This is the fourteenth year that I’ve collected dozens of the best experiences throughout the year. 2024’s list contained thirty-five entries and as usual, there were ones that were certain top tens and a bunch that contended for the last few inclusions. Elaine and I made a record fourteen trips in 2024, some to see the grandkids, others to watch football, visit family, or even learn some history. As I tell people, we put “tired” in the word “retired”! We start with one of America’s most scenic locations.
10. Niagara Falls
Elaine’s son Brian and his wife Deborah moved from Indianapolis to Buffalo when he accepted the Safeties & Nickels coaching job at the University at Buffalo. We made our second trip to Buffalo in September to watch his team play the University of Massachusetts, which resulted in a 34-3 win for the Bulls. The day before we spent an hour on Goat Island with Deborah to see the spectacular Niagara Falls. There are three falls, the largest being Horseshoe Falls which dumps about 2.5 billion gallons of water over its crest per hour, far more than the smaller American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls. It was a beautiful sunny day and the rainbows created by the mists were huge and stunning. Next time we won’t forget our rain ponchos.
9. Little Big Town Concert
One of the few big-name country bands we hadn’t seen over the years is Little Big Town, who have hits including “Day Drinking”, “Better Man”, “Pontoon”, “Little White Church”, and “Wine, Beer, Whiskey”. We quickly grabbed floor seats with Elaine's sister and brother-in-law when we saw they were playing at PPG Paints Arena in November with opening acts by Sugarland and The Castellows. Little Big Town is comprised of the husband-and-wife duo of Karen Fairchild and Jimi Westbrook, Kimberly Schlapman, and Phillip Sweet. We drove down early, had beers at PreGame, saw the concert, and ducked out a bit early to avoid the rush.
8. Las Vegas Bowl
The Texas A&M Aggies went 8-4 during their football season making them bowl-eligible in the first year of Elaine’s son Pat as their Special Teams Coordinator. That game was the Las Vegas Bowl on December 27 at Allegiant Stadium. We flew out on Christmas Eve, had dinner at The House of Blues in the Mandalay Bay hotel, and spent Christmas morning watching our grandkids, Griffin and Joey, open their presents. We walked the Strip every day, had a nice dinner at the Rí Rá Irish Pub, and watched the sharks, rays, turtles, and other creatures of the sea at the Shark Reef Aquarium. The football ended on a sad note, a last-minute 35-31 loss to the USC Trojans.
7. Main Street in Williamsville
Williamsville is the village just north of Buffalo that Brian and Deborah moved to. From their apartment, you can walk up through Glen Park and along Ellicott Creek as it falls over the Onondaga Escarpment, forming the 27-foot-high Glen Falls, to reach Main Street. We ate and drank at many places along a half-mile stretch including Glen Park Tavern, Britesmith Brewing Company, Moor Pat (Tap Room spelled backward), Creekview Restaurant, and The Irishman Pub & Eatery. During our July trip, bands play at a dozen or more venues creating a festive atmosphere.
6. Silent Disco
In February, we went on a 7-day Caribbean Cruise, with stops in Nassau, Bahamas, Cozumel, Mexico, and Georgetown, Grand Cayman. The journey to Fort Lauderdale was nerve-racking as detailed in the blog “At Least We Made It”, but after that things calmed down, and while the weather was cooler and rainier than we hoped, we had a good time with family and friends. We spent a fair amount of time in the middle of the ship in an area known as the Martini Bar and one evening we were introduced to a Silent Disco. Each participant received a pair of noise-canceling headphones that could play one of three channels, each blasting a different genre of music. Imagine hundreds of people singing at the top of their lungs, unable to hear each other, and dancing together. Each channel selection used a different color, so you could meet and mingle with people who shared your taste in music. It was a total blast!
5. Bear Creek Golf Club
We took a 16-day road trip from mid-September through the first week of October, something we had never attempted before. We called it the History and Beach Tour and some other highlights are below, but we’ll start with golfing on Hilton Head Island at the Bear Creek Golf Club. There are a lot of golf courses in Hilton Head, and most are pretty pricey and very nice. We found a moderately priced course for our first round, but it was far from nice. Our next choice, Bear Creek, was affordable, well-kept, and a good challenge. They had a good driving range with all the balls you wanted to hit. The course had tall pine trees, plenty of bunkers, left and right dog-leg fairways, and intimidating water hazards. It was nice that we brought our golf clubs from home and did not have to rent unfamiliar equipment. Tough and beautiful is a great combination for golf and we enjoyed playing those nine holes.
4. Salsa Making and Salsa Dancing
Our one booked excursion during the Caribbean Cruise was on the Mexican island of Cozumel. We started with a bus ride to a Mexican market to buy tomatoes, limes, and other ingredients before heading to Playa Mia to make our homemade guacamole and pico de gallo, making them as spicy as we liked. We learned a few moves of traditional Mexican salsa dance and sipped a variety of alcoholic drinks before heading back to the ship for another day at sea.
3. Touring Monticello
Monticello was Thomas Jefferson’s primary plantation, located a few miles southeast of Charlottesville, Virginia. Jefferson designed it to look smaller than its 11,000 square feet spanning three floors and a cellar. We opted for the Behind-The-Scenes Tour, a 90-minute adventure that includes exploring the upper floors that are accessed by very narrow, steep staircases, and the cellar which contains the kitchen, smokehouse, icehouse, wine and beer cellars, and other storage areas. We passed the small cemetery on the walk up to the house and found the grave of Jefferson. His mother Jane, his wife Martha, daughters Martha and Maria, and other family and close friends are also buried there. To make our journey shorter the next day, we drove from Monticello to a hotel south of Richmond, Virginia for the night. We traveled to North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina the next day and had a delightful time there with Byran and Diane Lebovitz before heading to Hilton Head.
2. Touring Gettysburg
Gettysburg has been a bucket list item for quite a while and we planned our 16-day History and Beach Tour around finally getting there. We started with a two-hour Battlefield Bus Tour, visiting numerous fields, monuments, and ridges. The three-day Battle of Gettysburg was fought between Union and Confederate forces between July 1 and July 3, 1863. We visited Cemetery Ridge, Little Round Top, Culp’s Hill, and others. We learned how the battle unfolded and how the final day’s Pickett's Charge by the forces under General Robert E. Lee failed to break the Union lines at Cemetery Ridge, forcing them to retreat. We toured the National Military Park Museum and an emotional late-afternoon walking tour of the National Cemetery where thousands of Union soldiers are buried.
1. The 38-23 Texas A&M win over LSU
We picked months in advance which Texas A&M football game would be our first at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas, and it was the perfect choice. We were among the 108,852 people who packed into the stadium to watch the 14th-ranked Aggies take on the 8th-ranked LSU Tigers. Everything was first-rate, from parking in the coach's lot to entering through the Athletic Offices to the seats on the 47-yard line in the 17th row, the best I’ve ever had for this big a game. LSU had a 17-7 half-time lead, but after the first series in the second half, the second-string quarterback, Marcel Reed took over the offense and he ran for three straight touchdowns giving the Aggies a lead they would never give up. The place was so loud you had to scream in someone’s ear to be heard. Final score: 38-23.
