May Power Rankings/Summer Travel Guide
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| You can't spend all summer at soccer stadiums. |
A quick refresher. We here at Stormwatch912 don't do Power Rankings like those other sites who try to tell you who is playing well or poorly and use fancy things like statistics and strength of schedule and goals scored or allowed to rank the teams. There are plenty of places that do that. (I mean, not a lot of places. You won't find it on ESPN or anything like that. But there are enough that the world doesn't need one more set of Power Rankings from me.)
Instead, we take the road less traveled. Actually, more often than not, we have to create our own road because no one else is dumb enough to go this way, but it's the way we've started and I don't think we can stop now.
But enough banter. You want the rankings. This month, with Summer vacations coming up, I enlisted my Special Assistant to help me this month. That assistant is my 15-year old who was bestowed that title from Tormenta's USLW Head Coach Jim Robbins as he invited him to come out to their games this year. (It worked and he'll be coming to several with me.) I wrote up the recaps below in no particular order and then gave them to him and said "rank where you'd like to go for vacation based on these." You'll not be shocked to learn that staying home was not high on his priority list for summer vacation... Sorry Tormenta.
Let's get to it, shall we?
12. South Georgia (-4) - There's more to do in Statesboro than you realize, but it's also only an hour to Savannah and thirty more minutes to the beach. Depending on what you're looking for, you've got Tybee Island outside of Savannah or you can make the trip to Hilton Head Island off the coast of South Carolina. If you make it Savannah, River Street is a must. I'd also recommend one of the tours if you're at all interested in the history Georgia's oldest city. Back in Statesboro there's a water park if you're looking to wear the kids out and cool off. There's also The Clubhouse, which has bowling, arcade, laser tag and go carts and a restaurant. It's also within walking distance of Tormenta Stadium. You could also walk around Georgia Southern University and, if you have a very niche interest, the National Tick Museum is located there. Check the hours because way back when I was a student there, I tried to go the week before I graduated and they were closed. A personal favorite is the Botanical Gardens at Georgia Southern.
11. Northern Colorado (-2) - In researching this, I found a youtube video from a Realtor entitled "What is there to do in Windsor, Colorado?" and thought "great, my research is done. Then I looked at the runtime of the video and it was 1:22 long and I thought "I may have more research to do." From the video, I learned that you can wear short-sleeve shirts in February and Windsor Lake is a scenic place. However, if we do like with did with South Georgia and zoom out a little bit, Northern Colorado is an hour from Rocky Mountain National Park and an hour from Denver, and Denver, while it doesn't have Windsor Lake, does have a lot of other cool stuff like the Denver Botanical Gardens, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, you could catch a Rockies game, the Downtown Aquarium and a lot more.
10. Lexington (-5) - Horses and distilleries. Then more distilleries and more horses. Have a drink and bet on the horse of your choice while you're here and when you're done with that, there are actually some other things to do here. No visit (for me) would be complete without a stop at the University of Kentucky and Rupp Arena where the Wildcats basketball team plays. Lexington Cemetery was established in 1824 and is one of the country's prettiest cemeteries. It's also home to the childhood home of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of President Abraham Lincoln, and her home his now a museum.
9. Richmond (-8) - Richmond seems like a city I should enjoy. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, the history of the city seem like it would be right up my ally. But reading a few tourism sites made me kind of go "ehhh, maybe." I mean, I'd love to get to see City Stadium and since most of the cities here have a minor league baseball team, the Flying Squirrels don't add that much to the city's appeal. You had a good run at the top of the rankings, Richmond, but alas, your time has passed and it's time to pass the torch to someone else. Having said that, Maymont looks beautiful and would be a fun place to spend a few hours.
8. Omaha (-1) - Home of the top-ranked zoo in the country, Omaha is somewhere I'd like to go if I could make it for the College World Series. Union Omaha may want to reach out to Visit Omaha. While they're listed on the spectator sports category on the Visit Omaha website, they're at the bottom and not even listed in the brief writeup of sports. To be fair, they only mention hockey and arena league football. (Omaha Beef is a great name for a football team!) Henry Doorly Zoo, with one of the world's largest indoor rain forests and also one of the largest indoor deserts, is listed as the top attraction on Trip Advisor. Coming in second was the Durham Museum, now a National Historic Landmark, which opened in 1931 and was built by the Union Pacific Railroad as a train station. Certainly somewhere I would enjoy touring.
7. Greenville (-3) - I've been to Greenville a few times and have enjoyed my times there. The Greenville Zoo was nice as I recall but it's been more than a decade since I last went there. The photos of Falls Park on the Reedy look amazing. The Park opened in 2004 and the centerpiece appears to be the Liberty Bridge which provides unobstructed views of the waterfalls below. I'm a sucker for State Parks and Paris Mountain State Park is just 15 to 20 minutes outside of Greenville. Despite my love of walking around college campuses, I have no desire to tour Furman University. Old, old rivalries with Georgia Southern never die, even if we're in different conferences and football subdivisions now.
6. Charlotte (no change) - The top two places listed on TripAdvisor are places I probably wouldn't choose to go to own my own, but would probably find it interesting if I actually went. The Billy Graham Library and the NASCAR Hall of Fame are in Charlotte and if the group I was with said we were going, I'd enjoy it, but they wouldn't be my first choice. (Edit: I forgot about this part of Billy Graham's legacy, so yeah, that's a no for me.) Carowinds and Carolina Harbors are an amusement and water park that looks fun (minus the roller coasters, those are not for me.) Charlotte is home to the Chicago White Sox AAA team which if you've seen the Major League team play this year, I can't imagine the AAA team is good, but a bad night at the ballpark is better than a good night a lot of other places.
5. Knoxville (-2) - My sister-in-law went to school at the University of Tennessee so I probably should have just asked her about things to do rather than rely on TripAdvisor (not a sponsor, but if anyone from TripAdvisor is reading and would like to be a sponsor of Stormwatch912, I can be bought), but Zoo Knoxville would be cool. There's also World's Fair Park and the Sunsphere Tower. By now you know I'm a sucker for touring college campuses, so a tour of the University of Tennessee sounds fun to me, but I admit that's not for everyone. There's also the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture there in Knoxville (free parking!) The Women's Basketball Hall of Fame is also there and certainly worth a visit. And, of course, you're nestled in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, so go enjoy some hiking and scenic views (our friends from Northern Colorado may not be as impressed with the mountains as the east coasters.)
4. Madison (+6) - The Olbrich Botanical Gardens and the Henry Vilas Zoo are two of the top three attractions listed, which I'd enjoy both. (The third is the Wisconsin State Capitol building, which, ehhh, no thanks.) The Memorial Union Terrace on the shore of Lake Mendota apparently has the best ice cream and is a student center on the campus of UW-Madison. The Geology Museum on campus is absolutely somewhere I'd go and annoy my wife by reading all the plaques of every exhibit while she has to entertain our youngest.
3. Spokane (+9) - Manito Park received a "Travelers' Choice 2023" Tripadvisor award, which is good, I guess. It looks amazing from the photos with a large fountain in the middle. Riverfront Park and Spokane Falls looks fun and there's even a gondala to ferry you to the top. Gonzaga University is in Spokane and, personally, I'd love an hour or so walking around the campus to see what is is there. A trip up Mount Spokane provides some scenic views of the area as well as skiing and snowboarding areas, though maybe not in the summer months.
2. Central Valley (+9) - Billed as Fresno's Best Kept Secret despite being a Travelers' Choice 2023 winner on TripAdvisor and the site's number one thing to do in Fresno, the Forestiere Underground Gardens look like a fun and interesting way to spend two hours. Several museums, including the Fresno Art Museum, Meux Home Museum and the Legion of Valor Museum are in the area as well. There's the Fresno Discovery Museum or the Island Waterpark if you're looking for something for the kids to do. The Sierra National Forrest is 45 minutes away as well if you're looking to get out of the city and into nature and Shinzen Japanese Garden and Woodward Regional Park aren't enough for you.
1. Chattanooga (+1) - The Tennessee Aquarium, Raccoon Mountain Caverns, Ruby Falls (the largest underground waterfall open to the public in the United States) and Lookout Mountain highlight a trip to Chattanooga. The Chattanooga Lookouts baseball team is there and no trip would be complete without a visit to the International Towing and Recovery Museum. Yes, a museum devoted to Tow Trucks. You didn't know you needed that until just now and after reading it, you're planning your trip. (From the pictures, you can get in to some of the old tow trucks.)
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