12 Family Adventures in Florida

Welcome to our family!
 
We just got back from the best vacation we have ever been on as an entire family. It is also the furthest we have traveled as a tribe. We packed our bags and flew 2,800 miles to sunny Florida, or so we hoped. August is hurricane season and a spinning storm on the radar could have ruined our trip. But it didn't.
 
It was the first time that three of my kids had flown on an airplane. It was fun to watch them as the jet fired its engine and the g-force glued them to their seats, and as they intently watched through the window the tiny objects on the ground as we flew overhead.
 
There was never a dull moment. For one week we traveled from the Gulf Coast to the Atlantic and had a new experience everyday. We felt true humidity, drove on toll roads, watched for alligators, played croquette in my brother-in-law's back yard, waited in a miserable traffic jam in Orlando and spotted several armadillo road-kills.
 
We learned that Florida is a beautiful state. Rows and rows of tall forest grow along the roads. Swamps and lakes are everywhere. Beaches here have the finest white sand I have ever seen, and there are small, quick lizards everywhere.
 
What follows is a list of our adventures:
 

1. Watching a rocket launch—from 94 miles away! As luck would have it, we were in Florida for the final launch of the Delta IV Medium rocket. The only problem was that we were also at Butler Beach, which is a considerable distance from the Kennedy Space Center. We woke up early enough to be on the beach at 8:45. Jordan watched the live stream on his phone and we all looked toward the south. Billowing clouds hung low in the horizon, but beyond that the skies were clear. We had heard you could see the rocket from this distance, but no one in our group had actually done it. The countdown came, the rocket lifted, and within seconds we could see an arching plume in the southern sky. A couple minutes later came the sonic boom.
 

2. Learning to surf. After watching the rocket launch, it was our turn to learn how to surf. Living in a desert, it is no surprise that no one in our family has ever surfed. Luckily we have friends who live in St. Augustine that were anxious to give us lessons. It didn't look pretty. There were a lot of scrapes and bruises, and very little standing up on the surf board. But our family consensus was that learning to surf was the highlight of our trip. Thanks to Dirk and Wendy for giving us such an experience.
 

3. Eating Key-lime pie. We were told that we had to try the key-lime pie. On our way home from the beach we found a small store advertizing homemade key-lime pie and orange juice ice cream. We had to stop! We were happy to find it because they were closing for the season the next day. We bought one pie and a quart of ice cream and took them back to our Airbnb where they waited in our refrigerator until about midnight when we pulled out the pie and sliced it up. I will admit, I wasn't disappointed.
 

4. Pictures on the beach. Jenelle has always dreamed of having family pictures taken on the beach. Everything came together for the perfect evening! The water was crystal-clear and the storm clouds suppressed their rain. The sunset radiated majestically. The girls were beautiful. On our way there we forgot Brittany's picture, but luckily we remembered in time to turn around and get it. The setting for our perfect evening was Indian Rocks Beach, a lesser known beach compared to its cousin in the north.
 

5. Dining at Waffle House.  Maybe I've lived a sheltered life, but I've never eaten at Waffle House. The closest one to our home is over 400 miles away in Phoenix, Arizona. When I saw one in Cocoa Beach, I knew we had to try it. I fell in love before I even took a bite. Everything was pretty darn cheap. Then I fell in love even more when I saw the portions and tasted the food. In this place there is nothing wrong with ordering a hamburger with a waffle. And I will say that my waffle was the best I've ever had.
 

6. Riding the carousel. Next to the library in St. Augustine is a carousel. The cost to ride is $1 per person. Certainly not what we expected coming to one of America's most historic cities, but well worth our time.
 

7. Wandering through a very old city.  St. Augustine is the longest continually inhabited city of European origin in the United States. We spent the evening strolling around the old quarter and getting a brief feel of the atmosphere. I will admit that it is a bit on the touristy side, with most things aimed to get your money (and a lot of it). It has a Disneyland feel, but with a sprinkling of historical landmarks. It was here that Savanah was happy to meet up with her friend, Gavin, who's mother drove him eight hours from North Carolina to meet us!
 

8. A taste of Havana.  One of my goals was to eat at a Cuban restaurant in Florida. We found Pepo's Cuban Cafe in St. Petersburg and it fulfilled all our expectations, including a low cost. I was worried we would have to reserve in advance to get a table, but when we arrived we were the only ones there. I ordered their original pork dish, with Spanish beans and black rice on the side. It came with toasted Cuban bread and butter. The girls behind the counter must have come straight from Cuba because we could barely understand them. The decor of the restaurant was great, with several large paintings of Havana on the wall. This was the first true Cuban meal for any of us.
 

9. Evening at the ballpark.  I am trying to visit all the Major League Baseball stadiums I can before I die. I am now up to three. Since we were in the area, we had to catch a Tampa Bay Rays game. Kaitlyn and I both love baseball, but I hoped the rest of the family would too. Our seats were low enough we could watch the pitchers in the bullpen close-up. Even though there were a meager 10,000 spectators, there was still a lot of hooting, hollering, cowbells and an attempt at the wave. Kaitlyn brought her mitt, hoping to catch a foul ball (which is a sure sign that nothing will come our way).
 

10. Dancing at Steak 'n Shake.  Okay, maybe we weren't dancing, but sometimes we felt like it! Probably our favorite meal in Florida was at a Steak 'n Shake in Merritt Island. It was casual with good tasting food in a fun environment. This is another one of those restaurants we don't have in Utah, or many other places in the West.
 

11. Day at Cocoa Beach.  I wish we hadn't left Cocoa Beach. We had so little time there. I knew it would be our last stop at the ocean and I wished to relish every moment. A storm was brewing off the Atlantic and the waves seemed to come stronger and more frequent than usual. When a wave would come I would dive in, head first, then hold my breath and float in the water for thirty seconds while a couple more rollers came in and tossed me around. That was my ritual of the day.

It was in Cocoa Beach that we visited Ron Jon's Surf Shop and learned what we needed to buy to become true surf bums. Later that day Jordan and I took a walk up the main drag, then looped around and walked back to our hotel via the beach. By now more people were on the beach and the sun was high on the horizon. We cherished every minute we had, knowing that the next time that these two desert-dwellers would return to the beach would be far too distant in the future.
 

12. NASA. Two of our kids, Jordan and Jenna, have a passion for science and anything that has to do with space exploration. For this reason I knew we had to visit the Kennedy Space Center. Our visit lasted eight hours and was well worth the price of admission. We learned a ton and got a close-up look at many of the sites and artifacts that surround the history of NASA. For me, personally, the most touching experience was learning about the astronauts that died in various missions since the 1960's. I can remember both the Challenger and Columbia disasters, and to be able to learn of the people inside those shuttles was a very humbling experience. The two major feelings I left with were that of awe and sadness. Awe for the major accomplishments of space travel and sadness for those who lost their life in this pursuit. ♠