[Manny A]

I traveled from VA to FL to work the 18 Gold National in Clearwater a few years ago. I traveled with my Force3 gear bag, a garment bag for my uniforms, and a carry-on for my "civvies" to go out to dinner with crew mates. I was fortunate in that when I explained to the ticket agent at the Delta counter where I was going and what I was going to do, he comp'ed my baggage fees, which would have been rather hefty given that my gear bag was quite large and heavy!

I brought enough stuff so that I wasn't wearing the same thing day to day (two pairs of plate shoes, two pairs of base shoes, four hats, etc. etc.) I kinda figured hats or shoes I wore one day would take at least two days to adequately dry out. If I had two sets of plate gear, I would've done the same with that, but I just set my gear up in front of the AC vent in the hotel room to dry overnight.

As for uniforms, I brought six light blue shirts and six heather gray pair of pants, as well as plenty of underwear. I didn't want to have to depend on the same unis every day. Thank goodness the NUS directed light blue and heather gray; I didn't want to have to bring navy shirts and navy pants as well.

I did rent a car, and I'm glad I did. The hotel laundry room was competed for between other umpires and players from a couple of teams that stayed in our hotel as well. So I drove to a local laundromat every other day to do laundry. Bring plenty of quarters ahead of time! The machine at the laundromat was not working when I went there. The hotel did offer laundry service for umpires, where we strung all our stuff on a strap to keep it together. But when it came back the next morning after our first day of the tourney, everything was still strapped together and wrinkled beyond repair! There were a lot of pissed off umpires that morning.

I also went to a local grocery and bought a throwaway styrofoam cooler and some additional drinks and snacks to keep me going in the Florida heat and humidity. I kept it in the rental car and went to it while on extended breaks. The tournament hosts did a good job keeping us fed, but it wasn't the type of food you'd need for a long day of umpiring. And they only provided water, so I had Gatorade in my cooler.

The other benefit of having the rental car was being totally independent of the transportation provided to/from the hotel. The schedule was basically one trip from the hotel in the AM, and one trip back in the PM. Anyone whose last game of the day ended at, say, 5:00 pm, but there was another game afterward, had to wait until that game ended if they didn't have another mode to get back to the hotel.

Good luck!