Almost Time For Spring Training!

Although there’s still a considerable amount of winter left around here, it’s always summer in Florida, and the Red Sox equipment truck has arrived at City of Palms Park. The players are starting to trickle in and it won’t be long before the season begins.

The first Spring Training game is a double header against Northeastern and BC on March 3rd, and the Fenway home opener is just a little over a month after that, on April 4th. It’s a Sunday night game this year, and I think that’s a great idea. I’ve been getting kind of sick of watching the opener on TiVo, I always end up hearing the score before I get to it, and that just takes all the fun out of it.

If you’re thinking about heading down south for a little Spring Training warm up, be sure to check out “A New Englander’s Guide to Spring Training” over on berryjooks.com. We give you the skinny on what’s hot and what’s not in the Fort Myers area, as well as other wicked important things, like where you can get your Dunkins’ fix while you’re there.

The Summer Of A Thousand Beaches

All the rain we’ve had this spring and summer (if you can even call them that) has gotten me thinking about a summer a few years back that was really special to me. Whenever I think back on it, or reminisce about it with my wife, I refer to it as (cue the deep voiced announcer…) “The Summer Of A Thousand Beaches”.

Ok, so maybe it wasn’t really a thousand beaches that we visited that summer, and for that matter, maybe it wasn’t technically limited to the traditional June, July and August summer months, but there were a lot of them, and it was always summer where we were that year.

The year was 2001, and it was one of those serendipitous years where everyone was happy and healthy, and family, work and vacations all blended together perfectly to put us into a 7 month summer cycle. The cycle started in late February with our annual visit with my Dad in Fort Myers (baseball and beaches!). After a brief stop at home for clean skivvies, we were off to the left coast. Back to base camp again, and then off to Miami and points south. Home once again, just in time to kick off our New England summer.

Here are the beaches we hit, in chronological order, no less:

Gulf Coast

Sanibel/Captiva Island
Fort Myers Beach
Lovers Key
Naples


Pacific

Venice Beach
Santa Monica
Will Rodgers Beach
Point Dume
Zuma Beach


Atlantic

South Beach
Key Biscayne
John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, Key Largo
Marathon
Long Beach, Rockport
Good Harbor Beach, Gloucester
Katama/South Beach, Edgartown
Joseph Silvia State Beach, Oak Bluffs
Tisbury Town Beach
Menemsha Public Beach
Lobsterville Beach
Nahant Beach
Lynn Beach
Salem Willows


The above are just the beaches we actually walked, sat and swam at, there were many more that summer that we either had dinner overlooking, or just gazed at from the parking areas or highways.

You’re probably thinking “This guy must have been a baked potato after the first couple of weeks”. Nope. We’re not out early; lay on the beach kind of people. Working, visiting or sightseeing came first, with the beaches as a late afternoon treat, and sunscreen and hats were essential to all our journeys.

We really enjoy ending our day surrounded by the beauty and majesty of the ocean. Nothing can make you so conscious of what a very small piece of the world’s puzzle you are as the roaring ocean, and it really helps to drain away all the tensions of our days.

Come on ’09, give it up. I’m losing precious time…