Flashback Friday #9

The Florida Vacation-Conclusion

As I left off on my last Flashback Friday post, we were heading for a motel. I had never been to a motel. I had only seen them on TV. Glamorous places with chandeliers, spiral staircases & bellhops who want to carry your bags.(Oh, those are hotels, I didn't know there was a difference) What we got was a 12 room, single floor plan, with a guy in his undershirt at the front desk. There were two bed, so my brother & I shared a bed (compared to the cozy conditions that we had endured, it felt quite roomy).

Mom & Dad sent us out to the car to bring in the rest of the luggage. My brother handed me a bag and told me to take it to the room. As I turned around, it dawned on me that I didn't remember which room we were in. "Which room is ours?", I asked him. "The second one.", he replied. I opened the door and to my surprise, there was luggage on the bed that didn't belong to us, and nobody was in the room (this is when you still used a key to lock the motel door). I shut the door fast and turned back to my brother. He was practically rolling on the ground in laughter. "I can't believe you went into the wrong room", he howled. Not cool. After the bags were in the room, we were heading to the beach.

When we got to the beach, the gulf was pretty rough, and the waves were coming in three to four feet high. Mom sat on the beach while the rest of us headed to the water. I couldn't swim (still can't), but that didn't stop me from enjoying the Gulf of Mexico, and all the cool shells that were washing up. The sand was a mix of about 60% sand and 40% tiny shells. I collected several larger shells, and put them over by Mom. Once Dad asked my brother where I was. He pointed to a large wave, and said "Keep watching". As the wave crested, then fell, I was seen under it, sputtering, and spitting out salt water. I had bent over to get another shell,and the wave had completely engulfed me. I got my shell, and ran over to where Mom was. As I was running, I stumbled and fell. In doing so, I lacerated my knee on the tiny shells in the sand. As I mentioned, the Gulf is salt water, so the onrushing waves aggravated my injury. It looked like I took a grater to my knee. I thought I was dying.

Well, that ended the fun at the beach. Mom & Dad took me over to Uncle Percy's, and he cleaned my wound and patched me up. I think he was a health care provider, or a former military medic. Dad & my brother went back to the beach, while Mom & I were getting taken care of & calming down.

We visited a lot of the "touristy" sites around there like "Sunken Gardens" and a roadside mini-zoo where you could feed the monkeys by hand. We also went to a place called the shell factory that sold shells (imagine that).

Just before we left to go pick Doris & Bonnie up again, we made one last stop at a beach. This was a different beach, and there wasn't very many people on it. It might have had something to do with it being 11AM on a school day. I was determined to wade to my ankles, while Dad & my brother swam. Mom saw two seagulls, and decided to feed them with some leftover popcorn that was in the car (she loves feeding birds). She was having the best time because those seagulls kept asking for more. Suddenly, were heard Mom scream. We turned, and saw here surrounded by seagulls. There must have been 20 of them, all wanting fed. "Throw the popcorn as far as you can!" hollered Dad. Mom did, and her flock of seagulls scurried away to get it. Mom said she was really scared and it reminded her of the movie "The Birds".

We got back to Violet's house, and got everything packed into the car. All the goodbyes were said and were piled into the car. We were headed back to Ohio with another marathon driving session. We would be doing most of the driving at night because traffic wouldn't be as heavy.

We stopped to eat dinner near the Florida/Georgia border. When we got back in the car, I had a place on the back seat. By the time we got to Georgia, Nigel had fallen asleep, an had scooted me of the seat, unto the floor. I slept through most of Georgia on the floor of the car, not the most comfortable place in the world.

We made it home without incident. Bonnie was dropped off first, then Doris dropped our family off. I liked Florida, but I was glad to be back home. It would be another 25 years or so before I ever made it back to Florida.