The 43

(This is the last in the series. Click here for parts one , two, three , four, five and six of my series reminiscing about our trip to Florida 30 years ago.) Our week in the sun wasn't couldn't last. The Florida fun was ending. It was time to drive home to Chicago. From Tampa, we piled back into our Chevy Citation and began the two-day trip back. This was my first experience that the ride home from vacation is never quick and rarely fun -- a stark reminder that the good times can't last, that everyday life must be resumed. But we did have a little fun going home. We stopped in Dalton, Georgia, and stayed at the same hotel as we did on the trip down. I think we went to Pizza Hut for dinner, then I remember watching "Best of the West" on ABC. The next morning, I ordered French toast and was surprised and dismayed at how much cinnamon was put on it (I'm guessing it's a Southern thing). When we drove into Chattanooga, we stopped and took the Incline -- a so...

(Click here for parts one , two, three , four and five of my series reminiscing about our trip to Florida 30 years ago.) Before wrapping up this series of posts (and I better wrap it up before February ends) with our return trip home, here's all the little memories I either forgot while writing or didn't have a spot for in a previous post: -- As city dwellers in a flat state, our family hadn't experienced mountain driving until we got to Tennessee, when my mom was seriously freaked out by a runaway truck ramp. Even though she wasn't driving, she was thoroughly scared as we whooshed down the mountain. Today, I live 10 minutes away from a runaway truck ramp and wonder if it would be fun to take my Outback up it (no, I won't actually try that, it's probably not good for the car). -- I played a lot of video games on this trip. The hotel we stayed at in Orlando had an arcade where I played Space Odyssey (like Scramble). The convenient store across the street...

(Click here for parts one , two, three and four of my series reminiscing about our trip to Florida 30 years ago.) After Disney World and Sea World, we had one more amusement park to visit in Florida in 1982: Busch Gardens. With central Florida booming as a tourist attraction, Busch Gardens was beginning to be heavily advertised nationally, with an impressive African-American voice-over (could it have been James Earl Jones) distinctly finishing off a commercial with "Busch Gardens, Tampa." We had already worked our way over to the coast, found a Ramada Inn to stay at after our visit to Treasure Island, and had one more day of amusement park fun planned. I don't remember too many specifics about Busch Gardens. Whereas Disney World was a little crowded for February, Busch Gardens was almost empty on the weekday we went. The park had two rollercoasters then: Python and Scorpion. We got to go on the Python (reminiscent of Great America's Turn of the Century) three times...

In February 2002, Lori and I lived in an apartment in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, on a ridge with a balcony that overlooked most of the Salt Lake Valley. From our bedroom window, on the opposite side of the apartment from the balcony, we could see some of Salt Lake City proper. From that window, for two weeks, we could see a little orange light glowing approximately 12 miles away. What we were seeing was the Olympic cauldron. The flame was visible that far away. We moved to Utah in 2000 with the Olympics in mind. We had been growing restless in Madison and were ready to leave Wisconsin. Admittedly, Utah with all the preconceptions attached to it, was someplace I would have normally sent a resume, too. But the 2002 Olympics were imminent, and the chance to work as a sports journalist in Salt Lake City during the Games was so alluring. Lori was excited at the prospect as well, figuring we could always reassess or situation after the Olympics were over. February 2002 didn't disappoint. ...

I know I'm not done blogging about our vacation to Florida when I was 11, but I wanted to write about two Winter Olympics before February ended. In 1980, the Winter Olympics were coming to the United States. In 1976, I was too young to remember the Innsbruck Winter Games, and I only vaguely remembered watching the Montreal Summer Games. So the Lake Placed Games were really my first Olympics. My mother bought the book I have pictured here (no, it's not my original; this one I found on eBay, hence the library sticker across it that I can't tear off without ripping the cover). This guide provided a history of each event and the Winter Games themselves, a preview of that year's Olympics, and spaces to write in the medal winners from that February. For a few weeks, this might have been the only book I read, and it instantly hooked me into watching the Winter Olympics. Up until the final weekend of the Olympics, the big story of Lake Placid was Eric Heiden and his insanely wi...

Lately, I've been walking Popcorn at night often. And in what is a reminder that winter is winding down, Orion is directly overhead in the night sky. I can only pick out a few constellations, and Orion is one of them. And it's one that easily defines the seasons. Back in October, Popcorn was whining in the middle of the night, so I took her out, and there it was: Orion, making an early appearance over the Wasatch mountains in the eastern sky. As the days and weeks passed, Orion appeared in the east earlier and earlier, to the point now that it's visible over the mountains (and now, farther west) as soon as night falls. Now in mid-February, at about 10 p.m. when I walk the dog, it's even shading to the west and is slipping from being directly overhead. In about a month, I bet we won't see Orion at all. The constellation will fade to the west, first getting lost in the sunset, then disappearing behind the mountains as Earth continues its orbit around the Sun. Orion wi...

One of my favorite blogs I often read is Josh Wilker's Cardboard Gods . Josh is a little older than me, and he writes about life and memories in the context of baseball cards. His blog is often an inspiration for me, not just because of what he writes strikes a chord, but also because of the mere fact he started blogging all these memories and was successful doing so, to the point where he wrote a book based on the blog. Josh, who is a new father, wrote a post a couple weeks ago that resonated with me. The baseball card he references is a 1978 Jim Todd, but the post streams from Jim Todd to, amazingly and fluidly, "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" Soon enough it disappeared and became dated almost instantly but then eventually came back to life as an oldie. I heard it the other day on a station that uses the word “remember” in its promotional jingles. You hear that word a lot on oldies stations, but the songs on oldies stations have been played so often that there is no way...