ESPN Getaway

My mother gets harassment from her kids because she enters online sweepstakes on a regular basis. When I say "regular basis", I mean daily. Daily as in "30 minutes a day". Some would say "a half hour a day". Others would say "Shut the hell up, Skip!". But I digress... What I'm getting at is she is retired and has time to do this. As much as I would like to enter online sweepstakes, I don't mainly because I don't have the patience to fill out all those online forms.

She's been lucky in the past and has won a few items here and there. Nothing like Publisher's Clearinghouse or the lotto though. More like a years worth of Turtlewax. A free carton of cigarettes. KY Jelly for life. Maybe not everything listed here but you get the point. See, I continue to harass her and give her a hard time! That's only because I love her.

As luck would have it, she recently won a Gillette sweepstakes and was awarded a free trip to Bristol, Connecticut and a tour of ESPN studios! Naturally, I was thrilled for her and thought that there would be no way that I would be invited because I joke about it. She is apparently much nicer than me because she did invite me! After I took my foot out of my mouth, I accepted. You probably figured that all out because otherwise I wouldn't be writing this journal...

Here's my account of the events. The names of the innocent have been changed to protect their identity. Actually, I just don't remember their names.

Thursday, June 21st, 2007

Mom drives up to my house in the afternoon. We talk. We play with the dogs. We pet the cats. We eat Chinese food for dinner. We go to the park with the dogs. We watch a softball game with the dogs. We return home. We pet cats. We play with the dogs. We watch television. We go to bed (separate beds). That's pretty much every day in my life. I could give you more details of the events but then you would lose interest and quit reading.

Friday, June 22nd, 2007

We wake up at 6:30, get ready, and head off to the airport. The first plane has about 20 seats and propellers which are located directly outside of our window. Have you ever seen those horror/action movies where the actress is tied up and moving down a conveyor belt to the band saw at the end? That's what it felt like when we looked out of the window. We were a few feet away from death. One screw gets loose on the propeller and we would becoming back home in several pieces.

We fly to Philadelphia and after a slight delay we hop on our other "puddle jumper" (as mom puts it) and arrive in Hartford, Connecticut safely. We get our rental car and drive to our hotel - about 30 minutes away. One problem...we get to the hotel and they said our reservations were for Thursday...that would be last night. Mom checks her paperwork and sure enough, it said Thursday. I give the sweet young hotel receptionist a wink and flash a smile and she says that it was no problem and she would fix it. Coincidence? I think not...

The weather is absolutely beautiful. As luck would have it, the car shows the outside temperature so I get the weather, accurate and dependable, from Linda (aka mom) every few minutes. It was 75 degrees, breezy, and no humidity. Since we had no plans for the day, we ask the concierge (who happens to double as the hotel check-in girl) what she recommends we do with our 4 hours of daylight. She pauses, completes the hotel registration, and says "I've got to think about it. I'll call your room in a few minutes." Wow...so many decisions to choose from! That question totally locked her up.

We get to our room, claim our double beds (mom gets the window), use the facilities (number 1 for me), and then decide we'll just go out and drive around. About that time, "RIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNG". Mom answers the phone and after a few "uh huh's" and "okay's" she hangs up. The concierge, Joy, narrowed it down to two items. Page Park, which has ducks and a pond, and the miniature golf course. What a happening town! We decide to go out and drive around.

We did follow Joy's suggestion and head towards the park. It was really nice to see the surrounding neighborhoods in Northeastern America. There were parks and baseball fields everywhere. Houses all looked different. It was almost like Andy Griffith's Mayberry. Kids playing innocently, fishing on the shoreline, you get the picture. Very refreshing! The park was all that it was promised to be...Here's what it reminded me of...

Hmmmm......what the *#?$! You don't get the connection? Let me put it a different way.

Still don't get it? Duck, Duck, Goose! Aha ha ha ha...I'm a riot! LOL! OMG! LOTFLMAO! I'm so clever. If you don't know what the abbreviations stand for, go ask a 7-year old who knows how to text or chat.

We managed to drive by the ESPN studios and were very surprised by what we saw! How big was it going to be? We were not really sure what to expect. We were greeted by huge satellite dishes as we drove over a hill. All told, I believe there are 27 on the ESPN campus varying in size. See the pics below...

Our day ended with a drive back to the Clarion where we noticed a rather large structure next door. We decided to drive to it and document it.

Every day is a constant battle to learn something. I never knew that the Otis Elevator company is the world's largest manufacturer of vertical transportation systems, principally elevators. Mom enlightened me on that fact (apparently they study that in 4th grade. It's a good thing I teach high school!) and when I got off the elevator to go to our room what do you think I saw? I'll be darn...the name "Otis" could be seen cast in the metal of the floor of the elevator where the doors open and close. How many times have I been in an elevator and not noticed this?

We ate dinner in the restaurant at the hotel because the weather started to get nasty and we were tired. Tomorrow was a big day and we wanted to be rested!

Go to day 2