Blogs from Lakeland, Florida, United States, North America

03-11-17 Relaxing on the Lake After 4 hours of driving on all the back roads from here to Naples we arrived at Lil' Lake Agnes just after the office closed so we found our campsite and just absorbed the peace and tranquility. No buzzing bugs. I was immediately greeted by my next door neighbor saying hi and proceeded to welcome me to the campground. After a rundown of how everything around here worked he said he had to finish his chores, he had to go to the airport to pick up his wife who had been back home in Indiana for 2 weeks.With that said the next thing I heard was the vacuum going. I set up Watson's fence and my chair and proceeded to wait for the sunset, it was hours away. I did go ... read more

We're back treading water and try to keep up with ourselves. Hope you are all in the same pool with us......side note: the pool here at Tropical Palms wasn't heated for awhile...maybe it is now. I have no idea since we haven't ventured over there yet. Too cold! Lulu keeps putting on her bathing suit and blubbering when we don't take her over there for a dip. What a baby! Instead, our friend, Dave Berry, had mentioned he and Linda were going to the Snowbird Extravaganza in Lakeland, Florida. Whaaaaaat? We have never heard about this....something new to investigate. Yippee. We quickly squeezed it in-between the lines of our bucket list. Wednesday was a rainy day and the perfect day to go to this new, undiscovered activity. Our faithful foursome followed the big highway trail to ... read more

Today the games began. But first a note about last night. We had a dinner that celebrated the 1984 Tiger World Champs. I sat with Juan Berenguer and Billy Scherrer and Dave Rozema (or, as he is known here, "the great Dave Rozema"). Listening to them swap stories and run down each other as they spoke was a treat. This morning I headed over to Tiger Town and started in the training room with a heat pack to loosen up the old back. Then some batting practice before the 'picture day' activities. After photos we hit the fields for our first games. I would love to tell you that I drove in runs, made stellar plays at second, and helped seal a victory. In fact, we lost both games in the final innings and, while I ... read more

Spring Training: Day Four--Partial rain out Today was the first day of camp, and when I got to the locker room, there was my jersey and uniform. How cool was that? After changing into my 'pretend' (aka Fantasy) uniform and taking a few pictures, we had several mini-clinics....unfortunately held inside because it was raining. We heard from Lou Whitaker on infield work, Mike Maroth on pitching, and Darrell Evans on hitting. Then time for some fun. Batting practice was first, and it was started by listening to Willie Horton talk about how to hit. Of course, how he does it versus the rest of the world are two different things. Then my team spent time taking swings and getting tips from our coaches, Mike Maroth and Steve Kemp. After an hour of hitting, we spent time ... read more

There are swans around the lake, some real and some are painted statues.... read more