Gainesville

As you already know, Jacob coaches a handful of soccer teams, but this weekend it was his U-11 team was playing in the Gator Showcase tournament in Gainesville, FL.  I think tournaments are such a mixed bag.  They are fun to enter and fun to be a part of, but traveling can be difficult and you just never know if you are going to have an off-day once you get there and have made all that effort.  Plus, tournaments usually take place over an entire weekend, so Jacob pretty much never gets to fully participate.  I don't know that the parents always understand that, but I am proud of him for his obedience and always being at church on Sundays.  As such, we went up to Gainesville on Friday night and stayed until Saturday afternoon.  I think I have driven by Gainesville about eleventy twelve times but never have I stopped there or been anywhere on the UF campus, so it was fun to explore for 24 hours or so.  Friday night we went out to eat with the team.  I would not recommend dining with a party of 38. Takes a little while to get your food :)  After that we hung out at the hotel and remembered why we don't pay for cable.  Seriously, sixty four channels available to us and we still busted out my tablet to watch Netflix.  At least the room was paid for by the club.  Saturday the team had a game at 8am and then they had a tour at UF with members of the Gators Women's Soccer team. 

 A few pictures....

Camera self-timers rock!

I do have to say that right after we took this picture we had to ask for some directions to find the soccer field.  We found two amazing hipster guys sporting handlebar mustaches, skinny tweed pants, matching tweed sport coats and flat caps.  One was holding a Starbucks and the other used his iPhone to give us directions in seconds flat.  Hipsters. Hipsters everywhere!

Here is Jacob's cute little team with two of the players from the UF women's soccer team.  The taller one in the gator sweatshirt was a goalkeeper recruited from Norway.  They are serious about recruiting at that school.

We got to go in the women's soccer team locker room, which seems like it would be lame, but actually was kinda cool to see how collegiate teams really live.  It's a pretty sweet life.  We saw all the equipment, the endless swag and all the services available to the team.  Laundry service, vitamin regimens, massage tables, hot tubs- you name it, they can get it.  

Right after checking out the soccer team digs, we headed down to Ben Hill Griffin stadium, or "The Swamp" as it commonly known.  We found Tim Tebow in all his Heisman bronzie-ness. Surprisingly his statue had him in the upright, running position. Curious.

I had to make this picture extra large to try and capture the enormity of this stadium.  It was so humongous.  Seats about 30,000 more people than Cougar Stadium in Provo.

Okay, here is where the trip got glorious.  On the way out of town after the tour, we had time to get some lunch.  I had asked my friends on Facebook for some recommendations on the best, local, hole-in-the-wall type restaurants and someone mentioned the Reggae Shack Cafe.  Jamaican food.  I was not entirely sold on the idea, however, I figured, this could be a once in lifetime chance to eat a type of food I had never had before.  So we took the plunge.  I had a Caribbean chicken sandwich and Jacob had some Jamaican curry.  Both were excellent, but the real star of the show was the little item I am holding in my hand in the above pictures.  It is called a "festival" and was described as a coconut hush puppy.  It was one of the most delicious things I have ever put in my mouth. Ever. Period.  It was like a hush puppy, but it was sweet at the same time.  It was hot out of the fryer, but it wasn't as doughy as a hush puppy.  I wish I could adequately describe it, but you can't!!  It was just so phenomenal.  I have thought that it would be worth the almost three hour drive to Gainesville just to go back and eat some more festivals.  The other items on the table are Coco bread and a Jamaican beef patty.  The bread was kind of like a mild King's Hawaiian sweet roll, only with the consistency of smooth cotton candy, which was delicious. The beef patty was tasty too, especially the crust.  So the verdict on the legendary Reggae Shack Cafe is two thumbs up.  Way up!  Plus, how can you argue with a place that serves something called "Dutty" Fries- which are french fries with all kinds of seasoning dumped on them, including sugar???!  You can't.  Plus, a big shout out to my parents who watched the kids for us while we were gone and made all their dreams come true by taking them to Denny's AND garage sale-ing.  I can't compete with that, nor will I try.  In the immortal words of Bert from Mary Poppins,  "The cream of the crop, the tip of the top, are Grandmas and Grandpas and there we stop" :)