Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Weekend Adventures 5/21/10 - 5/23/10
Welcome to my first Weekend Adventures post! Yay! For those less enthusiastic, Um...yep.
As listed in my previous post, Friday was a day of baseball and what a day it was! My buddy Joe and I left straight from work and went by his parents' to change out of our work clothes and in to proper baseball game attending attire. His folks live in a high rise just on the other side of the Congaree River with an awesome view of Columbia, the river, and even the baseball stadium. Joe's dad took me out on the balcony to show me the view and regrettably, I didn't get any pictures but it was a pretty awesome view. It'll just have to be a secret I am keeping from you. So there.
After donning appropriate fan attire, we headed out to a place called Vella's for some pre-game chicken wings.
The atmosphere was pretty typical sports bar motif except they had a pretty cool mural on the wall for various South Carolina Sports teams. The service was pretty good as well, but the wings were average at best.
Once leaving there, it was finally time to head to the stadium. Since Vella's is only a mile and a half from the ball field, it was pretty short hop back across the Congaree. Parking was pretty scarce and we were worried that we may not find something close, but Joe let the attendant know that he is in a wheelchair and we were given a pretty close spot. I don't know if they forgot to charge us or what, but we didn't have to pay the $10 for the spot.
Rather than going to our ticketed seats, we found a great spot in the handicap section of left field...right about where a good bit of home runs are hit. As you can see from the picture of Joe, we were pretty close to the scoreboard.
The stadium was jammed packed with people. In fact, it was a record breaking attendance for the 2-year-old stadium at 8,242 fans in attendance. The section we were in was full of some great and informative (see below) fans. These games are absolutely a blast when you have a crowd that is in to the game. From where we were, we could see right into the Florida bullpen and were super close to the left fielder.
Speaking of the left fielder...
As I mentioned above, we had a very informative crowd around us. They knew, for instance, that the left fielder for Florida, #18 was named Tyler (here is his info for all interested). The Carolina fans were just absolutely great and asked this young man a number of times about his mom and his girlfriend. There were frequent reminders for him not to look back towards us so he could keep his head in the game and show lots of hustle out there. Someone even suggested to #18, in a voice very akin to Arnold Schwarzenegger, that he may have gotten the wrong size jersey and should pump some iron to fill it up.
This is #18 just after expressing his thanks to the crowd for their concern for his mother
In the end though, Carolina lost the game and the SEC regular season championship. It was still a lot of fun and it was exciting that Carolina could have tied the series and made for one heck of a great show the next day for game 3...which sadly, I did not attend. I received a voice mail from Joe Saturday morning telling me that there had been some sort of family emergency and he couldn't make it to the game. Since I couldn't find anyone else to go with and because I was not feeling well (sinuses, cold, etc) I elected to not go either. I watched the game on TV and it was a fantastic game that I have been kicking myself for missing.
Saturday was pretty uneventful. My wife, Amy, invited her friend April over for some knitting and general girl time. I hung around long enough for chicken wings (what is with me and chicken wings this weekend???) then retired early on account of not feeling well.
Sunday was fantastic! We took a trip to McBee (pronounced Mac-bee...trust me...do not say it the other way nor argue over it...i'm pretty sure there have been lives lost over this. In private, I say it just like its spelled, but I comply when around locals). McBee is a small town (population about 700) in Chesterfield county and was named for railroad executive VE "Bunch" McBee. The heart of McBee is this heavenly place called McLeod Farms where you can get fresh produce and all sorts of home made stuff like jellies, jams, and bread.
McLeod Farms has been around since 1916 and remains family owned and operated. The farm's signature fruit is peaches. They grow 30 varieties of peach on 700 acres of land. In late March, the farm begins to harvest its 15 acres of strawberries, which are always very tasty. They pretty much grow any number of things all throughout the year, but the peaches and the strawberries were our hauls this go round.
Amy, Tammy, and April a shoppin'
Nate with a "kiddie" scoop
Right next door to the roadside market is McLeod Farms' Antique Museum and is packed to the gills with antique cars, tractors, and memorabilia. Nate loves to play on all the antique tractors here and we have to refer to the market as the tractor place so he'll know where it is we're going. It is definitely worth a look since you're already there and its 100% free.
To the rear of the market and the museum is Big's Meats and More which not only has fresh cuts of meat but serves up some super awesome food...I highly recommend their steak salad.
Sadly, Big's closes at 3pm (which seems ridiculous to me during the busy season), so we were not able to get some yummy fresh cooked food. We did, however settle for some ice cream before heading back home. (Note in the picture how everyone is conveniently avoiding the camera except for April who is texting as usual).
And that pretty much wraps up the weekend. Don't you just feel like you were on an insanely awesome adventure? Stay tuned for next weekend where I'm planning to tour some historical sites, so you won't want to miss it (unless you don't like history in which case you'd probably be okay to miss it but you really shouldn't because...well...because I'll make you feel bad. So there.).
Feel free to leave your comments, suggestions, or requests! I'll leave you all with a picture of Nate's cuteness. Please let me know if you can figure out what he's doing...cause I don't have a clue. Enjoy!
As listed in my previous post, Friday was a day of baseball and what a day it was! My buddy Joe and I left straight from work and went by his parents' to change out of our work clothes and in to proper baseball game attending attire. His folks live in a high rise just on the other side of the Congaree River with an awesome view of Columbia, the river, and even the baseball stadium. Joe's dad took me out on the balcony to show me the view and regrettably, I didn't get any pictures but it was a pretty awesome view. It'll just have to be a secret I am keeping from you. So there.
After donning appropriate fan attire, we headed out to a place called Vella's for some pre-game chicken wings. The atmosphere was pretty typical sports bar motif except they had a pretty cool mural on the wall for various South Carolina Sports teams. The service was pretty good as well, but the wings were average at best.
Once leaving there, it was finally time to head to the stadium. Since Vella's is only a mile and a half from the ball field, it was pretty short hop back across the Congaree. Parking was pretty scarce and we were worried that we may not find something close, but Joe let the attendant know that he is in a wheelchair and we were given a pretty close spot. I don't know if they forgot to charge us or what, but we didn't have to pay the $10 for the spot.
Rather than going to our ticketed seats, we found a great spot in the handicap section of left field...right about where a good bit of home runs are hit. As you can see from the picture of Joe, we were pretty close to the scoreboard.The stadium was jammed packed with people. In fact, it was a record breaking attendance for the 2-year-old stadium at 8,242 fans in attendance. The section we were in was full of some great and informative (see below) fans. These games are absolutely a blast when you have a crowd that is in to the game. From where we were, we could see right into the Florida bullpen and were super close to the left fielder.
Speaking of the left fielder...
As I mentioned above, we had a very informative crowd around us. They knew, for instance, that the left fielder for Florida, #18 was named Tyler (here is his info for all interested). The Carolina fans were just absolutely great and asked this young man a number of times about his mom and his girlfriend. There were frequent reminders for him not to look back towards us so he could keep his head in the game and show lots of hustle out there. Someone even suggested to #18, in a voice very akin to Arnold Schwarzenegger, that he may have gotten the wrong size jersey and should pump some iron to fill it up.
This is #18 just after expressing his thanks to the crowd for their concern for his mother
In the end though, Carolina lost the game and the SEC regular season championship. It was still a lot of fun and it was exciting that Carolina could have tied the series and made for one heck of a great show the next day for game 3...which sadly, I did not attend. I received a voice mail from Joe Saturday morning telling me that there had been some sort of family emergency and he couldn't make it to the game. Since I couldn't find anyone else to go with and because I was not feeling well (sinuses, cold, etc) I elected to not go either. I watched the game on TV and it was a fantastic game that I have been kicking myself for missing.
Saturday was pretty uneventful. My wife, Amy, invited her friend April over for some knitting and general girl time. I hung around long enough for chicken wings (what is with me and chicken wings this weekend???) then retired early on account of not feeling well.
Sunday was fantastic! We took a trip to McBee (pronounced Mac-bee...trust me...do not say it the other way nor argue over it...i'm pretty sure there have been lives lost over this. In private, I say it just like its spelled, but I comply when around locals). McBee is a small town (population about 700) in Chesterfield county and was named for railroad executive VE "Bunch" McBee. The heart of McBee is this heavenly place called McLeod Farms where you can get fresh produce and all sorts of home made stuff like jellies, jams, and bread.
McLeod Farms has been around since 1916 and remains family owned and operated. The farm's signature fruit is peaches. They grow 30 varieties of peach on 700 acres of land. In late March, the farm begins to harvest its 15 acres of strawberries, which are always very tasty. They pretty much grow any number of things all throughout the year, but the peaches and the strawberries were our hauls this go round.
Amy, Tammy, and April a shoppin'
Nate with a "kiddie" scoop
Right next door to the roadside market is McLeod Farms' Antique Museum and is packed to the gills with antique cars, tractors, and memorabilia. Nate loves to play on all the antique tractors here and we have to refer to the market as the tractor place so he'll know where it is we're going. It is definitely worth a look since you're already there and its 100% free.
To the rear of the market and the museum is Big's Meats and More which not only has fresh cuts of meat but serves up some super awesome food...I highly recommend their steak salad. Sadly, Big's closes at 3pm (which seems ridiculous to me during the busy season), so we were not able to get some yummy fresh cooked food. We did, however settle for some ice cream before heading back home. (Note in the picture how everyone is conveniently avoiding the camera except for April who is texting as usual).
And that pretty much wraps up the weekend. Don't you just feel like you were on an insanely awesome adventure? Stay tuned for next weekend where I'm planning to tour some historical sites, so you won't want to miss it (unless you don't like history in which case you'd probably be okay to miss it but you really shouldn't because...well...because I'll make you feel bad. So there.).
Feel free to leave your comments, suggestions, or requests! I'll leave you all with a picture of Nate's cuteness. Please let me know if you can figure out what he's doing...cause I don't have a clue. Enjoy!
Friday, May 21, 2010
Baseball, Baseball Everywhere!
So, I'm not typically a huge sports guy. I mean, I will watch football on occasion but usually this is only with other people who actually are football fans and I'm riding off of their enthusiasm. In my childhood, though, I loved baseball. Somewhere between salary strikes and adolescence I stopped caring about it. I've noticed, though, for the past few years, I've been gradually coming back to the game. What started out with playing baseball games on PS3, moved to watching on TV, and has escalated to actually attending my first real game a few weeks ago on 5/5/10 to watch the South Carolina Gamecocks play the Winthrop Eagles...and now I am hooked.
Tonight, I have plans to attend South Carolina vs Florida for a series that will determine the SEC regular season champs! I'm pretty excited about this. Last night was game 1 of 3 and Carolina lost, so I'm hoping for a tied win tonight because I have tickets for the game tomorrow too and that would just make for some really great baseball!
Behold my ticket picture-taking skillz
Tonight, I have plans to attend South Carolina vs Florida for a series that will determine the SEC regular season champs! I'm pretty excited about this. Last night was game 1 of 3 and Carolina lost, so I'm hoping for a tied win tonight because I have tickets for the game tomorrow too and that would just make for some really great baseball!
Behold my ticket picture-taking skillz
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Hello
Listen,
I've told you a million times. Stop exaggerating.
-Me
PS/FYI/CYA/TMI/ASAP - I'm trying this blogging thing again.
I've told you a million times. Stop exaggerating.
-Me
PS/FYI/CYA/TMI/ASAP - I'm trying this blogging thing again.
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