As we all know, good dental hygiene includes a visit to the dentist every six months or so. Also, good dentists are hard to find, and I end up flying across the country to Florida to get my teeth cleaned, my gums poked, and my flossing habits judged. Of course, my parents have decided to live there as well, so this is more convenient than it sounds.
Having now been to the Orlando area countless times over the last 15 years or so, there is little desire to do anything Disney or even anything theme park adjacent anymore. Those things just aren’t all that relaxing anymore, especially in a post-covid world. Now, we pass our days with little to no plan, doing our best to relax.
Central Florida has been receiving a large amount of rain on top of their usual heavy storms this time of year. Water levels are quite high, and a stark contrast to what’s happening in the west. When Nicole and I went for a walk, we noticed that a boat jetty was completely submerged under the water. Apparently this wasn’t even that submerged, because we couldn’t even see the dock in the days that followed. We thought the lake was reflecting the clouds nicely, nonetheless.
The weather can be a bit muggy this time of year as well, so outdoor activities were somewhat abbreviated. This didn’t stop us from shooting hoops at a nearby park while other youths were in school. I experimented a bit with a “motion” mode on my Pixel camera that uses some sort of sorcery to isolate the person in motion from the background.
After spending 3-4 days in the Orlando area, we continued west to St. Petersburg. Nicole’s parents have a condo out there that was refurbished recently, and Nicole wanted to check it out. It was, however, a challenge to get a rental car on a Sunday in one of the most touristed cities in the world. Yes, we definitely could have rented one at MCO airport, but that is a long drive in the wrong direction. We were finally able to find one affiliated with a hotel with about five minutes to spare before they closed.
With the rental car sorted, we drove 90 minutes to St. Petersburg and ultimately the Isla del Sol, an island that basically has a community of condos. It seemed a bit sleepy this time of year, with the snowbird community still residing in Ohio, or New York, or Ontario. We had dinner at a place called “The Deck,” where we were the youngest people there by about 45 years. We left once karaoke was in full swing. Not a single song was chosen that was recorded post-1980.
The next day, we went to the beach. The beach was . . .fine, though I somehow managed to get a bit sunburnt despite being underneath an umbrella the entire time. We got dinner in downtown St. Petersburg, which was also fairly calm. There was a big tree near where we parked.
All in all, it was a fairly relaxing trip. While we were away, I was informed that I was assigned a flight pairing for my first flights as Captain. I had been in a holding pattern for the last couple months, waiting for the airline to contact me when they had something available. While I was glad to have some semblance of a schedule on the horizon, the sun was setting on the nice chunk of time off I had just enjoyed. Such a shame. In any event, I have about two weeks until my preassigned vacation days set in, so I can hopefully manage until then.
passports & pepto bismol 