Monday, July 30, 2007

Bridge Hunt and Some Bad Medicine

My Dad sent me this article about a covered bridge in my town. I was so excited!!! I love bridges. I've only had a chance to be apart of the construction of one bridge, but I really enjoyed it. I like to read the history on old bridges too. The article talked about how this one is even haunted!!! The bridge is called the Salem-Shotwell Covered Bridge. I did a search for it and found tons of sites on the internet with pictures of it. I decided to go check it out for myself, so I found directions, and headed that way this past weekend. I guess if I would have done a little more research, I would have found this article about the bridge falling down. What a bummer. Anyways, here is what it used to look like. This is what it looks like now: The wonderdog has not been doing so hot. She's been sick all weekend. She acts fine, except she constantly has to go to the bathroom. That didn't work out well with being locked in the house all day while we were at work. I'll spare you the details. By the way, this dog HATES Pepto Bismol.

Poor Puppy

Thursday, July 19, 2007

California Vacation Part 4

The last day in San Francisco, we walked to the "worlds most crooked street".
Even in San Francisco, it is great to be a Florida Gator. Here is some sour dough bread shaped like a Gator. Everywhere I went, it seemed like somebody was saying Go Gators to me or Chrissy (since we usually were wearing something with the Florida logo on it). It always makes me smile.
We took public transportation pretty much everywhere we went. I had my handy-dandy map and my itinerary with each location we wanted to visit listed and mapped out. I even had a list of restaurants we wanted to try. We got through about 4 of the restaurants, and all of the site seeing places. I almost had as much fun planning the trip as I did going there. We experienced some good food in San Francisco. Thanks to a recommendation by my Uncle Stann, we ate at a really nice British pub called Lill's Liverpool. I think the best food we had, not to mention the worst for us, was Ghiradelli's ice cream and chocolates. I literally gained 9 pounds from the day I left our house until the day we got back. For the finale, we went to AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants. You know we couldn't make a trip without at least one stop at a ballpark. Some general notes from the park: 1. Ryan Klesko, the Giants' 1st baseman used to play for the Braves. He was my favorite player while he was there. He's a big, powerful, home run hitter who also strikes out a lot. When a player for the home team gets up to bat, they always play a song that player picked out. Klesko's song was "Long Haired Country Boy" by the Charlie Daniels Band. That made me laugh since he's from California and he doesn't have long hair.
2. There were a few former Sox players and Braves players on each team. Rafael Furcal and Klesko from the Braves 2004 World Series Champion Boston Red Sox players Derek Lowe and Dave Roberts. 3. The stadium is right on the bay. On the other side of the right field stands is McCovey Cove. In around the 5th inning, the fog started rolling in from behind home plate out towards the bay. It looked pretty cool.
4. San Fran was playing their biggest rivals, the Dodgers. The chant they used most was BEAT L A!! BEAT L A!! Not bad, but not as good as Yankees suck!! 5. Our seats were on the very top row of the stadium. Along with the fog, the wind came in as well. Shorts were definitely a mistake. We ended up moving around trying to find a place to sit where the wind wasn't quite as bad. The weird thing about San Francisco fans is half of them don't show up until the 4th or 5th inning. We had to move probably 5 times while we were there.
6. The few weeks before the trip, I was watching Barry's home run totals getting closer and closer to the record. Of course with 4 to go, he decided not to hit anymore. Though I'm definitely not a Bonds fan, I did think it would be exciting to see a record like that broken. Since he wasn't going to break the record when I was there, I started to hope I'd see the pitch where Barry got plunked in the knee with his career ending injury. His line on the night: 2 walks, grounded into 2 double plays, and allowed 5 or 6 outs to drop in front of him for singles. As bad as I hate to admit it, it was really exciting every time he got up. I was happy to see him fail though.
Overall, I'd give San Francisco about an 8 (out of 10) and Monterey about a 3. If you're ever over on the west coast, San Francisco is a great place to spend some time.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

California Vacation Part 3

San Francisco was much more fun than Monterrey. I'll let the pictures explain where we went.

Our first day in town, we went to China Town for lunch. Lots of Chinamen like this guy here.
Had a good time looking at the ships at the Maritime Museum.
Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 had a lot of cool shops. Almost bought this poster for my buddy Jim.
We then spent some time at "The Bridge that couldn't be built". It was an amazing engineering accomplishment. Did you know that with the concrete used in the bridge, you could build a 5' wide sidewalk from San Francisco to New York City?
We walked a beach named after my wife, Crissy Field. Honestly though, it didn't do her justice.
We then went to Golden Gate Park. Not too exciting to me, but Chrissy loves that kind of stuff... Flowers and a Japanese Tea Garden.

Stay tune sports fans. More on San Francisco coming soon.

Monday, July 16, 2007

California Vacation Part 2

Californiaaaaaaa Californiaaaaaaaaaaaa!! Here we coooooome!!! We started our vacation in Monterey. Monterey is one of the most beautiful places in the country. I'd say my favorite part was watching the sunset with Chrissy on the beach.

The 17 mile drive is a must see. Beautiful scenery all the way down to Pebble Beach. The waves crashing against the rocks, seals everywhere.

We went on a whale watching trip as well. It sounded very exciting, and based on the web site, we were expecting to see some cool stuff. Really, all we saw was a dark hump rise out of the water. Not very exciting at all. I'd put pictures up, but really all you can see is a lump above the water. It was about as exciting as a watching a log float.

The negatives of Monterey:
Not much to do.
Everything is expensive.
Whale watching was a bummer.
It was really cold (Chrissy)

Positives:
17 mile drive
Lighthouse
Watching the sunset with Chrissy
It was really cold (Chad)
San Francisco tomorrow. On to the pics!!!
Point Pinos Lighthouse
Sea Lions in the Wharf
Chrissy trying hard to stay warm
17 Mile Drive Sunset
The Scenery
Waiting on sunset

Sunday, July 15, 2007

We're Back!!! California Vacation Part I

We got back Saturday night.... Actually more like Sunday morning.

Quick overview: We went to Chrissy's parents on Saturday the 6th. We went to Chrissy's Mom's family reunion that day at Noccalula Falls near Gadsden, Alabama.

Monday morning, we flew out for San Francisco and drove to Monterey. Wednesday morning, we drove back to San Francisco and spent the rest of the week there. Not a big fan of Monterey. I really liked San Francisco.

Because I hate long blogs, I'm going to write a little bit each day over the next few until I cover everything we did.

I'll start with the time we spent at Nocallula Falls and Anniston.

I had a nice time meeting more of Chrissy's family. As usual, I ate way too much. The scenery was pretty cool.


2 good lookin fellers
The Falls
Toon in tomorrow for part II of the California vacation.