I've Still Got Sand in my Shoes

It was cold but felt wonderful

I've been home for a week now and am only finally readjusted to life. I spent the week before in Clearwater Beach, Florida and am missing the beach so badly it's painful. Back in December my parents mentioned that they were thinking of taking a trip in February to get away from the cold and snow. I happily volunteered to keep them company. My little sister and I ended up accompanying my parents to one of the prettiest beach I've seen in a while.

My parents in front of our beautiful hotel

We stayed on Clearwater Beach, just outside of Clearwater/St. Petersburg. The hotel was amazing, the kind of place that gets featured in Travel and Leisure magazine (a magazine I love). It was the Sandpearl Resort, and it was every bit as lovely as the pictures. The weather was warm and lovely the first two days and then became cooler and rainy. Of course by cooler I mean 50s, which was at least 50 degrees warmer than it was here.

The view from the balcony

We had an amazing trip. We swam with manatees, saw some incredible artwork, ate great food, and spent lots of time relaxing. I'll be sharing most of my pictures over the next couple of days. But today is all about the beach. Clearwater Beach is a pristine stretch of white sand. This is sand so soft that your feet melt into it. There is nothing course in this sand. There are shells everywhere. I brought back a small collection of them. It was one of our favorite pastimes to walk the beach and collect shells. Most of the time, with the mist and rain, we had the beach to ourselves, as my sister demonstrates below.

My sister enjoying the beach to herself

My sister on our long walk

The Gulf was way too cold for swimming but we walked in the water. I spent half of my time with the bottom of my pants soaked. But I loved the feel of the water on my feet. I'd forgotten that the sun could provide warmth. I'd forgotten that there is water that didn't freeze in the winter. I sat out on the balcony in the room and wrote and thawed. A wonderful trip.

 Watching the sunset as we did every night. 

Disney History

When it comes to childhoods, I know that mine was spoiled. I had amazing Christmases with piles of presents. I had a small children's books library that I only had to share with my brothers and sisters. I had two amazing parents who adored us and spent time with us. But when it comes to vacations, we were well past spoiled. We dragged my poor parents to 6 Flags, Busch Gardens, any amusement park we could find really. We spent time out West and down South. But our favorite (or at least mine) was going to Walt Disney World in Florida.

I think I've been to Disney World 6 or 7 times in my lifetime, most of them as part of family trips. One year Jeff and I went by ourselves but a majority of them were during my childhood. Even now I get the urge to go every three years or so. I am a Disney World fanatic. And it doesn't stop with just visiting. I read books about the design and engineering that went into the parks. I read about the history of the Disney Corporation, Disneyland, Disney World, and about Walt Disney himself. 

Recently I went through a bag of stuff that my parents had found in their house and packed up for me. Much of it was old school papers and things but I found a couple of books that I thought were fun. I found my Birnbaum's Guide to Disney World for both 1985 and 1993. I found some vacation guides I had picked up while in the parks back on the 1994 trip. It included information about the new MGM Studios. The 1985 book covered the newly opened EPCOT center. I found both of these hilarious. So much has changed for the parks since then. So much has been added or changed. 

But my favorite find was an old souvenir map that I had brought home from one of the trips. It shows the resort area, as it was at the time with some of the popular characters of the day. The funny part is that many of the character featured were 80s and 90s TV characters that were big then. The characters from DuckTales, Gummi Bears, TaleSpin, and Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers make an appearance along with Figment, the long defunct (but still beloved) character from Journey into Imagination. Many of the hotels and recreation areas picture above don't exist anymore. But the big change is the expansion. The park has spread and changed. New things have popped up all over. So even though I know the map is outdated I love it. I know the book I bought in 2007 will soon be outdated in the same way. At Disney World things change constantly. But it was nice to find this bit of history to remember the parks of my youth. And look forward to going back. 

My Mother is More Adventurous Than Me

I had a whole post-it note worth of things to write about today. I simply have to tell you about the play I saw this past weekend in Minneapolis. I have to tell you about the weekend. I should mention the two straight days of snow that will hit us tomorrow. But all that changed with a phone call this morning. Now I have to tell you my mother's story.

My sister called me this morning and the conversation went a little something like this.

Alissa: Have you talked to our mother recently?

Me: I haven't talked to her in about a week or so. Why? What's up?

Alissa: Mom's had a bit of an adventure.

Me: (worried) What type of adventure?

Alissa: Well she drove to Florida this week...by herself.

Me: Ah ah ah (that's the sound of me being speechless.

And the story only got better. My family had been down in the Turks and Caicos islands over the holidays and my mother had fallen in love with a wild little dog she found down there. She contacted the rescue league on the island and told them to keep an eye out for it. Well I guess last Monday they called her to tell her that they found the dog and were shipping it to Miami for her. Would she be able to pick it up?

So my mother did what any animal lover would do. Or maybe not. She jumped in the car and drove to Florida. By herself. She didn't take a cell phone or make any plans. She just jumped in the car and drove. After three days of 12 hours of driving, she arrived in Jupiter, Florida and picked up her new puppy. Then, without even much of a stop, she turned around and headed home.

Since my mother doesn't drink caffeine she simply didn't eat so she could stay awake, only eating when she reached her evening destination. She drove through Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Iowa. In Illinois, at a rest stop, she found another straggler. A young kid looking to get to Minneapolis and she picked him up for the drive to Des Moines. My mother!!!! My mother picked up a hitchhiker. This is the same woman who has warned me for the last 30 years not to trust strangers. Not to talk too freely with odd people. And to never pick up hitchhikers. When I asked her about it, she says that he was such a sweet kid. When she dropped him at the rest stop in Ankeny she gave him a bit of money and her phone number with the promise that he would call her when he got home. She got her call at 8 that night.

As I talked with her this evening I had conflicting feelings. My mother is more adventurous than I am. And that makes me incredibly proud. She's normally very reserved and a bit suspicious. She's normally a stay at home person. And in the last week, she's broken all of my impressions. She's had the kind of adventure that only college kids tend to have.

And at the same time I'm furious with her... for acting so rashly. For putting herself in harms way. For being so much of an animal lover that she would do something this crazy. But what can I say, my mother may be becoming a vagabond. My mother!!! If you know her you'll be shocked by this story. Shocked and a bit awed. I'm just excited for her. She's had an incredible adventure and I could hear the pride in her voice. She'd done it by herself. She did it for all the right reasons and I couldn't be more proud of her.

Book Review: Nature Girl

I love Carl Hiaasen. Okay well I've never met the man but I love his writing. There is something about the ability to take a dozen or so oddball characters and weave them together into a hilarious story. When I first read John Irving I thought that he was the best at combining characters but Hiaasen takes it to a higher place. This book is filled with no less than a dozen characters who are all fascinating in their own right. And he manages to bring them all together on one small island to see what will happen.

Nature Girl follows Honey Santana, a single mom in the Everglades who is off her meds. She hears mismatched songs in her head constantly and reacts often violently when things displease. Well she is displeased when a telemarketer calls one evening and then calls her a name. So she sets about to track him down. Now the telemarketer is having an interesting week as it is. His mistress is about to dump him for being too boring, his rich wife is planning to divorce him, and a private investigater is tailing him. So when he gets a fake call from Honey offering him an ecotour in Florida he jumps at the chance. So the telemarketer, his mistress, and the private investigator all head down to Florida.

There they meet a Seminole Indian who is haunted by a tourist he didn't kill, a college girl who is bored with life and is just looking for something fun, a fish vendor who is stalking Honey, and Honey's ex-husband and son. And that's just the beginning. Imagine all of these on a small island to get an idea of the almost slapstick quality of this novel. He sets things up beautifully. There are so many kidnappings in this book it is hard to keep track of whose prisoner is whose. Each character is played up to the max. Boyd, the telemarketer, is just scum in the worst sense of the word. Honey is crazy but still very likable. Sammy, the Seminole Indian, just wants to be alone and can't seem to catch a break. Even Boyd's soon to be ex-wife is just a little crazy.

Hiaasen writes all of his books about Florida and particularly about wild Florida. When I was on vacation a couple weeks ago I read his The Downhill Lie, about golf. I'm always impressed with the subtle environmental message that he hides in his books. The bad guys hate the outdoors, the good guys revel in it. The swamp always wins. And these are hidden in the book. Anyone who reads his work will come away thinking about how hilarious a writer he is. They may not even notice any sort of message. The plot on this books is wild but somehow the reader is willing to follow. The characters are just too interesting to turn away. In the tradition of the best train wreck, we just have to keep looking.

This book was a perfect antidote for me. It has been weeks since I've done any real reading so this was a quick read filled with enjoyable characters. I devoured it in little over 24 hours. The perfect beach book, I could also see spending a cold snowy day curled up on the couch with this book. Just be careful who's in the room. I guarantee you will laugh, probably out loud, possibly shooting food out your nose. Yeah he's that funny.