Andrew's Home
I left about 8:30am to drive up to the baseball camp and pick up Andrew. The camp was being run by ABC Baseball (a bunch of former pro players do these one or two week camps around the country each summer) and they had arranged to use a boarding school empty for the summer to hold the camp. It's 150 miles due north of here.
A place called The Dunn School which is a bit north of Santa Barbara, and wow, what a beautiful place. Right in wine country, surrounded by gorgeous vistas the place was pretty impressive. I visited some college campus's with Steph that weren't this nice, or had sports facilities this impressive. The campers were staying in the school dorms and eating at the cafeteria. The students weren't there, but some of the support staff was.
The drive up took two hours so I got there in time to catch the last half hour of their final game. Since it was the last day, and just a half day, they didn't do drills or clinics. Andrew saw me pull up, he was the runner at first at the time, but he was stranded and then he had to take first base but after that half of the inning he came out to say hi. I almost messed up and hugged him, but I remembered not to embarrass him at the last moment
It was a pretty intensive camp. It started last Sunday at 1pm with a five hour hitting clinic. They had to be up each day by 7am, and after breakfast, on the fields by 8am. Andrew said each morning they'd do throwing and catching drills, followed by two, 2 hour clinics. There were clinics to cover every aspect of the game; sliding, positional hitting, etc. The clinics changed each day.
After lunch and a 30 minute break (In which they apparently played catch anyway) they'd do running drills before dividing up into their various teams (there were six teams, 3 age divisions) to play a 5 inning game. Then they had a free hour before dinner, and Andrew usually hit the pool. After dinner they'd watch game tapes and discuss plays and stuff before having another free hour and then lights out by 10pm.
Something that hadn't occurred to me when he asked could he go to this camp was that for the past four days he's been cut off from TV (they were only allowed to watch ESPN, and then just for a half hour), the computer and his Playstation. And no soda. He admitted to being tired, and a little bit sore, but he had a blast and said he feels like he got a lot out of it.
We left there just after 1pm and about fifteen minutes into the drive I hear a gently snoring and he's out cold the rest of the way home. Got caught in a bit of the Friday 'get away' traffic so the drive back took 3 hours. From just north of Ventura it's a beautiful drive though, along the coast and I enjoyed that part of it.
He was greeted estatically by our dog, Dax. It took her a good ten minutes to calm down. Two of the cats also joined the welcome home committee, the other two were off sleeping somewhere. When I realized I wouldn't be home in time I asked Steph to take Adam to Karate so Andrew and I had everything unpacked and put away by the time they got back and Sam came in from work.
It's good to have him back.
A place called The Dunn School which is a bit north of Santa Barbara, and wow, what a beautiful place. Right in wine country, surrounded by gorgeous vistas the place was pretty impressive. I visited some college campus's with Steph that weren't this nice, or had sports facilities this impressive. The campers were staying in the school dorms and eating at the cafeteria. The students weren't there, but some of the support staff was.
The drive up took two hours so I got there in time to catch the last half hour of their final game. Since it was the last day, and just a half day, they didn't do drills or clinics. Andrew saw me pull up, he was the runner at first at the time, but he was stranded and then he had to take first base but after that half of the inning he came out to say hi. I almost messed up and hugged him, but I remembered not to embarrass him at the last moment
It was a pretty intensive camp. It started last Sunday at 1pm with a five hour hitting clinic. They had to be up each day by 7am, and after breakfast, on the fields by 8am. Andrew said each morning they'd do throwing and catching drills, followed by two, 2 hour clinics. There were clinics to cover every aspect of the game; sliding, positional hitting, etc. The clinics changed each day.
After lunch and a 30 minute break (In which they apparently played catch anyway) they'd do running drills before dividing up into their various teams (there were six teams, 3 age divisions) to play a 5 inning game. Then they had a free hour before dinner, and Andrew usually hit the pool. After dinner they'd watch game tapes and discuss plays and stuff before having another free hour and then lights out by 10pm.
Something that hadn't occurred to me when he asked could he go to this camp was that for the past four days he's been cut off from TV (they were only allowed to watch ESPN, and then just for a half hour), the computer and his Playstation. And no soda. He admitted to being tired, and a little bit sore, but he had a blast and said he feels like he got a lot out of it.
We left there just after 1pm and about fifteen minutes into the drive I hear a gently snoring and he's out cold the rest of the way home. Got caught in a bit of the Friday 'get away' traffic so the drive back took 3 hours. From just north of Ventura it's a beautiful drive though, along the coast and I enjoyed that part of it.
He was greeted estatically by our dog, Dax. It took her a good ten minutes to calm down. Two of the cats also joined the welcome home committee, the other two were off sleeping somewhere. When I realized I wouldn't be home in time I asked Steph to take Adam to Karate so Andrew and I had everything unpacked and put away by the time they got back and Sam came in from work.
It's good to have him back.
posted by Booklover at
6:52 PM
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