Florida Vacation Part 2
2004-01-06, 11:03 a.m.
I�m horrible at remembering exactly when I did what so I�m not going to give you a day-by-day account. I�ll just give you the highlights.
We ate out a lot! Lots of great little restaurants like Frenchy�s Rockaway Caf�. I had their special: a crab stuffed grouper with mashed potatoes. Yum yum. Also, we ate twice at a restaurant that has no website: Gondolier�s. Italian and Greek. First I had a chicken Florentine Stromboli. Fab. Then the second time, I had chicken souvlaki. Oh. My. God. It was awesome. And the pita tasted fresh. We ate at the motel quite a bit too, for breakfasts and some lunches, mostly.
On Christmas Eve, my dad took the kids and Dawn, Jim, PJH and I went shopping. We drove all over, as my dad would say, �hell and half of Georgia� looking for this one western wear shop so that Dawn could get Lucky a pair of cowboy boots. They were precious. PJH got a belt while we were there as part of her Christmas present. Leave it to a western shop to have a native pattern belt. We also went to Borders where I bought a boat load of magazines (Curve, Girlfriends, Bitch, Bust, InStyle), a book (Whale Rider) and 2 CDs for PJH (one Italian one and one African meditation music. She�s on an international kick right now.) That night, at 8 pm, PJH and Jim took the kids to play miniature golf so that Santa could wrap presents in peace.
As I was putting him to bed, Lucky asked why he had to go to bed. So that you don�t see Santa. �Oh. Then why don�t you have to go to bed?� �Well,� I said, �because grown ups are allowed to see Santa. Did you know that Santa and I went to elementary school together? Yes, it�s true. I�m always excited to see ol� Santa so your mom, dad, Aunt PJH and I are going to make Santa a grilled cheese and Coke and hang out for a while before Santa has to go finish delivering presents.� He looked at me with a look only a 6-year-old can get � a mixture of �yeah, whatever, aunt B� and �for real?�
This was my first Christmas morning ever with the kids so it was cool. They liked their presents and a good time was had by all. Later that day, we went over to my dad�s friends� house. Louise and Lenny are wonderful. Wonderful with a capital W. I loved them. We had a good dinner and half of us ate at a table set up outside for us. Isn�t that something? Eating Christmas dinner outdoors?
The day after Christmas, PJH and I just chilled at the beach until about 5 and we went back over to see my dad. Louise was on a mission to strip the house of All Things Christmas. One of her sons was in the maple tree outside pulling down lights, one was on the roof doing the same thing, Dad was on lawn ornament detail. PJH and I only intended to stay for about an hour or so, but we had such a good time that we stayed until nearly 10 pm. Dad told Baby Nimiiwin stories to PJH. Such as: Before my mom married my dad, Mom & I lived with my grandparents and my mom�s four younger siblings, one of whom, Allen, worked at the gas station up the road. Well, whenever I would go to that station, I�d go in, climb up on a stool, get a quarter of the cash register (back in the day, before they were electronic. They just showed me which button to push to get it to open), get a quarter out, go over to the machine and get a soda and then pick a candy bar out of the candy rack. I�d only ever been to that one gas station, so I thought they all worked alike. One day, Dad was taking me somewhere and stopped elsewhere to get gas. I went in, drug a stool over to the cash register, got a quarter out, got a pop, got a candy bar and went back to the car. My dad looked at me. �Where did you get that?� �In there.� �Where did you get the money?� �Out of the money box.� Hugely red faced, my dad went in and explained to the person working and paid for my treats. Luckily, they thought it was hilarious that 1) I even knew how to open the cash register 2) that I did it and 3) that they didn�t even notice me!
We didn�t leave Florida until Sunday, the 28th. Dawn & Jim got up and left at 6 am on Saturday since they were going to SC. Sunday, PJH and I slept in, went to the beach for a while, stayed in the condo and relaxed. We left the condo at noon and, since I�d woken up with a cold the day before, stopped at a health food store to get me some Sambucol. Turns out the health food store there has a restaurant, so we had a great lunch and some smoothies for dessert before actually heading home. We drove until about 11pm that night when we reached Chattanooga, TN. About the trip: Florida is beautiful, Georgia is ugly. Ugh. Avoid at least the part of GA that is along I-75.
Monday morning we had a nice nutritious breakfast of Sonic burgers and Tater Tots before braving the highway once more. This time, we got as far as Dayton, OH where we found a Comfort Inn with a pool and a hot tub near a Smokey Bone�s BBQ. We checked in, PJH went to get us some food, which was great, then we swam and sat in the hot tub. Bliss. Pure bliss.
It was kind of depressing to be coming home. Literally as soon as we hit the Ohio border the sun disappear. Kentucky had sun. Tennessee had sun. Even Godforsaken Georgia had sun. Ohio, Indiana and Michigan were gray and dreary. Blah. Still, it was nice to get home.
It would appear that our housesitter was a hit. When we got home, we opened the door and the dog was all wagging tail and excited. Until she saw it was us. Then, she turned around and went to lie down. Just us. Who she hadn�t seen in 12 days. We, however, were not Kelly, who let the dog sit in her lap pretty much the entire time we were gone and Kelly wasn�t at work.
My bed felt good that night and I still had several days left of vacation. Life was good.