My Florida Trip

I had the most wonderful trip to Florida last week.  Or at least the visit there was great.  Getting there and back home had some issues, but it all worked out.

Why was I there?  My delightful older son and d-i-l invited my husband and me to join them in a condo they’d rented at Indian Shores, south of Clearwater, right on the water.  That way, we also got to visit with our little grandson who turned ten months old on the trip.  My d-i-l’s parents were there, too, so it was quite a fun family affair.

I’m under a writing deadline now, and when we were invited I told everyone that I’d be thrilled to go, but they’d only see me at mealtimes.  Otherwise, I was going to squirrel myself away and write.  Guess what.  I did get some writing done, but I spent a lot more time with family.  Am I dedicated to my writing?  Of course.  But family comes first.

So mealtimes weren’t the only times I joined them.  I got to see sights including the Florida Aquarium and the Yuengling Brewery.

One of the especially fun parts of the trip was that the condo where we stayed was right next door to the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary, a small but wonderful hospital for injured seabirds.  The ones being nursed were in outdoor enclosures covered by tall nets--but the place also attracted wild birds who came to visit their buddies and relatives and sometimes found their ways into the nets to grab dinners, too!  I stopped over there to see them and smile several times while we were next door.

And even though I’m not much of a sunbird myself, I did tiptoe out on the beach behind the condo and dip my toes into the water of the Gulf.

Oh, and by the way, part of this was a celebration of the birthdays of both my son and me! 

My travel issues?  Well, it turned out that our Spirit Airlines flight to Ft. Lauderdale, where we were supposed to change planes to Tampa, was delayed, so we missed the Tampa flight.  The airline’s solution?  There was no room on the next flight that day, about twelve hours later, so how about the next day... maybe.  Nope.  We rented a car and another couple in similar circumstances joined us.  We lost nearly a day of our trip that way.  No more Spirit for me.  And on the way home we got a bit scrunched for time because our rental car place was a lot farther from the airport than it should have been, and the airport was crowded because of spring break.  Plus, the gate info for my plane kept changing and I had to run between those gates.  But that eventually worked out.  And on the whole, the trip was really fun!

How about you--any fun vacations coming up?