January 22, 2002

• The Florida Report

  
  

  Well, I'm home again.  Rats!  Yes, a trip to Flordia in January is a dream vacation that I've wanted to take for years.  Having done it, I'm definitely planning to do it again.  But, I'm changing my dates a little.  I loved havign the beach pretty much to myself.  I didn't do any skinny dipping, even in Florida the water gets a little cool for that kind of thing in January.  But, I did walk along the edge of the surf and get my feet wet.

  
  

  Most of the entertainments along the beach were closed for off season.  That was a bummer.  I didn't think it was too cold for miniature golf or a fishing trip into the Gulf (I didn't want to fish, but a ride on a boat sounded good.)  Unfortunately, the Floridians take their vacations in January, so almost every place I tried had a sign that said "Come back the First Weekend of February."  The temperatures ranged from a high of about 60 to a high of 78 while I was there, so I thought it was positiviely balmy.  I was out in shorts greeting locals wearing coats. 

  
  

  If all you want to do is sit on the beach and read, January is a great time to do that.  I found it necessary to hunt up a cyber cafe for some indoor surfing.  Ponytail man was pretty cute in my eyes.  Oh, my, yes he had a nice "keester" - as DDL requested this information, I didn't want to neglect to pass it on -  I enjoyed talking with him.  I've never met anyone so seriously in need of getting OFF caffeine.  (This guy made Tucker the Tornado look Zenlike by comparison.)  Yet, here he was running a coffee house. 

  
  

  He extolled the virtues of Mac versus PC, railed against government and the "system," and darkly predicted that one must be careful in bad-mouthing Bill Gates because he could surely have you killed.  In other words, he was a wonderful character for a writer to meet.  And I egged him on to heights of discourse on all manner of topics. 

  
  

  There were some minor snags on the trip.  My friend ate something that disagreed with her, so we had to stop for an extra day at my In-laws on the way home.  This wasn't bad for me.  I like my in-laws.  It purely wrecked my friend's day though.  Stay way from greasy little Cajun Cafe's no matter how good the stuff tastes! 

  
  

  We had to switch rooms at the hotel from a really cool loft suite to a standard hotel-type suite.  The air system in the first room was "quirky" - it didn't really care where you set the thermostat.  It took its cue from the weather outside and ran with it.  If there was a warming trend, it went to 90 degrees in our rooms.  If the temp was dropping, it went to 40.  But, that gave me an opportunity to practice my assertiveness skills with "safe" people.  If I blew it, no big loss, these were not close friends to start with.  However, I didn't blow it.  I got us switched to a new room and got a significant discount off the first night of our stay.  Thank you, thank you, (takes a deep bow).

  
  

  I can't wait to go back.

  
  

  

  • 7:04 am
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