After taking a week and a half off from the blog to celebrate Mr. A’s 30th birthday in style, I am back today to share the first day of his surprise trip. In my last post, I explained that I had planned a surprise trip for Mr. A to the Orioles Spring Training in Florida. While he knew that we were going to see the O’s, I kept the rest of the trip’s itinerary completely secret (let’s just say there was a lot more going on than just Oriole birds).
Our first day of the trip started in the early am at Tampa’s airport hotel. Because there was a looming snow storm back in DC, we switched our early am flight to a late evening flight the day prior to our original arrival. We ended up getting into Tampa after midnight so we decided to crash the airport’s hotel.
So cut to the next morning, we were rested and ready to grab our rental car. After a quick car switcharoo (we originally booked a standard car but couldn’t fit all of our luggage into the car—perhaps I have my Mom’s overpacking tendencies—so Avis upgraded us to a SUV for no charge), we started on the hour trek south to the Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota.
This stadium has housed the O’s Spring Training since 2010 and we had high expectations for this recently renovated park (considering we call Camden Yards, arguably one of baseball’s prettiest stadiums, home). Our first O’s Spring Training game was the World Baseball Classic game against Spain. We were lucky enough to get there during the warmups so I was able to catch a few pictures of our favorite Os.
Jake Arrieta was warming up in the bullpen. With his love of all things pitching (he was a pitcher in college), Mr. A spent the entire warm ups leaning up against the bullpen fence. His face seriously lights up every time he talks about baseball.
Once warmups were over, we headed back to our seats, but not before posing with the bird.
Since Ed Smith Stadium is on the smaller side, there really isn’t a bad seat in the house.
We were on the second level behind the O’s dugout so we had a perfect view of the entire field.
And we got to hang out with these cool people.
When the game was over (also known as when we couldn’t feel our toes anymore—it’s was a chilly and windy 60 degrees), we headed 20 minutes south to Siesta Key Beach to our condo rental. Early on in our trip planning process, my Mom basically begged for us to stay at Siesta Key. They had visited it on a previous Spring Training trip and couldn’t stop talking about how gorgeous the beach was. I was lucky enough to snag one of the last 2 bedroom condos at Sarasota Surf and Racquet Club. This was probably the best find of our entire vacation.
From our condo, we were able to walk a few hundred yards right onto the beach. And it was just any beach. It was this beach. The sand was like baby powder—light and fluffy. Since I love all things beach, I was in heaven for our entire stay.
After unpacking our clothes and groceries, we headed down to the beach to watch the sunset.
Living in the city, you forget just how breathtakingly beautiful something as simple as a sunset can be.
I could stare at this view all day long.
Once the sun set, I caught up with the rest of the group (my husband, mom and dad ditched me on the beach to take cover from the brutally cold wind—sadly I’ve become one of those photography people, whoops). The condo management happened to be holding a sunset pig roast and we all were famished. So rather than drag ourselves into town for some eats, we figured we would just grab a bite to eat from the roast.
Surprisingly it was really delicious. Pulled pork with baked beans and a blue cheese coleslaw.
With our bellies full, we decided to hit the hay. The next day we would be meeting with Mr. A’s childhood baseball hero so he needed all the energy he could muster. Turned out he got more than he ever could have expected.
