D's Notebook

Tag: florida (Page 1 of 2)

Spring Break 2025

April 7, 2025 /

Home after a nearly perfect week in Siesta Key, FL for C’s senior spring break. This might have been the easiest spring break we’ve ever had. In nearly every way you can assess it, things went as well, or even better, as we could have hoped for.

We were on one of the B Team breaks for C’s class. The largest group trip was to a resort in Cancun. After doing the huge, overseas, resort trip two years ago with M’s class, C was not interested in all the drama that came with it. Plus she’s less social than M, so did not feel the need to be in the midst of the big gathering.[1]

There were somewhere between 40–50 of her classmates in Siesta, roughly 30 of those in our loose group that stayed in a series of resorts and condos that were all clustered together in the center of the Key. Three of C’s friends stayed with us. Or, rather, we had two rooms at the Sarasota Surf and Racquet Club, one for S, L, and I, and the other for C and her friends. I have to admit this arrangement made me nervous in the weeks leading up to the trip. C’s room was not only separate from ours, but in a completely different building.

C and her roommates did great. As far as we know, there weren’t any incidents, they didn’t annoy any of their neighbors, and no one got arrested. Seems like a success.

There was one bummer for the week, but it wasn’t related to C or her friends. L was all fired up that she would be running around close to normal since she was in a walking boot rather than a cast. Her first night trying to hang with friends quashed those thoughts. Turns out when you don’t put any weight on your foot for five weeks, you aren’t immediately able to walk normally again. Plus strolling around in an aircast is not comfortable at all, at least at first. She was too slow and sore and ended up coming home early upset because she couldn’t keep up with the group. She largely spent the rest of the week with us. I felt sorry for her but she kept insisting she was fine, and told us her perfect break is getting up early, reading all day, and then going to bed early. I think some of that was deflecting, but it is true she’s not really into the party scene yet. Fortunately one of her best friends from middle school who goes to Bishop Chatard was just down the beach and insisted L come out with her a couple nights.

That was an interesting aspect of our week. While there was a decent number of Cathedral families there, Siesta Key is where Chatard’s seniors almost all come each year, staying right in same area we were. There wasn’t a ton of interaction among the seniors that we saw, but the younger kids were definitely crossing lines. And we saw tons of St P’s families.

Speaking of St P’s, early in the week I saw this older dude, shaved head, sitting near us without his shirt on, showing off his impressive tattoos. I pointed him out to L and said “Hey, that looks like Mr. H!” the principal at St P’s the first four or five years we had kids there. There were always rumors that he had a bunch of tattoos from when he lived in Japan, and that he always wore long sleeved shirts so the kids didn’t see them. Making this comparison funnier was that the dude was vaping.

Well, next day we got a text from another St P’s/CHS parent that said “OMG! I just saw Mr. H on the beach and he was vaping!” It was him!

Turned out he was staying in our complex with one of his kids and some grandkids. He walked around all week without a shirt on and we caught him vaping any time the little ones weren’t around. Later someone said he stays there every year. Kind of crazy to pick a spring break spot where you know tons of families from the school you used to run always go. Especially since we didn’t see him interact with a single person outside his family.

The weather was nearly perfect all week. It only rained once, and that was a downpour Saturday night just after we returned from dinner. Otherwise hot, sunny, and breezy every day. Just what you want from spring break.

Most nights we ended up hosting a dinner in our room for C, her roommates, and then any friends who were tagging along. There was a Taco Tuesday dinner on the beach for most of the CHS families at the complex next door.

Our only big outing was Wednesday when most of the CHS crew went on a sunset cruise together. Here’s where there was an obvious difference between C’s trip and M’s. In the Dominican Republic two years ago, kids were getting WASTED on the afternoon booze cruise. The drinking age there is 18, and the kids were openly killing rum punch as soon as the bartender handed it to them. S had to help a couple kids out who were in really bad shape.

But in Florida the kids obviously couldn’t drink openly, and you weren’t allowed to bring anything onto the boat. We did end up buying C and her roommates a round of daiquiris, as did most of the other parents. A bartender told us they hadn’t sold this many daiquiris in weeks, which made all us parents laugh out loud. There was a line of parents buying 4–5 drinks each and no questioning about where they were going. Our kids all behaved. Only a few of them had more than one drink, but several got on the boat with quite a few in them from the beach. But there were no incidents.

Late in the two hour cruise S, L and I were downstairs where it was less crowded. C came down to check in and got a text from a friend upstairs that the bartenders were carding kids. S ran up to check and it turned out they were just taking the drinks from kids who couldn’t produce an ID. Again, hilarious. They sold drinks and made tips for 90 minutes and then in the last half hour made kids dump them out before we got back to the dock. Fair enough.

C had a drink and wasn’t being very careful about hiding it. The downstairs bartender came over and asked for her ID. Again, when C couldn’t show her one, the bartender politely took the drink and that was that. Seems like they were chill because the kids were being chill.

The last time we went to Siesta Key the police were pretty hardcore on the beach. We know a couple Indy kids who got arrested that year. We only saw one group of kids get hassled last week, and those were idiot sophomores from the other Catholic school who had a case of beer sitting in the midst of their circle in broad daylight. The deputies hassled them for a while, then took the beer and told the kids to disperse. As far as we know no kids were arrested in our little area all week.

The travel part of the week was about as easy as you could imagine this time of year. We flew out of Indy in the afternoon and there were no lines. I had to wait less than five minutes to pick up our rental in Sarasota. We also had an afternoon return flight. When I walked by the rental counter after turning in our van, there were lines similar to our visit three years ago, when people were stuck waiting for hours and we eventually bailed and ordered an Uber. There was literally no one in front of us to drop bags or in the TSA Pre line. Our flight was delayed 15 minutes, but we ended up landing right on time. I’m a little nervous that this means our next trip will be plagued with issues.

We missed some big weather at home. Wednesday there were tornado warnings in Indy. After our sunset cruise we had the girls back to our room for an evening snack and many of them were either getting texts or calls from their parents back home, who were all in their basements. That was followed by massive rain, which continued into the weekend. We ended up getting over 6” of rain in our part of town over four days. No issues at our house. The sump pump kept pumping and if the power went off, it was only briefly. Just some limbs down in the yard to throw into the trash dumpster. Everything is super green, though, and trees and plants are starting to bud/flower.

So pretty awesome we are going to have hard freezes the next two nights.

One of the best things about the week is that we got to spend time with the parents of one of M’s best friends, who we hung with in the Dominican two years ago. Their middle daughter and C are casual friends, so we don’t get to see them as much as we did with the older sisters. We tried to avoid what was going on in the world while we were relaxing, but they have the same perspective on things as we do, and also have three daughters, so the dad and I especially spent a lot of time talking about the state of things and what it means for our girls as they become adults. The dad also drives a Rivian, so we talked about cool cars, too. It’s a shame their third daughter is two years younger than L and we won’t get to travel with them again in their senior years.

We always enjoy going to Publix when in Florida. We did make three trips there over the course of the week. That was even with ordering some stuff ahead of time, that we picked up on our way to the resort Friday, and having an Instacart order from Costco get delivered that night as well. That all went fairly well. Some of the fruit and vegetables were crap, a big reason I’m usually fine going to the store on my own. All our bread was also moldy in about a day. We figured they take the stuff off the shelf that’s about to expire and save it for delivery orders.

We didn’t spend a ton of time in the car, but did have to run girls somewhere, pick up food, etc each day. On our drive from the airport we found a cool, old school hip hop and R&B station. It played almost exclusively songs from the ‘90s. We kept it glued to that station and enjoyed it throughout the week. Despite spending just a little time in the car, we managed to hear “Poison,” “Hey Ya!” and “Don’t Walk Away” four times each. Not that I’m complaining.

So we survived the middle kid’s spring break. She and her friends lean to the Good Kid side of the spectrum, but you never know when you go away, there are lots of kids around, and alcohol is involved. We are thankful they all respected us and their parents enough to keep the nonsense to a minimum.

The seniors have just five weeks of classes left, with two shorter weeks in there because of Easter. Prom, National Honor Society, graduation activities, and grad party season are all right around the corner. The next two-plus months are going to be busy, but fly by quickly.

  1. Since Covid our spring breaks have been: Anna Maria, Siesta Key, Punta Caña, Anna Maria, Siesta Key. We are NOT going to the DR again next year, but will likely be out of the country.  ↩

Vacation Notes

August 5, 2024 /

Our week in Florida wasn’t perfect, Mother Nature saw to that. But it was pretty good.

For the first time in eight or nine years, we drove for a vacation in the south. It was 11.5 hours, door-to-door, and traffic was not terrible on either trip. A lot of travelers, to be sure, but nothing like spring break volume.

We stayed in Inlet Beach, one of the 30A communities, with our old neighbors. We’ve now been to Mexico, Kauai, Captiva, and Inlet Beach with them. This was likely our last vacation as two families totalling nine: their oldest is getting married next summer. The adults may continue to travel once we navigate the college years.

Our house was nice, two blocks from the beach. That distance was just right on the days we had to pack up quickly because storms were moving in. Our little area was very quiet. We were in a duplex and the other side was empty, as was the duplex next to ours. There was a bachelorette group across the street starting Thursday, but they weren’t too loud, too late. Other than that, we barely saw or heard anyone in our immediate vicinity. Going late in the season, when some schools have already gone back to class, pays off.

I guess that’s my signal to get to the Mother Nature bullshit. On the way down we stopped at Buc-ee’s near Bowling Green, KY, our first ever trip to one. More on that in a bit. While we were grabbing food, C looked outside and said, “Oh, it’s pouring!” She was right. The gray skies were suddenly just dumping. I had to run to move our car closer to the doors so the family members who had straightened their hair before our trip wouldn’t have it ruined before we got to Florida. Not naming any names.

To avoid an accident that had I–65 stalled in Montgomery, AL, we took a side route that involved nearly three hours on state and county roads to the shore. Driving through intermittent downpours. A couple times it rained so hard we could barely see. Fun stuff.

Monday morning it rained just as we were getting ready to go to the beach. Tuesday afternoon it rained and drove us from the beach for over two hours. Same Wednesday, although for a little less time. There were storms Thursday. It stormed, loudly, from 5–8 AM Friday, which didn’t impact our beach time but did make for an early alarm clock no one wanted. Then Saturday, our departure day, those morning storms arrived at 4 AM. We had to drive in rain for about an hour before getting clear.

We’ve been to Florida in the summer before, and are used to the pop ups that come and go quickly. These were all big storms that would blow up and then sit over one spot with lots of lightning so you couldn’t be outside.


This storm sat right over us for three hours. It was the only rain in the entire state of Florida at the time.

It could have been worse, obviously, with Hurricane Storm Debby hitting just down the panhandle as I write this.

We still got several beach hours every day, but were curtailed at least a little by the weather most days. That wasn’t the worst thing, because it was stinking hot, the heat index well over 100 every day. Even with umbrellas and a breeze, you couldn’t sit in direct sun for very long without swimming in your own sweat.

The beach was very nice. Fluffy, white sand. Deep enough that there was plenty of room to find your own spot. Although some big, multi-generational crew decided to set up right next to us on Wednesday. I’m talking like less than three feet between the edge of our stuff and theirs. There were a lot of passive-aggressive dirty looks and music played louder than normal for the next few hours. When you got into the water, could walk way out a couple hundred feet and still both see and touch. It wasn’t quite Cancun, but it was close.

Wednesday I wandered out about as far as I’m comfortable going to enjoy the cooling water. Once I got settled in my chair with a new beer and my Kindle, there was a ruckus. Roughly the same distance I had gone out and a couple hundred feet to our left there was a shark. We could see its fins as it attacked something, fortunately not a person. Folks cleared out pretty quick, although we laughed out loud at a couple meathead dads who only came part of the way back in, then stood there defiantly. As if they had any chance against a shark in waist-deep water. Dumbasses, the whole lot. Meanwhile their wives were herding the kids back to land. Clearly all the brains in those operations reside with the ladies.

Thursday there were lots of small jellyfish around, so I avoided the water early. Once the winds kicked up and produced some waves, they disappeared and I braved the waters again.

We had our own pool, but it was very small. We expected it to be hot, too, but it was surprisingly refreshing. It was perfect for hopping into for a few minutes after dragging all our gear back from the beach.

We had three dinners out, all focused on seafood. M and C both tried snow crab one night, with mixed results. I can share food recommendations if anyone heads that way. We had burger, steak, and taco nights at home. We walked around a little in Rosemary Beach, but otherwise didn’t get out much. One family game night. A lot of recovering from the sun and watching the Olympics at night.

Oh, Buc-ee’s. Never had a chance to stop at one before. Our first stop in Kentucky Sunday morning, at about 8:00 AM, might be the perfect time to go. It was busy, but you could find a gas pump and move around the store easily. I got a breakfast taco that was solid. We stopped at one in Alabama on the way home, at about 1:00 PM on a Saturday, and it was a totally different story. Gas pumps all filled up. Store jam-packed. It’s an amazing operation, because we got gas quickly and I was able to grab a sandwich and pay within about 30 seconds despite the gridlock inside. The people who just left their cars at the pumps while they went into the store don’t understand that we are living in a society. I got a fried chicken sandwich for lunch, which was fantastic. Way better than Chick Fil A. Thumbs up, other than the crowds.

I had to chuckle that the road signs announce Florida as “The Free State of Florida.” 1) Serious Try Hard energy there. 2) As a native of a state that was founded as a Free State, I think the Floridians have a very different idea of what that means that I do. 3) I quickly amassed a list of things you are not free to do, based on my limited knowledge of Florida, that seemed to counter the governor and his lackeys’ assertion.

Worst bumper sticker I saw, just outside Nashville, TN: A confederate flag on one side, on the other “Fighting Terrorists Since 1861.” Oh Lord…

Speaking of Tennessee, what a gorgeous state to drive through. The rolling hills of central/western Tennessee might not be as dramatic as the Smokies of east Tennessee, but are still beautiful.

We also saw lots of Say No To Solar signs. I never realized there was actually an anti-solar lobby.

It boggles the mind why the Florida panhandle is on Central Time. Inlet Beach is literally straight south of Indy, but we’re in different time zones.

Pretty solid trip. I read a good book. The girls got to hang with their friends. S and I spent time with our friends.

And now we’re back to the academic grind. C and L start school Thursday, we will move M back to UC on Sunday.

Spring Break Notes

March 25, 2024 /

What a fun week we had on Anna Maria Island, Florida for our spring break. Travel was mostly a breeze, with one exception we had terrific weather, and we were able to enjoy a relaxing week in the sun.

Alarms were set for 3:50 AM a week ago Saturday so we could be at the airport by 5:00. We made it comfortably and it was literally the easiest airport experience we’ve ever had this time of year. We spent maybe two minutes dropping our bags at the Southwest counter and there was one person in front of us in the TSA Pre line. Meanwhile the poor people flying United were in a line that was several hundred people long just to get checked in and drop bags.

Our flight down was direct to Sarasota and we arrived a few minutes early. My first stress of the week was getting our rental car. Two years ago we flew into Sarasota and the line was so long – people told us they had been in it for three hours and weren’t close to the front yet – that we gave up, Uber-ed to our house on Siesta Key, and came back two days later to get a car. This time there were three people in line when I arrived. Other than it taking the Budget worker a couple minutes to dig through his box of loose keys to find ours, it was a quick process to get out of the airport and into our van for the week.

From the airport we drove about 10 minutes to pick up M and her buddy A, who had spent the previous week in Sarasota with 10 UC friends. We hadn’t seen M since Christmas so that was fun. We got them, stopped for a bite at Panera, then headed to Anna Maria. Our house wasn’t available until 4:00. Luckily we have a friend from Indy who was visiting her mom on the island and they invited us to hang out with them. We changed and headed to the beach. The mom handed me a strong Jack and Coke. I took two sips and immediately decided I’d rather take a nap than get lit at 11 AM.

I snatched about 30 minutes of sleep as we baked in the hot sun.

We spent a few hours on the beach, ran a couple errands, and went to our house around 2:00. We were hoping it would open early but the cleaning crew was still working so we headed over to Pine Street to find some food. We went to Pizza Social, which was pretty solid. The only bummer was that two of C’s nemesis (nemesises?) walked in after us and sat at the next table. Awkward!

We were able to get into our house a little after 3:00. It was great. Private, heated, saltwater pool with a hot tub. Artificial turf putting green. Big kitchen. S and I left the girls to do the first big Publix run of the week. I maintain that Florida Publix the week of spring break are a logistics marvel. The place is jam packed from open-to-close on check-in days, yet you can always find plenty of food despite employees never clogging the aisles re-stocking. I don’t know how they do it. And then they get you checked out in record time. Props to the Publix folks.


Our house guests weren’t arriving until late Saturday. I tried to stay awake but passed out around 11. They got there sometime around midnight but I didn’t hear them. They are L’s godparents, K one of S’s best friends from high school and her husband, C, who teaches at CHS. Some of you may remember him as the person who officiated at our wedding in Indy.

After a couple hours of perfect sun on Sunday, I braved the afternoon traffic to take M and A to the airport for their flight back to Cincinnati. It was 45 minutes to SRQ, but over twice that to get back. Not sure why the Anna Maria police and sheriff like to sit in the middle of the island giving people tickets for going 27 in a 25 and not monitor the lights coming onto the island making sure traffic doesn’t completely jammed up when they can’t account for the number of cars coming in. I sat at one intersection for three red lights without moving because the breaks in the cross traffic always came at the wrong times.

K and C’s daughter, a senior at Purdue, flew down to join us Sunday evening. Her friend joined us on Monday. They were fun, taking on the dads in corn hole a couple times. K is really into cards and taught me how to play euchre. I figure after nearly 21 years in Indiana I should learn how. Not sure I totally got it but I have the basics down now.

Monday was supposed to be rainy but after some morning sprinkles the clouds cleared out and it was another gorgeous day. Storms did move in that evening but we got a full day of sun in.

Tuesday it was much cooler – 58 when I woke up – and the highs were only in the mid–70s the next couple days. But in our wind-protected back yard, the sun was still summertime hot. It was great.

Thursday night bigger storms moved in. It was so windy it blew a screen door off the house. The rain was so loud I couldn’t hear the TV audio while watching the KU game. All that stretched into Friday which was the only day we didn’t get any sun.

We caught a couple sunsets on the northern tip of the island. We ate coconut shrimp and grouper nuggets on the pier while a big-ass pelican eyed our food and a dolphin patrolled beneath us. We had a great meal at the Sandbar and walked out just as the sun set. We had some good dinners at home. We had the obligatory lunch at the Indiana native owned Ugly Grouper.


I drove the girls down to Sarasota one day where they hooked up with friends who took them to Siesta Key. L got to hang out with two of her old travel ball buddies. Both girls either had friends over or ran around AMI with friends, too. There were a few too many junior boys around. But C being a teacher at CHS helped keep them on their best behavior.

Mostly we sat in the sun and drank and read and talked and laughed.

Saturday morning we had alarms set for 4:30 but I was awake at 4:00. Another easy process to drop bags and go through the TSA line. I was worried about our connection in Atlanta, which was a tight 40 minutes. But we landed early and even with the obligatory long ATL taxi to the game, arrived in plenty of time to claim our rightful A boarding group spots. Home on time, bags arrived, we stopped for lunch, and were back in our house right around 1:30 Saturday afternoon. It was a little weird traveling with just two kids. At one point L said “When it’s my senior year it will just be the three of us,” which kind of blew our minds.

Much better than our last time in Anna Maria, which was in 2021 when things were still wonky because of Covid. Our location was much better this time, too.

K and C flew home on Friday. I told them how two years ago we got stranded there during the KU-Villanova game and I was unable to watch because of the lack of TVs and flooded cell network. C sent me a picture from their gate, which showed him drinking a beer while watching NCAA games on newly installed TVs. I would have hated watching an NCAA game in a crowded airport. And things worked out ok that year anyway.

Now we’re on to whatever our next trips are. We are both considering what to do if we can squeeze a summer trip in, and about to start planing what C’s senior spring break will be next year.

Weekend Travel Notes

November 13, 2023 /

It was Adult Fall Break time for S and me, the first time we’ve done this in a couple years. This was for a medical conference, the first time we’ve done that since before Covid. We spent Thursday through Sunday in Clearwater Beach, FL, staying right on the beach. Like in a hotel, not in a tent or something.


The weather was perfect, low 80s each day. Someone told us it was a little warmer than usual for this time of year. I did not complain. Being off the beach we always had a nice breeze so it never felt too hot. We go back to the Tampa area in four months for spring break. Really hoping we get weather as good as we had this weekend.

Our trip was pretty casual. S did the morning education sessions. I took a couple long walks, read a lot, and generally killed time until she was done. Then we’d head down to the pool where we met up with friends and had a few drinks, followed by an early dinner each night, then we were old people and usually asleep by 10 and awake around our normal time well before 7. Kind of lame but also pretty relaxing.

A few assorted highlights from our stay.

There is a Hulk Hogan store and museum in the main drag where a lot of shops and restaurants are. Sadly I walked by before it was open, brother.


For breakfast Saturday we went to this cute little place I had found ahead of time. We walked in and the hostess/waitress was wearing a KU shirt. We Rock Chalked each other – I was wearing a KU shirt as well – and later learned that she grew up not too far from where I went to high school, although probably a few years ahead of me. I was hoping that meant good things for the football game that day. Alas…

There was also a big CrossFit competition in a little park right north of our hotel. I hung out and watched a bit of it on my walk Saturday morning. That stuff is intense. And the competitors are insanely fit, but in all body types. Made me feel real good about the three-egg omelette and three pieces of toast I had pounded for breakfast.

I ate a lot of shrimp and grouper over our three days.

We watched three gorgeous sunsets, but just missed sunrise each day.


Our travel was easy both ways, other than some two year old kicking the shit out of the chair next to me in the Tampa airport and his parents just sitting there and watching him. Finally after half an hour the dad said, “Ok, buddy. That’s enough.” Not sure what their deal was, they decided to come sit next to me, but more evidence that people are the worst.

I decided I really like taking trips in November, especially if we go someplace warm. In recent years we’ve done Tampa, Italy, Hawaii, San Antonio, and Phoenix after November 1.[1] They are nice breaks from the growing midwestern chill – although it was 78 in Indy last Wednesday – plus as Christmas decorations start to appear it feels like an informal start to the holiday season.

Some sports happened while we were away. Let’s bullet point them

  • In high school hoops, JV and varsity both got crushed Thursday by a really good program. JV lost by 17, varsity by 19. L said she played pretty much the entire JV game and was shooting a lot, but not hitting. She scored four. Rudely no other parent kept complete stats for me and shared them. She’s been frustrated by some of her teammates’ focus and dedication in practice. I told her to keep her head down, keep working hard, and it will pay off. Not coming out of the game is a sign her coaches trust her. Her next game is this Friday.
  • In high school football, CHS played an amazing regional final against Ben Davis, losing 27–24 on a late field goal. CHS gave up a pick-six in the first half and fumbled at the BD one in the second half, which was kind of the ballgame.. They came back from 10 down twice to tie it. Might have been better they lost since their quarterback got hurt late in the game. He played through it but not sure he would have been ready for Center Grove this week, and CHS did not need to play the three-time defending champs with a 5’7”, 140 lb backup running the offense.
  • Speaking of backup quarterbacks, I was able to watch the first half of the KU-Texas Tech game Saturday. We discovered why Jason Bean avoids contact, and that third-string quarterback Cole Ballard, a walk-on freshman from the Indy area, is actually kind of decent. Hell, he played amazing for someone in his situation. KU played better once he came into the game, but that was more about adjustments on both sides of the ball than anything he did. The Jayhawks really should have won, which is amazing when the third stringer plays three quarters of the game and KU was getting run over in the first quarter. Another sign of how far the program has come that fans were upset losing this game under those circumstances. Bad time for the injury, with K-State coming to Lawrence next week. That’s not a team you want a walk-on freshman facing. But maybe you play Ballard anyway then hope Bean is healthy for Cincinnati and try to get win #8 there?
  • I was able to watch a good chunk of KU’s manhandling of Manhattan Friday night. Not sure KU fans should get too up after two blowout wins over weaker opponents last week. Just as we shouldn’t have been too down about how the Jayhawks looked in the scrimmage against Illinois. Tuesday night against Kentucky will tell us more than any of those earlier games.
  • M went to her first UC basketball game Friday. She got good seats and they won, which was cool.

As mentioned, I read a lot over our trip, finishing one book and knocking a ton of stuff out of my Instapaper queue. Be looking for a links post sharing some of those articles soon.

  1. We also did Chicago one year in December. Although the holiday decorations were in full force, that wasn’t enough to make up for the wind chill in the teens.  ↩

Planes, Marbles, and Automobiles

April 4, 2022 /

Events have lined up so that it makes the most sense to combine what should have been two posts into one today. I’ll try to be as brief as I can to both get it out and make it readable.

Spring Break ’22


Spring Break in Siesta Key, FL was largely a success. The weather was mostly good-to-great. We had the pleasure of spending time with a few sets of good friends. The girls all had friends close by for at least parts of the week. Our location was ideal – a block from the Village, Siesta Key’s central dining and shopping area – and our house served its purpose.

M brought one of her best friends with us and she stayed through Thursday. They had a couple good friends on the island and we rarely saw them other than when they came home at night and before they left in the morning.

C didn’t have any friends close, but one of her besties was up on Anna Maria, and she came down for a day, then C went up and spent the next day with her.

L had a few friends about that she kind of drifted in-and-out with throughout the week.

L’s godparents were staying not too far from us, and we spent three days with them on the beach. Two of their adult kids drifted in-and-out for parts of the week.

Our old neighbors – who we have traveled to Hawaii, Mexico, and Captiva with – flew into Ft Myers Wednesday and came up to spend Thursday with us.

There were also about a million Indianapolis Catholics on the island, so we were constantly running into people we knew.

Ahhh, I mentioned a few rough spots.

The winds were outrageous Wednesday and Thursday, while Friday morning was rainy. We still got decent beach time in each of those days.

When we arrived last Saturday the line for rental cars was massive. I stood in it for about 20 minutes when a guy came over and told us he had been in line for four hours and while he had been checked through, he was still waiting for them to give him his keys. He claimed there were two people working the desk and had to run back-and-forth to the lot to grab keys as cars were turned in and cleaned.

Who knows if that part was true, but the four-hour wait looked legit. Since we just had a reservation but had not paid, we decided to bail and get an Uber to our house. Two problems: we had M’s friend, which put us at six people and we couldn’t find a ride that would take six plus luggage. Second, only S had the Uber app on her phone and the network was fried, so my download was going to take hours.

We reserved the biggest car we could find, then asked that driver if he could hook us up with a second.

“I can call my brother! Is that ok with you!”

That was indeed ok! Especially if he let us pay cash.

Turns out they were two brothers from Colombia and thoroughly delightful. They got us where we needed to be and I had a great conversation with Mauricio over the half hour trip.

Monday I Ubered back and waited less than five minutes to grab a minivan for the rest of the week. If we didn’t have to take C to Anna Maria and bring M’s friend back to the airport, we could have skipped it. But it was nice to have.

That was minor compared to our issues getting home.

You may have heard Southwest had some issues this weekend (and may still be struggling). We got to the airport early for our 1:35 PM flight. Grabbed some seats near our gate. And sat and watched as we heard rumors that Southwest flights were having issues getting out while also watching the radar that looked completely awful just to our north. Soon the entire airport was on a ground hold because of that weather.

But our plane had made it in from St. Louis, and we watched a fresh crew walk onto it. Once the airport reopened, we would be good.

Or so we thought.

We waited for four hours before our flight was cancelled. Along with every other Southwest flight that had been sitting around. Sarasota is not a huge airport, but there were at least five completely full flights that just got taken off the schedule. Ticket counters had lines hours long. We heard there were also massive waits for help on the Southwest phone line.

As we sat around and tried to figure out what to do one of L’s friend’s moms texted me. “Mallory told me your flight got cancelled,” the text read. “We have a big SUV and I think we have room for all five of you. Do you want to ride with us?”

Yes, we did want to ride with them!

They were down in Ft. Myers, so it took some back-and-forth to figure out a plan, but they arrived about 90 minutes later, we piled all our shit in, and headed north.

We’ve made the spring break drive home from Florida at least twice, and know how much it sucks. I have to say, we totally lucked out. We drove through some weather for an hour or so, then some heavy fog for about an hour after that. But otherwise it was clear sailing all the way to Indiana. We had to make a brief detour to avoid a big slowdown near Seymour, but otherwise never wavered from our course or hit any stop-and-go traffic at all. It seemed like any other Saturday night, not one when a quarter of the country is making the same trip.

With three adult drivers we just passed off to each other and never stopped for longer than it took for eight people to use the bathroom, fill up with gas, and grab some snacks. We rolled into our driveway exactly 15 hours after we left Sarasota, which is pretty great time!

We heard lots of other people were driving back Sunday and traffic was its usual, awful spring break self. We are super thankful that our friends ignored the texts they were getting from other people looking for a ride and reached out to us, and that our drive home was uneventful.

So that was spring break 2022. Siesta Key certainly felt more traditionally “spring break” than anywhere we’ve ever gone before, between its packs of kids roaming around, more open drinking, and less stringent rules. Anna Maria, where we stayed last year, is getting more crowded, but still has a strict 10:00 PM noise curfew and more families with small kids than high school and college kids running around.[1] We would have loved to take our house from last year and plop it down on Siesta Key.

Jayhawk Talk: Marble Time


For the tenth time in history, and sixth time in my life, the Kansas Jayhawks will play for a national championship tonight.

I have vivd memories of most of those days, mostly of being unable to concentrate at school or work, or that I had a stomach bug in 2008 and watched KU win while in pain and with my head on a pillow.

I wonder how I will remember today years from now, or if being nearly 51 means the game will be imprinted into my brain much differently than the previous five.

I would love to set up tonight’s game with a recounting of KU’s cathartic win over Villanova in Saturday’s national semifinal.

However, as part of our travel issues Saturday, I didn’t see a minute of that game live. The Sarasota airport is tiny, and has only one restaurant/bar outside security. And that place was not seating anyone because they were closing.

Down in the baggage area, where we waited for about two hours after our flight was cancelled, there were no TVs at all. And because there were thousands of people flooding the cell network, I couldn’t get any sports site to load to even do a simple game cast, let alone watch CBS video of the game. I chatted with or waved to a handful of other very nervous Jayhawks looking for a way to follow the game.

So I relied on friends texting me at every TV timeout with score updates. I have to say, that’s a pretty stress-free way to follow a game! Especially when your team jumps out to a 10–0 lead and never looks back.

Our ride arrived with about 6:00 left in the game, just as Villanova cut the KU lead to six. We made a quick stop at Chick-Fil-A then I was given the first driving shift. While I ate my dinner. In a driving rainstorm. Fortunately we had a couple long red lights before we hit I–75 and I knew KU that had basically closed out the game before we got on the road.

It was the most anti-climactic Final Four game of my life. Well, I guess Villanova blowing us out four years ago was pretty anticlimactic, too. But this time I wasn’t feeling the full, pure joy I would be feeling had I watched live. I couldn’t really celebrate until we stopped in Valdosta, GA and I was able to catch up on texts and Tweets.

I did watch the game after we got home. What a performance! Ochai Agbaji found it again. David McCormack played the best game of his career. KU was fantastic on defense. DaJuan Harris and Christian Braun both hit some huge and timely shots. Jalen Wilson continued to destroy people on the boards. It may have been a reduced Villanova team, but they are still a bitch to play against and never stopped playing hard even when down 19. If KU had slipped up, they were fully capable of winning.

So much to be excited about after that game. But also so much to worry about, like the odds that Ochai starts 6–6 again, that Dave can play like that against Carolina’s bigs, that DaJuan will drill 3–5 3’s, that Jalen can do his rebounding thing against UNC, that we won’t leave Brady Manek open for 3’s, etc.

But I LOVE how this team is playing. Carolina presents some tough challenges and are playing as well as anyone in the country. In fact, over the last 10 games, UNC and KU are the two best teams in the country according to one statistical measure, with nearly identical offensive and defensive effectiveness numbers.

Maybe Carolina’s athletes are too much for KU, and having just beaten Duke they play free-and-loose and run the Jayhawks out of the building.

But they also have a first-year coach and just won a massively emotional game. Can do they bounce back and be as focused tonight?

I keep getting vibes off this KU team. The way they act on and off the court. Before, during, and after games. They way they keep picking each other up, with a different set of guys being the stars each night. I love how Bill Self has embraced the moment, saying it’s time for KU to make runs like this and finish them off. I love how the national narrative has become that this year is about finishing what the 2020 team was unable to do thanks to Covid.

I feel like this is their night and this is KU’s year. It’s been 14 years since they grabbed all the marbles. Anthony Davis and company kept KU from doing that again in 2012. I think Ochai, DaJuan, CB, J-Will, Big Dave, Remy, and Mitch get it done tonight, winning one for Jayhawks everywhere, and for Wilt Chamberlain, who came so close against Carolina in 1957.

Rock Chalk, bitches!

  1. The night C stayed up there she said one of her friend’s parents got a $75 fine for having kids out on the balcony after 10. They weren’t drinking or smoking, just hanging out, making a little noise. Along with the fine came a warning that a second offense would mean they get kicked out of their home. They don’t play on AMI.  ↩

Spring Break 2021

March 29, 2021 /

Another spring break has come and gone.

We spent the week on Anna Maria Island, Florida, just outside of Tampa. Although we planned our trip independently, it turns out AMI and the surrounding communities are one of the most popular destinations for families from Indy area Catholic schools. Our girls were very excited to learn how many of their friends would be staying nearby. Easy access to folks we know changed the entire week for us.

Our first two days the weather was subpar. Each day it was cloudy and breezy. Sunday it was rather cool – in the low 60s – so we only spent a couple hours shivering on the beach. Monday was a little warmer, but still very cloudy. As you might expect, the clouds gave us pale Midwesterners a false sense of security, and there were a lot of nasty sunburns early in the week.

The other downside to these first two days was that we could not crank up the heater on our pool, which was locked at 82. We are big wusses and keep the heater on our pool cranked between 90–95 until it truly gets hot in June. Eighty-two degree water plus clouds plus breeze meant we couldn’t really hang in our pool, either.

Fortunately on Tuesday the sun finally came out and we spent a ton of time on the beach the remainder of the week. Wednesday it was crazy windy, almost too windy to be on the beach as we were constantly scoured by blowing sand. Having already lost two days of sun, we stuck it out and accepted that every sip of beer would be a bit gritty.

C hung with three of her closest friends all week, one of whom had a birthday on Friday. That got kind of crazy, as the birthday girl talked her parents into taking the group to two different dinners and parasailing on Thursday. Another mom in that group also booked a henna artist so the girls could all get designs done. We barely saw C for most of the week other than to give her money as she set off with her pals.

M had some friends who were staying about 10 minutes south. She spent every day with them.

L had two different groups of friends that she bounced between, although she spent more time with the boy group. I guess she was more interested in going to the candy store once a day to buy sweets and baseball cards, digging huge holes on the beach, and trying to capture lizards than whatever the girls were up to.

That meant S and I pretty much had the days to ourselves. We hooked up with one group of St P’s parents and spent most of our beach days with them. I knew several of the families pretty well, a couple others very casually, and two more I could nod to and say hello but didn’t really know at all. It was fun to get to know some people I knew well even better, and to expand those rather casual friendships.

There were at least four other groups of St P’s parents scattered up and down the beach. I didn’t do a lot of mingling, mostly because they were all 10–15 years younger than me. A couple of the moms coached for me, so I did make sure to check in with them.

Getting around the island is pretty easy. We rented both a car and a golf cart, generally using the car only to get M down to her friends and for grocery runs (and for the round-trip to the airport). The rest of the time we ran the golf cart all over the place. Highly recommended if that is ever an option on your travels. AMI is ideal for using a cart rather than car. Our house came with bikes that the girls used daily as well.

M was sad that you have to be 25 to drive a golf cart. Since we were on a side street we let all three girls have turns buzzing up and down it in the evenings when there was no traffic. They took to calling it our “whip,” which I thought was hilarious. L did pretty good, going a little too fast but generally keeping it under control. C was kind of a mess, which does not bode well for her beginning the drivers ed process this summer.

All week were were comparing/contrasting our surroundings with Captiva Island, where we have stayed three times. There are certainly a lot more people on AMI and many more things to do. The big negative is that evening meals are kind of a disaster. If you don’t get your name on a list before 5:30, you will be waiting at least two hours for a table. And because there is a strict 10:00 PM noise ordinance, a lot of restaurants stop serving around 9:00.

We got carry out our first three nights without issue. But the next couple nights we had to make last minute scrambles when every place we called to put an order in was so busy that they weren’t answering their phones. We ended up making dinner at home one night and just eating leftovers from other meals two other nights to avoid the hassle. It’s hard enough to wait two hours for a meal when you’re sunburned and tired. Throw in Covid and a lot of folks not being super observant of mask rules and the last thing you want to do is sit with hungry kids and have a few drinks hoping a table opens up for you.

So our only real meal out was lunch Friday at The Ugly Grouper, which everyone told us we hd to go to. We had a fantastic lunch without anyone sitting near us. Kind of ideal. The manager came over and talked to us as we ate. Turned out he was a Purdue grad and had managed restaurants in Indy. So the typical “How’s your meal, how ya doin?” conversation turned into a 10 minute exchange.

The other slight negative of the week was we could never get all our girls together in one place for a family picture. They probably took a collective 1000 pictures on their own but we couldn’t get them dressed and presentable and all in one place to get even one family shot. That’s a bummer, but I guess they have the pics to prove they were there.

Travel was pretty easy. We had a late afternoon flight down, so the Indy airport was no busier than normal. And we must have had just the right flight coming back because it took us five minutes to check bags and then about as long to get through security in Tampa. A couple friends who came back later Saturday evening came in during some heavy storms and said there was horrible turbulence on the way in, and then they had to sit on the taxiway for over an hour until the lightning had passed. Sounds delightful. Some other friends who were driving back got stuck in Georgia when the interstate was totally shut because of a large accident. They were parked in one spot and throwing a football around for two hours as they waited for the road to re-open.

Our flights were full, people seemed to be wearing masks. And, honestly, people mostly seemed to be following the mask rules on AMI. We did hear from others who braved the crowds more often than us that plenty of people were not being as cautious.

So, a very good spring break. If memory serves, this was the sixth time we’ve gone someplace warm for the week (Captiva twice; Orange Beach, AL; Mexico twice). Every trip has its minor annoyances, but once again we were lucky that it was a pleasant, relaxing, refreshing week.

A Week Away

August 3, 2020 /

Well, we spent a week in Florida. Whether that was a good idea or not, I suppose we’ll figure out in the next 10-14 days. But it was definitely fun to get away from home for a bit.

There were enough mixed feelings hanging over this trip thanks to Covid-19. Then some other shit happened.

We were scheduled to leave early Saturday, July 25. Our flight was at 7:30 so my alarm was set for 4:45. We were pretty much packed and ready, just needed to throw those final few things into the bags, eat, do some final pool prep, and go.

And then our power went out at 3:30. I woke as soon as it went out, which caused a moment of panic that was enough to keep me from going back to sleep. Instead I thought of how I would do all those last minute tasks in darkness, making mental lists to ensure nothing was overlooked or left behind.

I got out of bed at 4:30, found candles and flashlights, and started working. All that mental activity was worth it as we made it out of the house without forgetting anything important.

Naturally the power came back on moments before we left. The girls were in the car and everything. S and I made a quick lap back through the house to make sure lights were off, nothing was lying on the floor we needed, the pool pump had restarted, etc., and then took off for the airport.

The airports were strange. IND had a few shops open but most were totally shut down. We flew through O’Hare on the way to Florida and everything there seemed to be shut down other than the newsstands. We saw a family with a McDonald’s bag but had walked by three McDonald’s that were closed between our gates.

The flights were fine. We flew American, which is now selling every seat, and all four of our flights were almost completely full. I had a lady next to me from Indy to Chicago who tried to not wear her mask. When the staff began circulating to check that folks had their masks on, she put it back on and left it on for the remainder of the flight. Thirty minute flights are kind of cool, by the way. We took off at 7:30, landed at 7:08. Marvin Barnes would not have approved.

With the exception of our flight from Chicago to Ft. Myers, American offered no snacks or beverages to passengers. On that one flight they handed you a small bag as you boarded that contained a tiny water bottle, package of cookies, and a hand wipe. We were prepared, though, and had plenty of snacks in our bags.

We flew home through Charlotte and the food court there was totally open. I’m a little worried if we managed to avoid the coronavirus during a week on Captiva, we may all have been infected while eating our Chick-Fil-A, because the food court was crazy busy.

This trip replaced our cancelled trip to Hawaii, which was to have taken place the same week. So we breathed sighs of relief when we saw Hurricane Douglas was likely to be the first hurricane to make a direct hit on the islands since the early 1990s. For some time it looked like not only Kauai but the exact location we were staying would be where the storm made landfall. Fortunately for Hawaii, the storm veered just offshore. Still, it would have sucked to sit out a hurricane warning in our hotel.

As if to punish us for thinking we were lucky to miss Douglas, Mother Nature whipped up Hurricane Isaias last weekend. The early forecast was for it to head straight for Captiva and show up right about the time we left this past Saturday. Our travel companions were supposed to stay until Monday, but to be safe they changed plans and left first thing Saturday. Naturally Isaias slowed down and changed track, and as I type this Sunday night it will meander up the eastern coast of Florida, sparing Captiva.

This was our third trip to Captiva. It was definitely less busy than our other trips, but we don’t know if the amount of people on the island was normal for the last week of July.

Our house was exactly two minutes from the beach, which was great. We spent most of our mornings and early afternoons on the beach until it got too hot, and then retired to our pool for the afternoon. The house listing claimed we had the largest private pool on the island. Not sure if that was true, but all nine of us could get in. It was a saltwater pool, too, which was a little different.

The only bummer about the house was that we lost both cable and internet access for nearly three days. Add in our Verizon signal being very weak, and it was a little frustrating, especially for the five teens in the house. We had a strong wifi signal and the cable guide loaded, but there was no internet connectivity and no video or audio on the TVs. Two visits from the rental agency repair guys left them unsure of what was going on.

After some troubleshooting, we theorized that the owners of the home, who have it up for sale, may have forgotten to pay their Comcast bill. Don’t know if they didn’t expect to still own the home at the end of July, thought it wouldn’t be rented this week, or something else. But when we suggested an unpaid bill as a possibility to the rental agency, service suddenly came back on a couple hours later.

We were joined at the house by our old neighbors. That gave our girls their two friends to hang out with. M and C shared rooms with their buddies while L got her own room. One day the girls met a group of three boys, who we think were about M’s age. I wasn’t there when the conversation occurred, but apparently the boys first asked C and her bud how old they were. They said 14 and pointed out how they just finished seventh grade. The moms heard this and laughed and laughed.

The other dad and I shot dirty looks at the boys every time we saw them. I was not prepared for my girls to be hanging around boys on the beach in my eyesight. The funny thing was L thought the boys were cool and was as disappointed as the older girls when they didn’t show up one day.

As for the weather on Captiva, it was mostly great. We had a couple very hot days. A couple that were pleasant thanks to the winds. The day we arrived there was a massive downpour just after we got to our house. The next six days we heard loud rumbles of thunder every afternoon, but the storms either stayed over on the mainland, or skirted us out to sea. One day we sat on the beach and watched a massive lightning storm that was 15 miles off shore, safely sipping Corona Lights.

On Friday night we were just paying for our meal at an outside table when a big old downpour rolled in. The ladies and girls all scurried inside while the dads leaned under our table’s umbrella and attempted to scratch our signatures onto our credit card slips. The bummer to that was L left the shark tooth ring she was very excited about at the table as we fled. She didn’t realize it until bedtime that night, which was too late to go reclaim it. She was a little sad about it.

We had some wildlife fun. There were lots of beautiful, bright green lizards in our backyards. Some were tiny, some mid-sized, and we had a couple big boys that were over four feet long. I don’t remember them being this bright from our previous trips. Maybe it’s the season.

We saw lots of beautiful birds at the beach.

One night, as I grilled burgers, I noticed some movement over by the pool. Then a head popped out of the mulch and a four-plus foot yellow rat snake began working its way across the pool deck, looking for some dinner of its own. C used the pool net to rescue a tiny black racer snake from the pool one day.

There were lots of big, fat rabbits scampering about.

And on Thursday we were treated to a dolphin show, as dozens of them hunted for their lunch within site of the beach. A few came in close, one nearly touching my buddy while he floated in an inner tube.

On Friday we rented wave runners to take all the kids out. I had S and L with me. We managed not to tip it over. C was riding with her friend and the other dad, and they tipped theirs over while making a tight turn. Between never having driven a wave runner before, and L being nervous, I wasn’t nearly as aggressive as the other drivers were. It was a lot of fun, though.

It wasn’t Hawaii, but it wasn’t bad.

Did we feel safe? That’s a great question. We ate out four times. Twice we sat outside. Twice we were inside. One restaurant did it’s best to spread people out, limit how many folks were inside, and forced people to wear masks unless they were seated. The other, I’ll be honest, I was not super comfortable at. It is a tiny spot, and every table was filled even though we arrived early. I decided to drink extra to try to ease my mind.

Folks mostly kept to themselves at the beach. People would carve out their space and the next group to come along would set up 10-15-20 feet away.

Like so many things right now, I don’t know what the right set of actions should have been. Was it irresponsible to travel in the midst of a pandemic, especially going to a state that has not handled the coronavirus very well? Was it dangerous to eat inside? Was spending eight hours on planes and 5-6 hours in airports setting our family up to be infected?

Or as healthy people who have been mostly responsible for the past five months, who kept our masks on, who wash our hands often, did all that earn us the leeway to travel?

I don’t know what the right answer is. I tried hard this past week not to overthink things, to not feel bad about doing something fun when so many people are facing economic hardships. To not feel like a horrible person for leaving our home when the smart thing to do would have been to keep our asses at home until next summer.

I turned off all of my news alerts while we were gone. I wanted to check out, relax, and take a break from all the things that have been wearing me down mentally for five months. I would check Twitter a few times a day, and the news headlines in the morning and evening. We paid close attention to news from back in Indy about sports and schools.

In a 24-hour period, the state high school athletics association declared that fall sports were on, pending approval from local authorities. Moments later the Marion County health department put all fall high school contact sports in Indy on hold until October 1. There was an outcry from school officials, a meeting was set up between superintendents/principals and the health department, after which fall sports got a reprieve for two-to-three weeks until the health department can make a better assessment of what is happening with Covid cases in Indy.

On Friday the health department also said all high schools in the county would need to start the year at 50% capacity. I’m assuming this meant a hybrid system like many suburban districts have gone to where kids are in school one day, learn from home the next. Cathedral quickly sent out a message saying that, based on the number of buildings and classrooms on campus, they could have twice as many kids on campus as are currently enrolled. Thus they felt they hit the 50% mark and would apply for a waiver.

We shall see.

As with our trip, I don’t know what the right answer is. I don’t envy those who have to make the decisions. I totally understand families who have decided to keep their kids at home for the time being. I don’t think schools will be terribly safe environments from a Covid standpoint.

But I also know virtual learning, even if improved after months of planning, is a poor substitute for being in the classroom. I know our kids can’t handle being cooped up at home for another six-plus months. While I will be here to monitor our kids, a lot of other children will be left at home without adult supervision, which can only lead to bad things.

But are those concerns worse than spreading Covid?

I don’t fucking know.

As we dropped our rental car off Saturday morning, M asked everyone in the car what we thought our next big vacation would be. All three girls threw out ideas while S and I remained quiet. When M pressed us, we both said we had no idea if and when it would be safe to travel again. Regardless of whether we should have been traveling in July 2020, we know it is going to be quite some time before we can think about taking a big trip again.

Playing Hooky

January 30, 2017 /

When we first became parents, we set some limits on ourselves that we thought would benefit our kids. These rules were based on observations of other parents, both adopting elements of parenting we admired and rejecting those we thought were inappropriate. One rule was that we would never take our kids out of school for an extended period to take a family vacation.

We violated that rule four years ago when we went to Disney. We justified that by telling ourselves M was only in second grade, C only in kindergarten, and L still in preschool: we weren’t setting them too far back. And this was a one-time trip anyway.

Well, we did it again. We spent last week in Florida, first spending two-plus days in Orlando then two-and-change near Jacksonville. This time we felt some guilt. So much so we tried to keep the trip a semi-secret at school. But more about that later.

We had some solid justification for the trip again this time. S’s dad and step-mom purchased a home south of Jacksonville late last year. They spent some time down there after closing, but officially made the move south after Christmas. We wanted to go visit them. However, S has to work the week of St. P’s spring break this year.

We decided that since our trip to Disney in the slow times of January was so successful four years ago, we would make a jaunt down to Universal Studios to do the Harry Potter thing and then go check out the in-laws’ new place. We figured it was early enough in the semester that the girls wouldn’t get too far behind in school and would have plenty of time to make up for missed assignments and tests. Plus, they all got really good grades last quarter, so we felt they could handle the catch-up process if we gave them plenty of help.

We flew to Orlando Tuesday. We stayed at the Hard Rock hotel right at Universal. The girls thought the hotel in general, and our room in specific, was really cool with all the rock memorabilia decorations. Even though we had to tell them who most of the artists that had their costumes, records, or guitars displayed were. We didn’t have park tickets that day, so we spent the afternoon at the pool. It was sunny, 75-ish, and a perfectly fine day for us Midwesterners.

Wednesday was our first of two days at the park. We got in right at 9:00 and high tailed it back to the Diagon Alley Harry Potter section. I had done a binge viewing of the movies the previous week to augment my reading of the books late last year, so I was well-steeped in the visuals of the series. I have to admit, all the Harry Potter stuff was amazing. The rides were super cool.[1] The buildings are amazing. The marketing is, of course, way over the top. But I also give them credit for really bringing the series to life. Everything that was sold in the books and movies can be purchased in the park. For a premium, of course. But that’s half the fun, right? We got C and L robes before we went – C is a Hufflepuff and L is a Gryffindor – and all three girls got the interactive wands that allow you to do various “spells” around the Potter areas. Those are kind of tricky, but once they figured out where to point them, I think they enjoyed having them over the basic wands. M got a Ravenclaw shirt because she’s too cool for a robe.

C especially loved it. She had been watching YouTube videos by people who had visited the parks for weeks. Car rides to practices and games before we left usually meant she was reciting the list of all the things you can do and see at Universal. She really was in heaven.

And it was fun to watch M loosen up, have fun, and act like a kid again. She is often way too cool or disinterested in what the rest of the family is doing. But she walked around with a big grin on her face most of the time, too.


We took the Hogwarts Express over to the other park, which held the Hogsmeade side of things. Again, so much fun. The parks weren’t overrun the two days we were there, but the Potter areas were by far the busiest sections. Just a big, fat reminder of how popular the series was and still is.

While L wasn’t down with the fast rides, M and C loved them. We did Escape From Gringotts twice, and the Forbidden Journey ride three times over our two days. And M, C, and I did the Flight of the Hippogriff roller coaster ride. It’s a compact, quick roller coaster, but still not a kiddie ride. I sat alone in front of them. For the entire 30 seconds or so the ride lasts, the girls totally played to type. M screamed at the top of her lungs. Happy screams, but still high-pitched wails. And C just laughed her ass off the entire time. They weren’t quite ready to do any of the big, scary roller coasters like the Dragon Challenge or The Incredible Hulk. Not sure they ever will be, to be honest.

The other ride that was a big hit was the Jurassic Park River Adventure ride. The last drop is a doozy. It’s probably good L didn’t see how steep it was before we got her on or she would have never gone. I don’t know that she loved it, but she also had a look of "Well, that was kind of fun“ after.

As with Disney four years ago, we struck gold in terms of crowds. We rarely had to wait more than 10 minutes to ride anything. We pulled out our Express Passes a couple times, but they weren’t absolutely necessary. On several rides Thursday, after we navigated the lengthy wait corrals, we walked right up to a waiting car and strapped in.

One thing I thought was really interesting about our visit was how much Portuguese I heard. I bet a third of the people there were from Brazil. I suppose it is their summer break, and late January is a pretty lean time for Americans to visit. But it still seemed odd to hear that language be so dominant.

Wednesday night we ate in one of the restaurants in the hotel. During our meal, someone in a full-sized Homer Simpson costume made the rounds of all the tables. The girls loved it, but we also had to explain who he was, what his name was, etc. The same person returned moments later in a Bart costume and we had to do the same explanations again. We thought that was pretty funny. I wouldn’t be upset if they wanted to start watching The Simpsons, something I stopped doing in ’91 or so.

Both days we returned to the hotel for an hour or so at the pool in the heat of the afternoon. It was 75–80ish, so perfect.


Friday we rented a car and drove the 2.5 hours up to Ponte Vedra where my in-laws are now living. They’re in a brand-new place in a nice community. It had begun to cool off that day, but was still sunny and pleasant upon our arrival. We took a drive to a beach that was not too far away. It was far too chilly to get into the water, but we walked around, the girls looked for shells, and we saw a guy fishing who reeled in a stingray, which the girls thought was amazing.


Saturday was cloudy and chilly so it became a mostly family-time day. We watched E.T., which the girls had seen a few years ago, but they enjoyed even more this time since we had gone on the E.T. ride at Universal.

Sunday we had an uneventful flight home, and arrived to spitting snow and temps below 30.

Oh, there was one last highlight of the trip. As we walked to baggage claim, we heard some kind of chanting. S, seeing a group of high school or college kids in letter jackets, said, “Is that cheerleaders?” As soon as she said that, I figured out what it was. “No, those are protesters.”

We took the escalator down to the claim area and several hundred people had gathered to protest President Trump’s immigration executive order. While we waited for our bags, we explained to the girls what was going on, and how even though we as a family are not fans of Trump, we thought the biggest takeaway should be this wasn’t a protest against a person, but rather against a bad policy and for protecting the rights of innocent people. I think they kind of enjoyed all the chanting. Their first political protest!

S and I enjoyed the folks who sat by us in the Jacksonville airport, who loudly proclaimed their support of Trump in Florida, stewing next to us as they waited for their bags.

It was a very good week. I won’t say it was a desperately needed break, as the holidays aren’t that far in the past and January has been warm and rainy for the most part. But it was still good to get away. We’re used to going somewhere in late March/early April and then spring quickly arriving after. Now we have a long slog before we get to the warmer, longer days. I guess that’s my only regret of the trip: we were diligent with the sunscreen and not outside long enough to really look like we spent nearly a week in Florida. A little more of a tan would have been nice.

Between a short first week of the quarter, MLK day, and our trip, the girls have not had a five-day school week yet this year. Until this week, that is. Spoiled rotten, those girls are.

Oh yeah, about school. When we booked the trip last fall, we told the girls not to mention that we were going to Universal around school. They promised not to. In my first library shift of the new year, the librarian said to me, “So, I hear you’re going to Universal!” “Who told you that?” I asked. “Oh, L told me all about it.” Jeez.

The week before we went, I was in the library again. As I was signing out in the office, I told the ladies up there we were going to be out of town for a few days and asked if I needed to send an email in each day, or if a note at the beginning of the week was enough to excuse the girls. One of the ladies immediately blurted out, “Are you going to Disney?!?!” Not in an accusing or negative way, but like she was totally excited for us. I admitted we were going to Universal. So the word was out. At basketball practice, girls from the other St. P’s teams would harass me about wanting to go with us to Harry Potter World.

But the girls’ teachers were all great. They each got a lot of work to bring home and knock out so they wouldn’t be too far behind. Again, I think it really helps that they all get good grades and are well-behaved. And that we don’t do this often. Because we all know there are some families that do this on a fairly regular basis.

We spent the final weeks of January 2013 and 2017 in Florida, going to amusement parks. Not sure we have it in us for January 2021, when we’ll have a sophomore, an eighth grader, and a sixth grader. But you never know.

  1. Amazingly L does not like rides that go fast, are dark, or that she thinks might flip her upside down. In every other aspect she’s the most daring kid in the family, but not when it comes to rides. She was not a fan of the Escape From Gringotts ride. And I had to walk out of the Forbidden Journey ride with her because she was having a meltdown.  ↩

Spring Break

March 30, 2015 /

IMG 3654

 

I forget if I warned my loyal readers that I would be disappearing for over a week as we traveled south for spring break. Facebook friends know the deal, and hopefully the rest of you figured it out on your own.

We are back, safe, tanned, and not entirely well-rested. I dropped the girls back at school about an hour ago and S. is off for a couple meetings. So I suppose I should get back in the swing of things, too, and share some details of our trip.

We returned to Captiva Island in Florida, where we spent spring break 2013. This time, though, rather than going alone and staying at the South Seas resort, we rented a large home with a significant chunk of S.’s family. Three of her sisters, who brought two husbands and two kids, and their dad and step-mom came from Indy and Denver.

Our home was right around the corner from the resort, so we were in a familiar spot. We had a pool and hot tub in the backyard and were just a quick walk away from the beach. For the most part, we had exceptional weather, unlike the cool spring of ’13. A little rain marred Monday afternoon, and then Friday was a complete washout as a big storm moved through after lunch that did not let up until the evening. But, as that was our last day, it gave everyone a chance to chill out a little and get an early start on having everything packed for early departures on Saturday.

It wasn’t quite as weird as two years ago, when it seemed like every time we turned around we saw someone either from Indianapolis or Kansas City, but there were still plenty of Midwesterners around. Last Saturday, on our second leg to Captiva, we stopped at lunch at the Siesta Key exit. We walked into a sandwich shop and a few moments later, a family of three came in, the high school-aged boy wearing a shirt from a Catholic high school in Indy. We asked if that was where he went, told the parents our girls were at St. P’s, and they laughed and said that’s where their son had gone to grade/middle school. Nine-hundred miles from home!

Then Tuesday night we were on the beach watching the sunset and the mother of one of C.’s grade-mates came over and said hello. Unfortunately C. got sick while we were in Florida and she stayed home that night, so she didn’t get to hang out with her friend while the parents shared a drink. Two years ago we ran into a couple St. P’s families at the resort, but this was a little more random because this family was actually staying on Sanibel. They had just come up because they said this is the best spot to watch sunsets.1

Our only real disappointment of the week was that we didn’t see a single dolphin. Two years ago they seemed to be everywhere, and one memorably “walked” along the beach with us for nearly half an hour, swimming as close as ten feet from the shore and staying with us as we walked over a mile. This year, nothing. Not even behind the dolphin cruise boats, which seemed to always have a pod of dolphins jumping through their wakes two years ago. I never heard an explanation for why they weren’t around this year. Maybe it was just bad luck. But we spent time on the beach every day, at different times, so it seemed odd.

Our drives were mostly uneventful. We drove through crazy-thick fog in the mountains of Tennessee on the way down. We laughed at the pimped-out county sheriff SUVs in Georgia that all had a label slapped on the back that said, “Purchased with money seized in drug raids.” I imagine there was some complaining by the locals that the sheriffs had big SUVs with tinted windows and custom wheels and these decals were an attempt to mute those criticisms.

I’ve now made three driving trips through the south. And each time I marvel at how southern drivers will just sit in the far left lane of 3-lane highways and not move even if there is a line of traffic behind them going faster. You can ride their bumpers, veer out to the left, flash your brights. Nothing works. I decided that drivers ed down there must involve a discussion that goes something like this, “Ya’ll jest need to find ya’llselves a lane where ya’ll feel comfortable and then spread out and stay there awhile. Don’t matter how fast ya’ll go. And don’t worry but no one else. They’ll go right around ya’ll.”

Late Friday evening, on the way down, there was a big accident on the north-bound side of I-75 that had all three lanes completely stopped and traffic backed up for miles. We came upon a car doing about 60 in the left lane. After a few moments we realized both the passenger AND THE DRIVER were holding their phones up and taking pictures of the stranded cars on the other side of the road. Idiots.

And we passed a woman in northern Florida going about 65 in the left lane who was putting her makeup on while veering around in her lane.

Keep in mind, most people were going 80-85 in the left lane when one of these yahoos wasn’t blocking traffic.

We stopped in Valdosta, GA for the evening on the way down. Saturday morning at breakfast we sat next to an older couple of snowbirds who were on their way back to St. Louis after three months in Florida. The moment my ass hit the seat, the man began asking me questions and telling me their story. They were really nice. As we were saying our goodbyes, he said, “Watch out for the old people going slow in the left lane!” and cackled. Which made me wonder, was he just really self-aware, or is he the rare old guy who puts the hammer down?

They also told us they had seen a 40-mile backup during their travels the previous day. We’ve heard about these crazy backups but had been lucky enough to never hit one that bad. Until Saturday on our way back. Between Macon and Atlanta, we hit a stretch that Google said would take us nearly two hours to travel under 30 miles. We did some quick map checking and got off of I-75 and used some state highways and get into Atlanta. Which then dumped us right into the eternal traffic-jam that is the ATL. We avoided the big bottleneck, but it still took us about three hours to go around 100 miles.

Between that nonsense, the time commitment, and the way these drives suck the life out of you, we decided our next spring break beach trip will involve planning further out and paying for airfare. We’ll have to pack more carefully, and airports are their own special kind of hell during spring break, but we can’t do the 20+ hours in a car thing again.

My nephew from Denver is five, and he and L. are like two peas in the proverbial pod. He’s really into singing, and one of his favorite current songs is “Uptown Funk.” We’d be walking to the beach and he’d be yelling, in his loud, little kid voice, “Up-town, funk you up. Uptown funk you up!” over and over. Once L. joined in, we got a few odd looks from people.

When we got off I-75 and tried the side roads, we came across something we had never seen nor heard of before: the Chik-Fil-A Dwarf House restaurants. I’m still not sure if these are just supposed to be charming, fairy tale-like attractions or if they’re actually aimed at little people. You never really know in the south.

Favorite billboard, seen in Georgia. One put up by the League of the South, an organization known for its progressive views on pretty much everything. The billboard had a simple message: #Secede

I love the hashtag attached to the ancient, tired, defeated-in-battle cause. Bringing the old to the new.

We laughed to ourselves when we heard it was snowing in Indianapolis during our first couple days on the beach. Despite knowing the spring is almost always reluctant to bloom in full in our part of the world, it was still disappointing to come home to temperatures in the 40s and the lawns not yet fully green and the trees still ugly and bare. There should be a switch that flips while away in warmer climes that makes your home at least look like spring when you return. I could handle a few more weeks where it stays cool if things were just green again, finally.

It was a fantastic trip. We were (mostly) smart with the sunscreen, so only some limited, minor burns for the pale Midwestern folks. Everyone was well-behaved. Other than one big storm, we had excellent weather. And everyone travelled safely.

Kickball practice begins today. Softball Wednesday. And soccer Thursday. And the summer swim team sent out the late April date for the informational meeting while we were away. We’re instantly in the spring crush. Summer will be here before you know it.

 

  1. They come to Sanibel every year, so I trust their judgement. ↩

Vacation Wrap Up

March 25, 2013 /

Happy spring! We are home, safe and sound, and the girls are back in school again. Wait. They’re not. We have seven inches of snow and, I believe for the first time since we started at St. P’s, school has been cancelled. It’s the endless spring break! Whoo hoo!1

What a weird thing, to go from the beach/pool on Friday to putting the snow clothes on and throwing snow balls on Monday. It’s March 25, for crying out loud!

Our final two days in Florida were good. We had an excellent dinner at a nice little Mexican place on Wednesday night. We hung out with our friends for ice cream later after dinner and snuck them into our resort for some pool time on Friday. The girls gathered more shells. They each claimed a tennis ball that had bounced into the bushes near the tennis courts.

Wednesday, on the resort trolley, I talked to an attorney from Kansas City who just happens to be a co-worker of a loyal reader of the site. Thursday another attorney from Kansas City, who was wearing a Mizzou shirt, offered us his family’s chairs at the pool. Friday I saw the same guy wearing a KU shirt. He clearly has issues.

Thursday I got waylaid by the cold that L. and M. had been fighting. If you saw me at the pool that day, you would have guessed dad was nursing a serious hangover. I just sat at the edge of the pool with my head hanging down, doing my best not to talk to anyone. Sadly it was just a lack of sleep and completely clogged sinuses and bad cough that knocked me out. I gave up after two hours and went home, alone, to lay down. Pathetic.

Obviously things cost a little more on Captiva, between it being on an island, there not being many stores to compete with each other, and the vacation tax you have to pay. But I really noticed the difference when I went to the one grocery store on the island to get some cold medicine. I spent $30 on Nyquil, some pretend Sudafed, and cough drops. The same combination would have run me $15 or so at your average Midwestern Walgreen’s. Oh well.

Our plans on when to return home were always kind of up in the air. I had been lobbying for us to go to bed early Friday, sleep until 2:00 or so Saturday morning, then get up and go to avoid traffic. S. advocated leaving at midnight, if not earlier. When we got back from the pool Friday and began organizing our things, I could see that look in S.’s eyes that said she was ready to move.

“It kind of seems like you want to leave sooner rather than later,” I said.

I’ve picked up a thing or two in 10 years of marriage.

She said she didn’t think anyone would be able to sleep, and it was going to be hard to keep the girls entertained for four hours before bedtime. I agreed and soon we were loading the van and preparing to get out of town before dinner.

So we left the resort at 6:00 Friday evening2 with me barely having slept the previous two nights. I knew it was going to be an interesting trip.

Long story short, we all survived. Thanks to the flood of caffeine and “non-drowsy” cold medicines, I could barely nap when S. was driving. I think we both got a couple short naps but for the most part were awake the entire time. The pre-dawn hours near Knoxville, when we drove through rain, and the last stretch in Kentucky were kind of a blur. But, again we made it.

The girls were absolutely fantastic. They slept for over 10 hours without complaints or problems. They were well-behaved in the morning when S. and I were thoroughly fried. It was some of their best behavior ever, to be honest.

The drive was not without its exciting moments.

In Tampa we drove through a huge, classic Florida thunderstorm. Much like our trip to Hilton Head two years ago, we found ourselves crawling along at less than 30 MPH through torrential rains. Some of it through narrow lanes because of construction. That was not fun at all.

We drove through more rain around the Georgia-Tennessee border that was nearly as heavy, and then steady rain through most of eastern Tennessee.

Finally, at 3:30 AM in downtown Atlanta, we were passed by an honest-to-goodness high speed chase. I was resting and heard S. say, “What an idiot.” I opened my eyes to see a car streak by us on our left with a policeman in hot pursuit. Then, to our right, another police car raced down an on-ramp with its siren and lights blazing. They quickly disappeared over a hill and by the time we crested the high point, they had either streaked farther out of view, or exited somewhere. There was more traffic than typical for that time of night, so thank goodness whoever was driving the lead car kept it in one lane.

We pulled into the driveway at 12:30 Saturday afternoon, 18.5 hours after leaving Captiva Island. Which is pretty damn good considering we had three kids with us, drove through two rain storms, and were down a DVD player after the girls somehow ruined the power cord on our way down last week.

It was a really great week. We loved Hilton Head two years ago, and may well go back there again some day. But we really liked Captiva and the resort we stayed at and think it will likely be a place we visit again. Although next time we’ll do it in a year we don’t have two other trips planned so we can fly into Ft. Myers rather than brave the roads for 19 hours.

Two trips to Florida in eight weeks. We are very lucky. And now I guess we start the countdown to trip #3 of 2013: my brother-in-law’s Boston wedding in September.

I guess I need to go start the snow blower now.

ↁ

  1. I heard this morning that the Indianapolis Public School district has a two-week spring break. What?!?! ↩
  2. The resort even credited us back a night. Good people! ↩
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