A BUSY SPRING BEFORE WE LEAVE FOR WYOMING

In January, Ann and I decided we would like to travel back to Wyoming to work in Grand Teton National Park again in the summer of 2011. We applied for campground positions and were accepted to work as campground hosts at the Colter Bay RV Park located at the north end of Grand Teton National Park.

In February we received a phone call offering us jobs in the Baltimore Orioles Spring Training Ticket Office in Sarasota, Florida. Ann was in Bristol, Tennessee visiting with her sister, Kathy, who just had a knee replacement. FOUR DAYS NOTICE TO PACK AND LEAVE FOR A MONTH – YIKES! But with another opportunity to work at a fun job, especially in an industry that Paul loves, we could not turn down the offer. Ann flew home and we packed the RV for the trip to Sarasota.  

We reported to work on Friday, February 25, five days before the first game. Opening day came and the interesting stories began. Ann was in the ticket office by the left field parking lot so she got to see Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon walk into the stadium for the first game against the Tampa Bay Rays. A few games later, Paul was at the home plate ticket office near where the visiting team buses unload. Derek Jeter was the 2nd person off the Yankees bus but Arod was nowhere to be found. It turns out Arod rode to the game with Cameron Diaz, who caused quite a stir sitting out among the crowd with her bodyguard for a few innings. Needless to say, security was tight around the section where she was seated.

Dealing with the customers was sometimes funny and often challenging. People would ask for seats in the shade and then complain because they weren't sitting in the box seats next to the dugout. Scalpers constantly came up the ticket windows wanting to know what good seats were available. The Orioles want a family friendly environment so we did all we could to not sell to sleazy scalpers who would then double or triple the price of the ticket to sell to a desperate fan.        

Prior to the last game, The Bird (official name of the Oriole mascot) came near our ticket booth.  Ann thought it was a good photo opportunity.

Five weeks later after 9 standing room only crowds out of the 16 spring training games, we have countless fond memories of working with some great people in a great atmosphere.

April was filled with family time. We spent a week at Disney World with our daughter Laura, husband John and their two sons. 3 year old grandson Jack loves the water and spent hours going down water slides at the Contemporary Resort pool.

His brother, Henry, our youngest grandson, 7 months old, is resting with his friend Pooh on a lazy morning during our Disney stay.

Next, Ann flew to Dallas to take care of our oldest two grandchildren, Amelia and John, while daughter Wendy and her husband, Scott, went to Italy for 8 days where Wendy spoke at a conference in Rome. John and Amelia are pictured below at the Dallas Arboretum, having an outing with Grandma.

Ann returned from Dallas after Easter, and this time she had THREE WHOLE DAYS to complete her preparations to leave for Wyoming for 5 months – Paul owes her for that accomplishment

We left Florida on Friday morning, April 29. The drive had some interesting twists with blinkers that did not work consistently and a refrigerator that did not want to stay on – but we managed to get to Forsyth, GA, south of Atlanta, as planned. GAS STICKER SHOCK - Our first gas stop, where we put over $200 worth of gas in the tank. We were below a 1/4 tank (the tank holds 75 gallons) so this was not unexpected but still was hard to accept.

Day #2 was a short drive of about 120 miles to north of Atlanta where we spent the afternoon and evening with Jack Watford, a former colleague of Paul. 

It would not be Paul planned road trip without a baseball game. So we headed to a Gwinnett Braves (Atlanta Braves AAA team) game at nearby Coolray Field. It was an ideal night for baseball with the temps in the 70's. 

The lawn area was full of young families with children running all around and playing on the various children's inflatables.

 

The Braves were playing the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees. The big hit with most of the fans was Chopper, the Braves mascot. During the game the promotions staff did a segment with young fans and Chopper on the video board. Several 10-12 year old boys with Yankee shirts became obnoxious showing off their Yankee logos on their shirts. Chopper's handler dumped a bucket of water over the one boy to "cool him off" and the crowd roared.

On Sunday, we headed northwest to Nashville to visit another former colleague, Robert Hernberger, and his wife Robyn. We had a wonderful visit and dinner at a trendy place called Burger Up where the menu choices were all but the ordinary types of burgers – lamb, salmon, bison and quinoa and black bean burgers to name a few.