Gimme A Spring Break - Days 5 & 6

Medieval Times was the perfect wrap-up event for family vacation. It was brilliantly choreographed and built great drama to a crescendo finish for the roaring crowd. It was like Broadway theatrical meets WWE.

Not only was the show a nice surprise, but it was probably the best dinner I had all week. Like the middle ages there's no silverware, and everyone is served soup, garlic bread, roasted chicken, a spare rib, baked potato, and an apple turnover. After feasting on amusement park fare and fast food all week, I felt like a Lord of the realm feasting like a king.

But I lost the battle with the kids, trying to get them from chicken nuggets to the real thing. But you could make the argument that the battle had already been won earlier in the day.

Thursday was the only Disney portion of the trip, with a scheduled day at Blizzard Beach. It was a rainy morning and I had to break the kids' hearts and the water park was out. The protests were too loud to ignore, so I gave them one shot - if we left now. They complied and we got almost 3 solid hours on a wide-open, cooler day before the weather hit for real.

The traffic the final day was considerably worse. The first Friday in April was a mass exodus from the Tragic Kingdom - all the minivans headed back to North Carolina, Michigan, and everywhere else east of the Mississippi, and they all were at the the Chick-Fil-A drivethru and on Interstate 4 & 95 the same time as the Backtime Editorial Department. A 4+ hour drive home actually came in at a ++ 6 hours.

As with any family trip there were ups and downs, but when you bond for this long with your closest people, history only records the highlights. I didn't have time to relax and watch any of the Yankee games this week (thank goodness). And I had to order The Walking Dead and Justified season finales on Amazon.com (in an upset, Justified was actually the far superior hour). I also couldn't realistically stick to my diet or exercise properly.

And after the kids got 6 hours of movies, video games and snacks while I drove us back home in the traffic and the rain, I dropped them off with their Mom. But my day of driving was far from over. I-95 would test my fortitude once again. Much more on that tomorrow...

Gimme a Spring Break - Days 1 & 2

Spring Break with the kids isn't really a vacation. In fact at the end, I will most likely need a vacation from the vacation. We did Disney last year, and this year we returned to Orlando (off-campus) to see what other sadistic and expensive adventures the Tragic Kingdom has to offer.

The new Honda Pilot was called on for its first road trip, and the drive down from Savannah was low maintenance as the kids watched DVDs with their wireless headsets, while Dad listened to Michigan whack Florida in the Regional Final on XM.

So three generations of the Backtime Editorial Department found a very nice and reasonably priced 3-bedroom villa in Kissimmee as home base. After unloading all the toys, board games, clothes, and food, we headed out to Dave & Busters for a decent dinner and some video gaming.

It's like Las Vegas, only with kids from all over the world. The staff was very accommodating and the dinner booth was huge. We easily could have fit a party of 8.

Then today was the all-day Sea World trip. I was told this was a "can't miss" stop in Orlando, which is a little bit of a stretch. The kids liked Hershey Park much better because they qualified hight-wise for so many more rides. Though the Sea Lion/Pirate show, and the Whale show were both fun and amazingly choreographed.

The show at Shamu Stadium was almost as well orchestrated as this trip, which still has three full days left. And as any good producer will tell you, it almost always looks better on paper.

Backtime Memo-Random: Orlando

I haven't done a game at the Citrus Bowl since New Year's Day, 2002. For the record, Tennessee routed Michigan 45-17. Casey Claussen threw for 393 yards, hitting Kelley Washington, Donte Stallworth, and Jason Witten all over the field.

Now the Citrus Bowl is a relic, kind of a cross between the old Orange Bowl and Legion Field, in the part of town the Magic Kingdom forgot.

But that bowl game isn't what stands out in my memories of Orlando. Neither is my son's Disney World Spring Break meltdown (now why'd you have to go and bring that up?). It's the 1996 NBA Playoffs.

I did five playoff games that spring at The O-Rena, and the games weren't anything really special. The Magic basically had their way with the Pistons (Grant Hill & Allan Houston) and the Hawks (Mookie & Smitty) in the early rounds.

Quick, name Orlando's starting five: There was Shaq and Penny, Nick Anderson and Dennis Scott, but who was the fifth?

Horace Grant was my favorite in a lineup of standouts. He was the relentless heartbeat of a team that was often questioned for its toughness, back when we wondered if Shaq would ever win a championship.

But before he was with the Magic, he won 3 titles with the Bulls. And when he would throw down an offensive rebound, you'd hear Bulls play-by-play man Jim Durham uncork HOAR-ess GRRANT!

I worked NBA and NCAA games with Jim Durham many years ago. It's a cliche, but he was a great broadcaster and a better guy. He did a lot of radio in recent years, and I had occasion to run into him when I was on the TV side of something. 

I would shake his hand and ask him, one time, to give me a full-throated HOAR-ess GRRANT! He would laugh and give me a half of one. You couldn't blame him for his lack of adrenaline without a live event going on, or an open mic in sight. He was a professional.

Jim Durham died last week at age 65. He was a power forward of broadcasting. RIP JD.