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I was on the North side of the plane to Charlotte. Then the same seats for CLT to RSW.

The skill levels of the players varies of course, there are some old guys like me, some of whom are pretty limited, and some in their 30s who probably were solid HS players who can run.  Most guys are around 50 and slowing down but still can play a bit.  They make some good plays and some bad errors, catching pop flies is surprisingly difficult and chancy.

We stayed in a hotel in North Port, most guys stay at the "Academy" which is rooms at the facility which are decent where players stay.  The food at the academy is excellent, I'd get breakfast and lunch there, dinner is off site or at the stadium.  The trainers are very good and helpful.  Our coaches are former major leaguers, nice guys, my coaches in week two were Charlie Culberson and Tim Hudson (Hudy).  They have some great stories.  After dinner folks often congregate at the academy where alcohol flows rather freely, and they play table tennis or shoot pool or other games, some card games get started.

In the morning is a meeting and "Kangaroo Court" where we get fined for stuff, the fines go to the "clubbies" who take care of everything and usually catch for each team.  They do laundry, clean your shoes, drag equipment out to the fields, etc.  The fines end up being over $10,000, we broke $14,000 this year, divided into about 16 pots.    They really work hard.

I know a lot of the guys who come each year, so it's "old home week" for us.  We play two games a day and even the younger guys get sore and/or injured.  I'm in pretty good shape now even after the 550 mile drive back yesterday.  My wife drove 400 of it.  It's hyperboring.  

The complex has something like 8 fields total, a weight room which is impressive, training rooms, dressing rooms, batting cages, pitching mound areas, a small practice field, a large open grass field for whatever, the "Academy" with bedrooms and cafeteria, and of course the main spring training stadiium.  Around it is "Wellen Park" which is turning into a major development with housing and a "downtown" area, we drove around in it a bit and got lost, it's enormous.  The downtown is quite nice, they had a farmer's market on Sunday which we sampled.  It's all new just off the Tamiami Trail south of Venice.

Anyway, I find it very fun overall and my wife likes it a lot as well.  

I can sorta throw a knuckler, but you really need decent speed for it to work right, and of course control.  My main focus is to throw strikes, if they hit it (when, not if), fine with me.  I do get a few Ks, but I'm no longer able to throw very hard.  The spitter is the same way, you need velo for that to work.

Oddly enough, the best curve I threw in two weeks got  tatooed.  It was down and away and the dude got all of it.  I was impressed.

The pitching ranges from around 70 mph down to maybe 40 mph in camp, the latter being tougher to hit.  We did have one guy the first week who was throwing upper 70s.  At around 85, if you ever see that, the ball starts making angry hissing sounds.  A lot of folks THINK they can throw 85, but very very few can.  You can roughly judge how hard you can throw by throwing it as far as you can on a fly and pacing off the distance.  

In camp, few third basemen routinely get a throw to first on the fly, they can if they really elevate the throw, but usually it comes in on a hop.  And by end of the week, most arms are dead anyway.

$4,500 is different that $30K

good choice - leave some $$$ for the children

or buy Nubbz and I a few beers

We did one river cruise a while back, it was "OK", it was on some lesser operation.  They sound really nice, but I like the flexibility of having a car, usually.

We're going to Vienna in late April for two weeks, staying in the same hotel the entire time, and taking various "tours".  My wife likes ocean cruises because she unpacks once, which makes sense.  Driving around means packing and unpacking of course, but not if you stay in one place, mostly.  I think Amsterdam may be next.

Amsterdam is cool, maybe my 2nd favorite European city behind Prague.

We had a great time in two weeks in Copenhagen, and I realized it takes about that long to really see a larger city.  There is plenty to "do", and you don't have to be rushed to check boxes.

My list of "2 week cities" now is Vienna, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Budapesh, ...  I've spent multiple days already in Barcelona, Paris of course, Brussels, Lyon, Athens ... maybe a return visit to some would be on the list also.  My wife would like to return to Tokyo, but I think I would rather see more of Japan if we went.

For one thing, air travel for me is getting more ... onerous, which I can partially allay by spending more money.  The "premum select" class is about all I can rationalize, and it's getting pricey in many cases.  So, I'm not up for a one week visit to Europe or Asia.

Distant overseas trips like that need to be at least 2 weeks long just to justify the effort and expense.  Not to mention adjusting to jet lag.