Well! I’ve got this beautiful new website, and I’m not using it! It’s always my intention to write in my journal, but too often I find I do not have the time. That needs to stop.
As always, there is this issue of “time.” I say “I do not have the time.” But of course we all always HAVE time, we all always have the same amount of time, 24 hours a day, so it’s not about “not having time.” It’s more about prioritizing what we do with our time. Unfortunately, there are a number of things that we MUST do, like go to work, scoop the cat box, pay the bills, eat dinner, do the laundry. All these things most certainly take up a good deal of time. And oh yes! We need to sleep. Eight hours would be preferable, but if six or seven is all I can manage, so be it. And then, at the end of the day, when all this is done, with the two or three hours I have left to myself out of the 24 I was originally allotted (slightly more on the weekends), I need to prioritize what I would like to do with that time. And one of the things I would like to do is to take a few moments each and every day to write here in this journal.
This is going to be a priority from this point on. I make this bold acclamation. I only hope by the end of each day I am not too tired (from the working, cooking, scooping, washing, folding etc. before I head off for my six-seven hours of sleep) to make good on this promise.
And this will be my first entry as I make this promise. To begin, I want to talk briefly about the vacation Russ and I just took.
During this past week I have certainly not had any time to write in this journal! We had a busy and fun-filled time traveling to Florida and seeing everyone. Here are the highlights.
We started out on Friday morning, traveling through Montgomery to Dothan, where we stopped for lunch at The BasketCase, a nice sandwich shop in the downtown area. We had read good reviews online, and were not disappointed.
Next, we drove on towards the state line and into Gainesville, where we stopped for the night in a hotel. While in Gainesville, we drove around the campus and the “Student Ghetto” a little, so I could show Russ the places I lived when I went to school at UF. It’s amazing to me that all those places are still there! They were old and fairly decrepit 30 years ago, and they only look moreso now!
We ate dinner at “The Swamp” restaurant, which was pretty good. Russ had a “Gator Tail” sub. My main impression was that this restaurant, the whole commercial area just outside the university, and in fact everything in Gainesville was still pretty crowded, considering this is June! Does this town never slow down? What must it be like on a Saturday afternoon during football season? How can you even move? Tuscaloosa gets busy at times, but I imagine Gainesville must be a hundred times worse.
Anyway, another impression I had of Gainesville was how very hot and muggy it was the whole time we were there, even in the evening. I had sort of forgotten how severe the humidity can be in Florida. I had gone to Gainesville last year in May, when Mary graduated, and at that time, I pretty much came to grips with the reality that I no longer desired to live in Gainesville at any point in my future. I had held onto that possibility in my mind for so many years, but last year’s visit started to break that down, and this year’s visit confirmed it. Gainesville will always hold a special place in my heart because it was such a big part of an important time in my life, but now I see it as being part of my past, not my future. Thanks, Gainesville! But it’s time to move on.
The next day we did move on, traveling the length of the state to arrive at my parents’ place in Margate. Coming here always feels comfortable and welcoming. 
I don’t think I would ever want to live in South Florida again (unless Russ and I could afford a small vacation home for the winter months when we are retired) but I do enjoy seeing my family, catching up with everybody… and all the good eating!
Yes, a lot of this trip was about eating. We had a couple of good sit-down family meals on this leg of the trip, and also went out to Denny’s with Mary and her friend Scott while we were there. I know Denny’s is no big deal, but it’s a restaurant we don’t have in our neck of the woods, so I wanted to eat there. Plus, as AARP members, we got 20% off the entire bill! I wanted to be able to take advantage of that offer.
While we were here, I also reviewed some old family recipes with my mom, and I’m hoping that soon I’ll be able to start adding these to the “Chrissy’s Kitchen” section at the top of this page. Look for that soon! Unfortunately, the whole time I was visiting with family, I never was able to learn the secret recipe for Babcie’s Big Sprinkle Cookies. Bummer…
We also got to review some of the family geneology, and Russ added it into the Family Tree his dad is doing at Ancestry.com. I’ll let you all know later when things are up-to-date enough to look at!
While we were here we stopped into Wal Mart a couple of times, and I got to see something I had previously only heard about: my sister driving a forklift!
Once again, hot and humid while all this is going on. Made me appreciate my indoor job.
We bought Russ some flipflops, and sunscreen, and headed down to the beach to put our feet in the water. Apparently Fisherman’s Wharf is gone! It appears there is nothing but sand where it used to be. We went further up the coast to a place off Deerfield Beach where we got some delicious Key Lime Pie! Overall, this was a very “touristy” kind of day.
Mom is doing very well, seems to have a lot more energy. Dad is the same as always, and James appears to have lost some weight! So everyone seems to be doing well. Time to move on to the next stage of our journey.
On Tuesday morning we set out for the Tampa area, where we stayed for a couple of nights with Barbara and John. They had never met Russ before, so there was a lot of conversation, and then we went to this cute little sandwich shop for lunch on Wednesday, where we had Cuban sandwiches that were extremely delicious.
Wednesday evening we went over John and Karin’s house, then picked up Bozena and all headed over to Frenchie’s Rockaway Grill on Clearwater Beach. Once again, the place was packed! How must it be in the wintertime, when the snowbirds are here? I can’t imagine.
We had a slight wait for our table, finally seated indoors, but close to the patio, so there was not really any air conditioning, and only a slight breeze. The food was good, but the place was hot and noisy, and the waiter delivered the salads but never brought any silverware! (Karin got up from the table to track some down.) Afterwards we got to enjoy the beach a bit. The sand on the west coast of Florida is so much different than on the east, so fine and white!
My impression of the Tampa area was the same as of the Fort Lauderdale area, that it is hot and crowded. Again, I wouldn’t see myself living there. But that’s okay, because we were just on vacation to visit folks, not looking to buy a house!
Having said all that, though, our next stop in Florida, on Thursday afternoon, left me with quite a different impression. Yes, Tallahassee is just as hot and muggy as everywhere else in Florida, but I had never seen this city before and the little we did get to see, I fell in love with it. It has the college town charm of Gainesville, right next door to a downtown area that is so picturesque, but not overcrowded. And on top of all this, the seat of the state government! It’s all there!
We stayed at the Doubletree downtown, on the 13th floor, with an impressive view. We were in Tallahassee less than 24 hours, but the city really made a good impression on me. When we came home we read a news story that the US Conference of Mayors in Baltimore had just named Tallahassee as the “most livable” city in America. Wait. That’s not entirely accurate. It TIED with one other city: Tuscaloosa, Alabama! To which I said, “I sure do know how to pick ‘em!”
Now, I don’t know if I would agree that either Tallahassee or Tuscaloosa are the “most livable” cities in America. I know Tuscaloosa lacks some things that would make it a better place (Dunkin Donuts, for instance! And a Denny’s), and I’m sure Tallahassee does as well. Both places could have better weather—less in the way of tornadoes and/or hurricanes…and enough with the humidity already!! But it was pleasant to visit Tallahassee…but even better to come home at last to Tuscaloosa!
