📅 June 2015

We finally left Florida. How weird is it to be gone from Buffalo that long?









I forgot to post pictures of the house we rented. It was pretty awesome - for less than the cost of a hotel, we had three rooms, bedrooms, and even it's own birdcaged pool and of course HGTV. Everyone in Florida seems to just run from enclosure to enclosure in the summer lest you get snatched by an alligator or flying shark.

The last night of the trip, we headed over to Terry's mom's house to hang out with the family.

I played the gross Jelly Belly game that @paul's mom had gotten for the boys with Aiden and CJ. Luckily I missed most of the gross ones but I still tried dog food and stinky sock flavored beans. The taste sticks with you. I'd hate to have been the test taster for these.







By the time we left, Finn was crying ;(. Poor guy. Hopefully we will see them all again soon. Here's a drawing that Finn made of his favorite video.

We headed up to Sarasota with Caleb, Paris and Denise to see if there was anyone who stayed up past 9pm in the whole state. There wasn't a ton going on but there was this "secret" bar behind a sandwich shop called Pangea Lounge - 1568 Main St, Sarasota, FL 34236 - no sign or anything. They had good fries and alcohol cereal - I traded my weird liquory drink for Caleb's cereal. Even the prices were reasonable for frou-frou drinks.

@paul, @terry and I on the second last night biked to Caspersen beach, an place in Venice allegedly popular for naked people and sharks' teeth (weird combination) nude beach in Venice. While we didn't see anyone there who was swimming nackt, we did see this grumpy tortoise, sea turtle nests and a really beautiful sunset. We even gave him a brain pet although he wasn't happy about it. Is this what cheating on your pet feels like?

In the ultimate bougie showdown, I somehow managed to out eat @paul and @YesThatCasey at the whole foods in Sarasota. I ended up with nearly 1.5 pounds of food, more than @paul's $12 meal. I did not buy a $4 coconut drink or dessert plus the ridiculous $12 a pound cherries they sold him. I refuse to go here once it opens in Buffalo. A lady was being carted away by ambulance when we got there. I'd like to think it was a severe case of sticker shock.









This flamingo bike was pretty awesome

A swampy wetland full of gators, turtles, and otters (didn't get to see any of those though :(). It did have a short wooden tower and bridge you could climb up and see forever from.

Just walking down a paved path in the palm woods made me wonder how people managed to live in Florida before they drained the Everglades. I read a little bit about the Seminoles in the area and their wars that led to their displacement/genocide. Maybe I'll post about that sometime.

I had a cold for a good chunk of the vacation. So I was taking sudafed to help unstuff me for a bit.

When I played some disastorous beer pong with the Mickelson clan, I failed realize how crazy it get. @xandra has a pretty weird video of me.

Despite the craziness of a broken discount plane and a pathological liar we experienced last Friday that @paul wrote about, we got off safely on Saturday.

I haven't been on a plane in 12 years, also to Florida, so it was a cool experience. The carbon footprint makes me cringe but I guess I don't do it often? Not good.

Anyway it was kind of like riding in a Greyhound, just louder and no Amish smells. The view when you take off and land is nice too. it reminds me of SimCity seeing all the neat little rows of farms and roads and towns.

My favorite transportation is still bike then Amtrak.

We went down to Zoar with @uchina and @YesThatCasey so we could float down the river. The rapids were crazy fun and weather was pretty good.

Masumi flipped once but other than that no casualties don't the rocks.

Paul dragged me to Walmart to get some rafts for our Zoar trip. Its so terrible but you do see some weird junk. Like this family full of Stinkys, or this "I wish I was a princess" mirror that makes you look fat. Or a machete, in case you forgot yours and you are in a pinch.