Trip-o-logue (1)
Stories, memories, even maybe a few pics from our vacation trip, forthcoming
Saturday: Shifting Targets
This year's vacation trip took in the barrier islands along Florida's Gulf Coast, and Walt Disney World.
It gave us many opportunities to observe the truth of the aphorism, "No Plan Survives Contact with The Enemy."
We had told the kids we were going to Florida -- to the beach, and to WDW. Miss Chief latched on to the idea of the beach like it was the most exciting thing she'd ever heard in her life, and for two weeks running up to our departure, spoke of it incessantly. Every time we got in the car, she wanted to know if TODAY was the day we were leaving for the beach. Where was that beach, anyway? What was it doing? Was it coming to her, or was she going to it? Would it wait until she got there? What would it do while it waited for her? One could begin to imagine the beach as she did, a sentient creature expecting our visit as impatiently as she was.
The day we left, she rattled on and on. The trip took two days, due to our chronic inability to get four people and their luggage out of any given place and into a vehicle before 10:30 am (this also explains our chronic inability to get to church on Sunday on time). We are just not morning people; the Colonel's even less of one than I am. And the constraints of travel (like 11 am checkout times) make it unwise to continue driving past about 11 pm. So the first day we drove to Tallahassee, with Miss Chief's beach chatter rattling in our ears, and stopped at a Best Western just east of the city.
Exhausted and mostly asleep, Miss Chief still wanted THE BEACH.
Our plan, when we arrived in St. Petersburg, was to call the Colonel's grandfather and let him know we were in town, offload at the hotel, and then go on over. But by the time we got in to the hotel, I was afraid that if we did not immediately take Miss Chief to the beach, we'd have open revolt on our hands. So we unloaded into the room, slapped on sunscreen, and plopped her in the stroller for the one-block walk across the street to The Beach. Our intent was to *show* her the beach (see? Big sand box! With breakers!), then call Grandpa and head down the island.
She had other ideas.
Like, apparently, walking across the Gulf to Texas.
She popped up out of her stroller, grabbed her canes, and waded into the surf. Fully clothed! We didn't do swimsuits -- we weren't planning, at that point, to stay! But Miss Chief walked right out, as far as she could stand upright, as though she meant to keep right on going. We had to rein her in.
Also, we had to go back to the room to change clothes before we could go see Grandpa.
Which messed up my clothing plan for the week. More about that later.
At Grandpa and Grandma's house, we discovered that we were not the only Memorial Day Weekend guests. Their son P--- (they have three sons, only two of whom I've met, IIRC, unless P--- was the third and the other two were the ones I met before) was there with his wife and daughter, visiting from across the bay in Tampa. P--- is technically the Colonel's half-uncle (or would it just be "uncle"? Does one count by biological halves in such relationships?), being much-younger-half-brother to the Colonel's mother, but P--- and his brothers were so close to the Colonel in age that he never called them "uncle" growing up, and doesn't now. So P--- is just P---. Nevertheless, Miss Chief immediately extrapolated from the fact that P--- was Grandpa's son, to the notion that P---'s not-quite-six-year-old daughter was a cousin of some description, and immediately began calling her "my cousin." How she sorted that one out, I don't know, but she seems generally very savvy about people and relationships; more so than I have ever been. She did seem confused by the idea that P---'s wife shares a first name with Grandma, but that one was a little confusing to me, too.
The three little blond girls took off together and were pretty much inseparable for the duration.
Grandpa's house is a little 3BR 2BA ranch, with a postage-stamp yard and beach access across the street, just beyond the megacondominiums that line the Gulf Coast. He's lived there for
thirty-odd years. Since I've known the Colonel, we've visited once, with the Colonel's folks, when we were teenagers. We've talked often about going back -- we have a standing invitation to visit -- but it's in a different direction than the rest of our families, and for a long time, finances just didn't permit the extra trip in a different direction. Well, now they do. And I have to say, the beach must be good for one's health, because Grandpa and Grandma look fit and fine and much like they did twenty years ago.
In the back, Grandpa's postage-stamp yard is now a pool in a screened enclosure (these seem to be the Current Thing in Florida, we saw them *everywhere*); the front yard is a patch of grass and some landscaping. I took the kids out to the pool that first night, in response to their pleading, and the Colonel sat and visited with Grandpa and P--- and watched The Deadliest Catch marathon on Grandpa's shiny new 62.5 inch flatscreen television.
The Colonel pointed out later that Grandpa has my father-in-law's dream television (the thing is HUGE), and my dad's dream yard (it's so SMALL!). Hee.
The kids swam, P--- grilled burgers and hot dogs, and we visited until it was time to go back to the hotel and crash.
That was Saturday.
Saturday: Shifting Targets
This year's vacation trip took in the barrier islands along Florida's Gulf Coast, and Walt Disney World.
It gave us many opportunities to observe the truth of the aphorism, "No Plan Survives Contact with The Enemy."
We had told the kids we were going to Florida -- to the beach, and to WDW. Miss Chief latched on to the idea of the beach like it was the most exciting thing she'd ever heard in her life, and for two weeks running up to our departure, spoke of it incessantly. Every time we got in the car, she wanted to know if TODAY was the day we were leaving for the beach. Where was that beach, anyway? What was it doing? Was it coming to her, or was she going to it? Would it wait until she got there? What would it do while it waited for her? One could begin to imagine the beach as she did, a sentient creature expecting our visit as impatiently as she was.
The day we left, she rattled on and on. The trip took two days, due to our chronic inability to get four people and their luggage out of any given place and into a vehicle before 10:30 am (this also explains our chronic inability to get to church on Sunday on time). We are just not morning people; the Colonel's even less of one than I am. And the constraints of travel (like 11 am checkout times) make it unwise to continue driving past about 11 pm. So the first day we drove to Tallahassee, with Miss Chief's beach chatter rattling in our ears, and stopped at a Best Western just east of the city.
Exhausted and mostly asleep, Miss Chief still wanted THE BEACH.
Our plan, when we arrived in St. Petersburg, was to call the Colonel's grandfather and let him know we were in town, offload at the hotel, and then go on over. But by the time we got in to the hotel, I was afraid that if we did not immediately take Miss Chief to the beach, we'd have open revolt on our hands. So we unloaded into the room, slapped on sunscreen, and plopped her in the stroller for the one-block walk across the street to The Beach. Our intent was to *show* her the beach (see? Big sand box! With breakers!), then call Grandpa and head down the island.
She had other ideas.
Like, apparently, walking across the Gulf to Texas.
She popped up out of her stroller, grabbed her canes, and waded into the surf. Fully clothed! We didn't do swimsuits -- we weren't planning, at that point, to stay! But Miss Chief walked right out, as far as she could stand upright, as though she meant to keep right on going. We had to rein her in.
Also, we had to go back to the room to change clothes before we could go see Grandpa.
Which messed up my clothing plan for the week. More about that later.
At Grandpa and Grandma's house, we discovered that we were not the only Memorial Day Weekend guests. Their son P--- (they have three sons, only two of whom I've met, IIRC, unless P--- was the third and the other two were the ones I met before) was there with his wife and daughter, visiting from across the bay in Tampa. P--- is technically the Colonel's half-uncle (or would it just be "uncle"? Does one count by biological halves in such relationships?), being much-younger-half-brother to the Colonel's mother, but P--- and his brothers were so close to the Colonel in age that he never called them "uncle" growing up, and doesn't now. So P--- is just P---. Nevertheless, Miss Chief immediately extrapolated from the fact that P--- was Grandpa's son, to the notion that P---'s not-quite-six-year-old daughter was a cousin of some description, and immediately began calling her "my cousin." How she sorted that one out, I don't know, but she seems generally very savvy about people and relationships; more so than I have ever been. She did seem confused by the idea that P---'s wife shares a first name with Grandma, but that one was a little confusing to me, too.
The three little blond girls took off together and were pretty much inseparable for the duration.
Grandpa's house is a little 3BR 2BA ranch, with a postage-stamp yard and beach access across the street, just beyond the megacondominiums that line the Gulf Coast. He's lived there for
thirty-odd years. Since I've known the Colonel, we've visited once, with the Colonel's folks, when we were teenagers. We've talked often about going back -- we have a standing invitation to visit -- but it's in a different direction than the rest of our families, and for a long time, finances just didn't permit the extra trip in a different direction. Well, now they do. And I have to say, the beach must be good for one's health, because Grandpa and Grandma look fit and fine and much like they did twenty years ago.
In the back, Grandpa's postage-stamp yard is now a pool in a screened enclosure (these seem to be the Current Thing in Florida, we saw them *everywhere*); the front yard is a patch of grass and some landscaping. I took the kids out to the pool that first night, in response to their pleading, and the Colonel sat and visited with Grandpa and P--- and watched The Deadliest Catch marathon on Grandpa's shiny new 62.5 inch flatscreen television.
The Colonel pointed out later that Grandpa has my father-in-law's dream television (the thing is HUGE), and my dad's dream yard (it's so SMALL!). Hee.
The kids swam, P--- grilled burgers and hot dogs, and we visited until it was time to go back to the hotel and crash.
That was Saturday.