1. Florida is headquarters for the active senior. I honestly couldn’t tell you how many motor homes we passed on our way down here. We basically followed them…had we left Vermont without any directions, I’m confident that the motor homes would have led us to within a few miles of our destination. I seriously have never seen so many old people wandering around in all my life. And they’re not the slow and frail variety…these are the old people that strap bikes to the backs of their motor homes and actually ride them when they get here. These are old people that zoom around in BMW roadsters. Old people that run up and down the beaches…or casually walk, holding hands with their equally cute and active little spouse. It’s very uplifting and encouraging…that could be me and Simon someday! At the same time that it’s uplifting, it’s also kinda sad. No matter how active they might be, they’re still up there in years, and someday the annual trip to Florida will become a thing of the past. They’ll be stuck in Minnesota or some odd place in the north, looking out the snowy windows of their nursing home, thinking about how they used to go to Florida every year where it was warm and sunny. Depressing…but at the same, it’s motivation to enjoy life as much as you can, while you can. You just never know when you’re not going to be able to do the fun stuff anymore.
2. Easiest road trip ever. I remember insanely dreading the drive in the days leading up to the trip. Seriously, I felt like this was the fastest trip ever, even though it ended up being the longest. I think it’s because we gave ourselves more than enough time to get here…we were on the road for three days total, but not three full days. The first day we did 14 hours of driving, the second day we did 9 hours of driving, and the third day we did 3 hours of driving. We stayed overnight in a hotel after the second day of driving, which was a dream. It was so nice to be out of the car and into an actual bed. We checked in before it got dark, Simon went and worked out (I stayed on the bed…no way was I going to work out!), and we basically just chilled. We ordered some Chinese food which was awesome…the lo mein was made with spaghetti noodles. I’ve never had it that way, but it was really good because the noodles weren’t mushy, which is the way they arrive about half the time. The only downside is the lo mein seemed to act as some sort of bowel cleanser the next morning, which was all right, I guess…got to come out sometime! Whatever gastric issues might have ensued, I still find myself constantly craving Chinese food…hahaha! The only negative part of the drive was that there were a lot of cops on the road, especially in New York. It was probably a good thing that I was pulling the trailer…I definitely drive slower when I’ve got that thing behind me. Maybe I should just pull it around all the time. Or not…I think we got about 10 miles to the gallon on the way down…if that. Let’s see…we went about 1600 miles, I’ve got a 16 gallon gas tank on my Jeep, and we probably filled up about 12 times. You do the math…I’m scared to.
3. It was interesting to see the landscape change on the way down. We left a land full of mountains and bare trees, only to see the land get flatter and flatter the further south we came. It was funny…a lot of the leafy trees didn’t have leaves for the majority of the drive…then all the sudden it was like we crossed some sort of line and all the trees were green and leafed out. The grass is kinda brownish-green, which makes everything look a little dull and sad. I’m assuming it’s the same type of grass that they seem to have everywhere in the South…it doesn’t get green until the temperature is at least a solid 70 degrees everyday. I think that’s so weird! We saw our first palm trees in South Carolina, but I don’t think they were naturally supposed to be there…they only seemed to be around overpasses and rest stops and whatnot. I really don’t think we saw palm trees in their natural state of being until we got close to south Florida. I absolutely love palm trees. They make me think of Phoenix, which is weird because palm trees don’t naturally grow in Phoenix, yet they’re everywhere. They just remind me of sun and warmth and not having to wear mittens and hats.
4. This trip also marked the best behavior on the part of the dogs thus far. Simon and I were very impressed. Simon even went so far as to call Brie “cute” at one point. I think she’s finally breaking down his shell! Cooper didn’t stink up the car with his breath, there was no sharting…even the random toots were kept to a minimum. I wish they would behave like that all the time. Lady did have a piece of napkin hanging out of her bum that Simon had to pull out…that was unpleasant for all involved. Ick. But other than the napkin, there were no issues.
5. Fort Myers…we haven’t seen a whole lot of it yet. I don’t even know how to describe it. So far it isn’t as pretty of a town as I was expecting, but like I said, we haven’t seen much of it yet. We live off one of the major north/south roads in the city, so of course both sides of the road are crowded with stores, shops, and more billboards than I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t know what it is, but it just looks like kind of like organized chaos. That and everything is painted in pastels, which looks pretty gaudy and a bit tacky. There are power-lines everywhere. I think what I was expecting was more like Tempe and less like Mesa, AZ (for those of you that have been there, you know what I’m talking about). The land here is very flat which almost gives me a feeling of overexposure. There are no hills, no mountains, nothing on the horizon at all. I don’t know how else to explain it but to say that it feels like the sky is very high up. I know that sounds weird, but when you have hills or mountains to break up the horizon, it seems like the sky isn’t so far away. I think I’ll get used to it pretty quickly…it just feels weird after living in Vermont, North Carolina, and Minnesota during the past year. But…I’m trying not to be negative. I’m sure there are some very pretty parts of town, we just haven’t ventured out enough yet to find them. We did go to Fort Myers beach today to wander around, which was very pretty. The waves were so little and calm! I think I’m going to like that. I enjoyed battling waves when we were in North Carolina, but it did get a little scary sometimes. I can’t wait to see Sanibel Island…I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about it. Supposedly it’s one of the top three sea-shelling beaches in the world. How crazy is that? I didn’t even know they ranked beaches on a sea-shelling scale. I’ve seen pictures of it, and the beaches almost look like they’re covered in shells rather than sand. Can’t wait to check it out.
6. On our way into town we were cruising along, and suddenly on the side of the road was a little pig! Must have been a little feral guy. In any case, he was super cute and I wanted to take him with us. I doubt he would behave though. Someday I want to own a mini-potbelly pig…they’re so cute!! I’m kind of excited and intimidated for the wildlife here. I’m super excited to see a manatee. There are manatee excursions here that we’ve been hearing about, so we’ll probably go on a manatee trip as soon as we’re settled in. I don’t know why, but I just love manatees. I’m going to try to find a t-shirt with a manatee on it. I want to see a manatee about as badly as I don’t want to see a gator. Although, I think it would be interesting to see a gator…just not up close. When we were out on the beach, we saw a lot of dead fish, which I thought was kinda weird. I’ve never seen so many dead fish along a beach before. It made me wonder if they got stuck too close to shore during the tide or what. Or maybe it was just natural causes and they just washed up there. Who knows? I can honestly say though that I had no idea what any of them were. We might have to get a fish book so I can identify the little deadies along the shore. We saw one that looked like a mini-barracuda, one that looked like a giant angel fish, one that looked like a catfish, and another one that looked like a giant fathead minnow. Oh, and we saw a dead horseshoe crab too. We did see lots of birds that were alive though…pelicans, sea gulls, osprey, and some sort of falcon.
8. Next to our hotel is this big open lot with a few paved paths in it. We walked the dogs in there last night so we wouldn’t have to walk along the main road, which is six lanes wide and very noisy. We were trying to figure out what in the world an open lot would be doing in the middle of all the shops and restaurants and such, and we finally figured out that it must have at one time been a little RV community. There were electrical boxes periodically spaced, concrete slabs, and an overgrown shuffleboard court. It’s really a very eerie place, and once you’re about a hundred yards from the main road you can’t even hear the traffic anymore, which gives the whole place a feeling of post-apocalyptic quiet. There were still a few random remnants and signs of past inhabitance…a broken lawn chair, beer cans, a length of rope, some old tires. It was all very strange and creepy. Of course it doesn’t help that there are turkey vultures circling everywhere…makes me think of death. Pleasant, eh?
9. I’ll have to note that while on the walk through the abandoned RV park, it was 60 degrees out and I was wearing my winter jacket. I must have already acclimated myself because I felt SO cold without it. How did I make it in the single digits in Vermont? Right now, I have no idea. I’ll also note that Simon was making fun of me for putting it on before the walk, but when we were about halfway into the walk, he said he wished that he had his winter jacket on too…so it’s not just me.
10. Last but not least, yesterday Simon and I made our first trip to Target. It was very exciting. I got out of there for just under $80, which is about par for the course for a trip to Target for me. That place is such a trap!! I love it though, I really do. Oh, and we had burgers at 5 Guys today for lunch. They were absolutely scrumptious!
Anyway, I guess that’s about it from Florida for the moment, looking forward to having visitors in February and March. Feel free to come visit!
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