Fun in the sun and moonlight, Spring Training 2009, post #1

This was the week to fulfill a lifelong dream and take Peter along for the ride. We both enjoyed ourselves and learned some lessons along the way.

We arrived in Fort Myers at City of Palms Park just in time to meet Christy's aunt and friends, one of which was holding a spot for us in the autograph line. At Susan's suggestion, I hoisted Peter up on my shoulders and we waited. And waited. Chatting with a few folks who were waiting, consulting my roster for the names of some of the Sox who may have never played higher than AA (like Zach Daeges), we finally saw Chris Carter, who had 18 at bats for the Sox last season. Peter was yelling to him at the top of his lungs for about 10 minutes as he made his way down the line, until Carter finally recognized him and made clear that he intended to sign his ball. Peter yelled, "Sign it on the sweet spot, Chris!" which made everyone around us laugh. Carter was very nice and generous with his time and seemed to enjoy meeting the fans. Peter stayed for the complete game after making friends with a lady next to us and a little girl in front, so we got to sing "Sweet Caroline" in the middle of the 8th and "Dirty Water" at the end of the game. I've never been in the swing of baseball so early in the season (sorry Christy...)

In the interest of ease, we got a hotel for the half-way point of the trip down but according to plan, we camped in a tent, with a single electric outlet and a water faucet at our site. We did have access to the bathhouse and pool, but we'll wean away from those extra features (not to mention my inflatable mattress) as Peter gets older. It was a pretty nice campground and it took Peter about 4 seconds to make friends with the lady in the next site. He spent the rest of the weekend looking for her and was very sad when she had to leave on Sunday. They left notes for each other. Peter is a very good and patient camper. He never asked for TV, computer games (even though I had a computer with me) or complained about noise or acted scared at all. His only complaint was that he was cold in the mornings (on Monday, I had a campfire going when he woke up -- make note for next time).

I'll blog the other events of the trip over the next few days.