On The Road Again...And Again, And Again.

Hello blog enthusiasts,

These past few days have included a TON of hours spent on the road for yours truly, so I apologize for the delay in between posts.

On Sunday I took a short break from the Road Trip to attend Phillip Jones' wedding. He and I have been great friends since the third grade in Louisville, which is why the crazy traveling I had to do to get there was well worth the effort. After the guys dropped me off at the airport early Sunday morning, I flew to Charlotte, North Carolina, rented a car, and made the two-hour drive to Asheville for the festivities.

My attempt at keeping the trip as economical as possible came with some sacrifices, as the only "compact car" still available when I arrived at the Alamo lot was a Cobalt painted the brightest shade of yellow I have ever seen. I'm confident that I could have been easily identified from "globe view" on Google Earth. Oh, and the car also came with a spoiler, which was just the cherry on top.

But the wedding was beautiful, and I also was given a part during the ceremony where I did a "reading from John," which was actually just me reciting the lyrics from John Lennon's "All You Need Is Love" in monotone fashion. In typical Phil fashion, he didn't have the words printed for me, so I'm pretty sure I'm the first person to ever do a "reading" from the podium while looking down at an iPhone. But it went over really well and I was honored that Phil & Alexis asked me to play a role in their special day. Congrats to the new Jones husband and wife duo!

First thing Monday morning after a quick stay at the lovely Asheville Hojo, I was back on the road for Charlotte (where I saw fellow Murray State alum Jennifer Payne in the ticketing line) and caught a flight back to Orlando. Clink and Kohrs picked me up shortly after I landed, and back to the road we went. We drove until pretty late, got through Atlanta (where gas was $4.07 a gallon) and stopped for the night in Dalton, Georgia. On Tuesday, we passed through four states (Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri), grabbed a quick bite in good 'ole Cadiz, Ky., eclipsed 2000 total miles in the car for the trip and eventually reached our destination of Columbia, Mo. where we currently are.

Tuesday night we got some dinner at Ruby Tuesday's (I recommend the Bison Burger) and decided to pay a visit to the very classy Days Inn Prime Time Lounge since we had the day off on Wednesday. Today we took advantage of our ability to sleep in, but eventually got up and went to scout the Twin Oaks facility where Baseball Youth village will be located for the remainder of the week in Columbia. Tonight we were joined by Dugout Media prez Scott Hacker who made the trip in, ate dinner and went to pay homage to Henry Jones Jr., known to the layman as Indiana Jones. I am not one to ruin or spoil motion picture experiences for others, but I am compelled to say that this version was a little disappointing and did not live up to the expectations others had set for me. This seems to be a trend with installments of epic movie sequels, as their content does not match the magic that made the original(s) so popular (i.e. Rambo, Rocky, Weekend at Bernie's).

Our games do not start until later tomorrow evening, which means some tournament games under the lights, but it's off to bed for this guy. Thanks for reading and I look forward to getting you more updates tomorrow.

Be good,
Chris

P.S. As nice as Florida is, I love that we left the humidity behind....it's nearly 30 degrees cooler in Columbia than it was in Orlando!