Orange Beach, Alabama

Prior to this week I had never been to Orange Beach or Gulf Shores. I had been to the Mississippi gulf coast a couple of times and I had been to Destin/Fort Walton Beach several times, but never in between. Of course, it seems like almost everyone at home in Tennessee takes their vacations down here. After all, they don't call it the "Redneck Riviera" for nothing!

After spending five days down here, though, I can see why so many folks come here instead of Florida. First of all the beaches are white like Destin, but it's not near as crowded or commercialized. Virtually every day we were here we had the beach to ourselves, so I guess we picked a good time of year to come down. There were two other families here in our condo complex with children the same ages as our girls, so it worked out nicely for them.

The surf was really gentle, too. The girls were not the least bit intimidated by the waves, so it made for a positive experience with the ocean for them. We went to Edisto, South Carolina a few years ago and the surf there was pretty rough. I suppose that's the difference between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.

As an added bonus we got to see dolphins frollicking in the ocean about 100 yards off the beach from us. We saw manta rays feeding in the shallow waters coming all the way up to the edge of the beach to chase fish. We saw blue herons, crabs, hermit crabs, and even caught a pancake ray and a jelly fish in a net so the girls could take a look close up. It was like an Animal Planet show all week long.

If you're considering a beach trip and you're looking for a place that's more family oriented than say, Panama City or Daytona, I would highly recommend Orange Beach, AL. We stayed in the Phoenix IX condo complex. Based on my experience here and from what I can see of the other Phoenix buildings, I would recommend any of the Phoenix complexes for your accommodations.

I am truly blessed...

A few years ago I traveled with the family to Estes Park, Colorado for a week long family vacation which coincided with the Ole Miss vs. Wyoming game in Laramie, Wyoming. We drove and on the way out there we toured the University of Kansas and got to walk inside Allen Fieldhouse to take some pictures. On the way back we came through Lincoln, Nebraska and I was able to walk right in to Memorial Stadium, take the elevator down to field level, walk through the lockerroom (even brush shoulders with Coach Callahan in the hallway), go out on the field and take pictures from inside the stadium.

These kind of things just don't happen to everyone. Most people don't get the opportunity to travel like that, and when they get that opportunity they don't get to just waltz right into one of these stadiums or athletic facilities for a free tour. Fortunately, I am a blessed individual because it not only happened on that trip...it happened again this past weekend.

After the Rebels' sweet victory over the #4 Florida Gators in The Swamp (I just love typing that!), the family and I drove to Tallahassee to stay the night before heading on to Orange Beach, AL for a vacation. As you might imagine the folks in Tallahassee (FSU fans) were very complimentary of the Rebs and their win. I even got a few high fives in a restaurant that night.

The next morning we drove over to Florida State University to see the campus and get a look at their athletic facilities. We went by Doak Campbell Stadium and took a few pictures of the outside of the stadium. It has obviously been added onto over the years with some gothic-looking architectural buildings that appear to house offices and possibly even classrooms. There are some really nice sculptures outside the stadium of Bobby Bowden, one titled "Sportsmanship" showing a player helping another player up from the ground, and one titled "Unconquered" with the Seminole on horseback and spear in hand.

The cool part of this story happened when I was snooping around the stadium to see if there was a way I could get in to take a couple of pictures of the inside of the stadium. You know, just a peek through a tunnel or a gate that was open so I could walk up one of the ramps to snap a shot or two. Unlike Kansas and Nebraska where I essentially walked through an unlocked door or snuck onto an elevator, at FSU I actually received a grand tour from the head athletic trainer. Of course, my Ole Miss Law t-shirt didn't hurt after beating the Gators.

I caught the trainer unloading his truck (he still had all his bags packed from their game the day before against Colorado in Jacksonville at Alltel Stadium) and asked him if there was a way to get into take a few pictures. He saw my t-shirt and said, "Ordinarily, no...but since you guys whipped that other school for us, come with me."

He punched a password into a key pad and unlocked a steel door behind the building and we walked right into the athletic training room. There's nothing really special about an athletic training room...a bunch of patient tables, some exercise apparatus, and so on...but I was impressed with their aquatic training center. They had three endless therapy pools, two hot pools and two cold pools, and one of the endless therapy pools had a treadmill on the bottom.

After he set his bags down at his office, he walked me through another security door and we walked down a short hallway and into the lockerroom and player's lounge. From there we walked through yet another security door, down a tunnel, under an awning and onto the field!

What a cool experience!? My host was kind enough to take my picture for me just so you know I didn't make this stuff up.

The inside of the stadium is very nice. It's a uniform bowl all the way around with nice luxury skyboxes behind me in this photo. There is another set of skyboxes on the opposite sideline with a full length pressbox on the top floor. On the top of the bowl on the opposite endzone from where I am standing they have an open air club with awnings...similar to the Budweiser lounge at Ted Turner Field. The brick lining the walls around the field dress things up quite nicely, too. They have a Daktronics jumbotron that appears similar to the widescreen video board at Arkansas. Our HD jumbotron at Ole Miss is probably the only thing I could say is nicer (no ribbon boards at either Florida or Florida State).

And if all this wasn't enough, my host led me back through the lockerroom and out through the trophy room where I got to see Charlie Ward and Chris Weinke's Heisman Trophies along with the Seminole's National Championship Trophies. The funny thing was I told the guy that I wasn't a big fan of Weinke so I'd take a picture of Charlie Ward's Heisman. He responded with a sarcastic comment about Weinke saying "Well, he played here so we display his trophy, too." It was obvious he wasn't a big Weike fan, either.

All in all I was very impressed with Florida State. The athletic facilities are top notch (I walked onto the baseball field, too.) and the campus itself is very nice. The architecture is fairly uniform and the landscaping is well done. There is a lot more undulation to the terrain in that part of Florida, too, so the campus has a little more character than Gainesville. I look forward going down there for an Ole Miss game one of these days.

Simple Pleasures

When you're 7 and 4, it's the simple pleasures that make life grand. There was a time for all of us when we didn't worry about $700 billion dollar economic bailouts, presidential politics, or the price of a gallon of gas. All we needed was a bicycle, a good climbing tree...or a dancing fountain on a hot, sunny day.

I give my kids a lot of credit for not being whiners about long trips in the car or sitting in a hot football stadium with the adults behind you hitting you in the head every time they sit down. It never fails, though, that we always seem to find a way to reward them for their attitude. I guess they've come to look forward to when it gets to be "their turn" to have a little fun.

In this instance all they needed was a courtyard at the University of Florida with a fountain they could play in. An hour out of my day for them to indulge in a simple pleasure was all it took to satisfy them for the rest of the day. An hour well spent!

More pics from the Ole Miss-Florida game...

My Rebels upset #3 Florida at The Swamp

It has been quite some time since I've posted to the ole blog. Unfortunately, we haven't had many roadtrips in the past year worth writing about. We've had a few long weekend trips, but I have not been diligent about writing about those trips or taking pictures.

Every now and then, though, something special happens that rekindles the desire to sit down and put together a post to share with family and friends. This past Saturday was one of those moments. As many of you know, I am a bit of a college football fan (yes, a gross understatement). In particular, I follow the Ole Miss Rebels and I've got quite a streak going. In fact Saturday at The Swamp in Gainesville, Florida I took in my 55th consecutive Ole Miss football game.

Ben Hill Griffin Stadium is the last SEC frontier for me. I've seen a game in every other stadium in the SEC, so I was particularly looking forward to taking in this gameday experience. And it didn't disappoint. Take, for instance, the pageantry of the Florida Marching Band taking the field in pregame.

We arrived in Gainesville about two and half hours before the game. We had plenty of time to walk down University Avenue and take in some of the atmosphere. I am always surprised at how all these other great schools with decades of football tradition have NOTHING like The Grove when it comes to tailgating. Folks at Florida just seem to gather wherever they can...parking lots, front yards of houses where they pay up to $30 to park, sidewalks and bars along University Avenue. It is a very pretty campus, though. We stayed primarily around the athletic facilities, so I'm sure there are lots of things that we missed about the campus.

The truth is we started to walk around campus and discovered a surprise that my daughters could not resist...a dancing fountain in a courtyard between two buildings. That pretty much took up the last hour prior to kickoff. As evidenced by the photo, this was the perfect pregame ceremony as far as they were concerned. The Florida sun was beaming down, so it didn't take long for them to dry off. After watching the Florida band parade in front of us and into the stadium we shuffled through the gate and to our seats in the southeast endzone.

We were blessed with great seats about 20 rows from the field right on the goalline. I'd estimate about 3,500 Rebel fans in attendance. Considering the announced attendance was over 90,000, we did our best to be a very vocal minority. As it turns out we ended up having a party that lasted more than an hour in the stadium after the game.

And to their credit, Florida fans were extremely gracious in defeat. Almost everyone we encountered on our way back to the car was congratulatory and very complimentary of our team...unlike the classless behavior of certain fans in places like Tuscaloosa, Fayetteville and Starkville.

In the end it's all about the scoreboard and the celebration that ensues, so to all who stumble across this blog...Jerrell Powe and the Ole Miss Rebels say Chomp on this Gator Nation!