I got up at 3:30 the morning of the 7th
of May. I got ready and finished packing a few things, then drove
over to my house (I wanted to pick up my board shorts that I leave in
the laundry room). I noticed that the pool pump came unplugged, so I
went to plug it back in, and noticed in the moonlight that there was
a kitten floating in my pool. I don't like the neighborhood cats, and
lately I've hear a lot of mewing from litters, but it was still sad
to see a kitten drowned. I scooped him out and took care of him, but
it was still a sucky way to start the vacation.
I walked to the light rail station so
that I wouldn't have to leave a car in a lot somewhere or pay for
parking. As I was passing Tempe Town Lake, the sun came up and lit
everything beautifully (it's been a long time since I've seen a
rising sun). I got to the airport at 5:45, and the security line was
way long. I was pretty nervous, and it's a good thing I got there
when I did. I got through security, and went straight to my gate. I
got on the plane at 6:14 and the plane took off at 6:25. Cutting it
way close!
The flight was good. I had an aisle
seat and read most of the way to Atlanta. I was grateful for
headphones: there was a baby the row in front of me that wouldn't
stop crying no matter how its mother tried.
In Atlanta, we got in late and then it
took forever to get off the plane. I had a 50 minute layover that was
reduced to a 25 minute layover. I was luckily in the same terminal (I
remember trying to negotiate Atlanta once before between terminals-
CRAZY). I even had enough time to stop and grab a hot pretzel and
cheese before getting on the plane.
So I find my seat, and there's a lady
in it. I ask her about that as a flight attendant is walking up. She
mentions that her seat is in the row forward. She then says “you
can take it if you'd like- sit next to these two attractive girls.”
I just kind of laughed awkwardly and told her she could take it. I
couldn't tell if she was their mother trying to set me up with them,
or just a random stranger playing matchmaker. Either way: weird.
I sat next to Charlie from Atlanta for
the flight to Palm Beach. She was just finishing up her studies in
Animal Behavioral Psychology. It was really cool to chat with her and
learn about what she was going to do. As we were getting ready to
take off, I was looking around, and two rows in front of me and to
the left, I saw Austin sitting there. Small world! We were on the
same flight.
After we got off, he and I collected
luggage, met up with Cicely and Chris, and headed out. We were taking
the train to meet the other 4 in Fort Lauderdale. To get to the
station, we had to take a taxi. We got there just fine, and bought
our tickets with less than 5 minutes till the train arrived.
As we took the hour-long train ride
down to the others, we realized just how diverse this trip was
turning out to be. We'd traveled by air, rail, taxi, car, and were
soon going to be adding boat to it as well. As far as modern travel
is concerned,we've pretty much used them all!
We met up with the group (including an
epic “airport reunion”-esque running hug), got our rental car and
headed in to the hotel. By the time we were actually pulled in and
settled in to hotel, it was getting in to the evening, so we had
dinner and then went and sat in the hot tub for a while. Everyone was
pretty tired, so we kind of just wrapped it up at that point and
called it a night.
Tuesday was both a challenge and a
blast. After doing a hurried breakfast at the hotel, we went over to
a resort just south of the Everglades for a “tour”. That quick
tour turned in to a 3 hour 30 minute timeshare presentation. Chantel
won the cruise, but before we could pick up the vouchers for it, we
had to go on the “tour”. So this large, awkward man named Jim
took us 8 college kids around a timeshare resort and spent three
hours trying to convince us that we needed to buy a timeshare
together. It was pretty awful (he insulted every single one of us at
one point or another) and boring (none of us had any intention of
buying), but to be honest- at my $12/hour job's rate, I “paid”
$42 of my time for a cruise to the Bahamas. Yes, I could have gotten
upset, but I didn't think it was really worth it. I was glad when it
was over though.
With our entire morning gone, we
decided to head straight to the beach, by way of the chiropractor
(Shantel had slept wrong and messed up her neck really bad). We
headed straight out Commercial Boulevard to the beach that was
closest. It was beautiful! The water was just a tad chilly, but that
made it so much fun. We waded out in the smooth sands and swam around
a bunch. Marc had brought a snorkel, and I found another pair of
goggles, so we had two out exploring at any given time.
Rain rolled in, but we decided that
couldn't stop us. We took our stuff back to the car to keep it dry
and went back swimming in the rain. Swimming in the ocean in the rain
is a really cool experience. Once the lightning started, though, we
really did have to get out. We split up at that point, and I went
with the group to the sushi restaurant for dinner. Sushi is good, and
it definitely is best when its fresh, but I still am just not a huge
fan.
Chris and Austin had bought sunglasses
behind mine and Marc's back earlier in the day, so we went shopping
after and Marc found some glasses that he liked which left me as the
only guy without sunglasses. We headed back to the hotel at that
point to fill out all the forms that we would need for getting on the
cruise ship and hang out in the hot tub. While I was planning on
getting to bed at a pretty reasonably early hour, Marc and Chris
started a pretty in-depth theological discussion, and I just couldn't
help but stay up for it. I did manage to get to bed around 1:30 AM
though. My poor internal clock- shifted forward 3 time zones, and
then staying up super late- it'll be a miracle if my body doesn't
give out.
I'll post a blog update with the next
couple of days' activities (and hopefully more pictures) when I can. Just for info's sake, here's
the list of us traveling together:
Me
Marc
Chris
Austin
Chantel
Shantel
Cicely
Laura(n)
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