going to San Francisco tomorrow for my sister's wedding. While I'm extremely happy that she's marrying a kickass guy, I'm still a bit pissed that today's the only day of games I'm getting to watch. BTW, tell us about the boat that sank!!
Art..hope you have fun on your trip!! nothing like the anticipation of getting ready to leave to go on a vacation!!!
It's always nice when you like the brother-in-laws...mine is one of my best friends. On the boat - I like to tell the story that we were 25 miles out, a storm came up, we saw water spouts, the boat sank and we were rescued by the Coast Guard. All true, but what I left out was the we came in to less than 1 mile and started fishing again. We drifted too far into a sandbar and the breaking waves came over the back of the boat. We called the CG but before they arrived, the boat capsized. The worse part was the gas that spilled from the boat (125 gals). You wouldn't think it would burn that bad but when the gas hits your privates it's like fire. I was a little concerned too because just before the trouble I just had something (assuming a shark) bite through my steel leader and we had a 100+quart chest loaded with chum and bait floating around. My father-in-law sank his boat offshore in Costa Rica and was rescued by a passing fishing boat. The fisherman said that sharks were circling but stopped at the gas line - so the gas could have been a good thing. Sad thing was my friend just bought the boat (25' Hydrosport) and didn't have insurance. To make matters worse, he had to pay to get the boat out ($2K) or he'd be charged to get the boat out. The folks that got the boat out for him took what was left of the boat as payment. I think they felt sorry for us because there was much left of the boat after beating against the sandbar all night - upside down. I had a friend a year earlier sank 17 miles offshore and didn't get a call off. It happened at noon and it was 11pm before the wives put a call in - it was morning before the search began. THEY have a real story to tell.
