Thursday, April 23, 2009

Vacation in Florida

If you live in Michigan, you could probably relate to my dilemma. The week before Easter, we wake up as usual to get everyone off to school and look outside to find there is snow on the ground and it continued to snow all day. With the countdown to Spring Break upon us...Andrew was done with school on Wednesday, Emily on Thursday, my hopes for doing our normal "Spring Cleaning" of the lake house, getting the dock in the water, launching the boat, etc was becoming more of a dream than reality.

So, I woke up on Thursday morning, looked at the weather forecast, and continued to get grumpier...rain, rain, and more rain...oh and sun a couple days. I had enough! So I started to look at all the last minute deals I could find....of course all related to what weather.com could tell me on where the great weather was going to be. First, I thought Wash DC...nope, only 10 degrees warmer than where I was, then down to GA...maybe Savannah for a change...rain, rain, rain...then TN area...not a positive outlook...finally FL....Sunny & 80 all week, except for one day. I'm so there!

After hours of searching, found a great 3 bedroom condo on Cinnamon Beach in Palm Coast...between St. Augustine & Daytona Beach....Atlantic coast for those not familiar with FL. The place just called to us, so we packed our bags and the dog & headed out on Friday morning.

Upon arrival to any vacation hot spot, what's the first thing that you do....head to the beach, which we most definitely did! The stark white skin reflecting in the sun proved that we were definitely not from around there, but we were hoping that through the week, that would change.

As we sat on the beach, we developed our plan for the week. Yes, we actually left Michigan without a plan! So, we looked at the weather print out and decided....okay, mornings at the pool until 1 pm, lunch, a little rest (or homework for Emily), then beach in the later afternoon. Sounded like a great plan to me. My soul purpose was to eliminate my vitamin D deficiency from the l-o-n-g Michigan winter.

Our one day of scheduled rain, we decided to head down to Kennedy Space Center. Unbeknown to us, there is a scheduled shuttle flight in May and they have the shuffle in place, launch condition, 1 month prior to departure. So lucky us, we saw the shuttle ready to go and we saw the big shuttle mover thingy on its 1 mph return journey to pick up the other shuttle. As with British royalty, they have the heir (Atlantis) and the spare (Endeaver) ready to go. So, while we were there, we met up with Astronaut Jon McBride which was the one astronaut that I knew. I personally thought it was time for him to move to Michigan as he seemed he has been overdosing in vitamin D for too many years.

So, then the rest of the trip was the same ol' boring beach trip....play at the pool, play at the beach....when we thought we needed a break in our mundane schedule, we went and played putt-putt golf. Otherwise, Richard and I both read a few books (first book I read in several weeks) and kicked our feet up and enjoyed the weather...if only I could have had one more day.