Tag Archives: spring break

A Four-Day Vacation With My Former Self

There appears to be three primary reasons people fly to Florida: to visit an elderly relative, to attend the funeral of an elderly relative, or to party on the beach. On the flight home, I sat between two people returning from two different funerals. At age 42, I can proudly say I was the one who had partied on the beach.

I use the word “party” loosely. I couldn’t hold my drink then and I can’t hold it now. While sunbathing in my SPF-50 long-sleeved rashguard on Siesta Key, I barely drank my daiquiri, some ruby-colored concoction that melted the second it was made (I’m discovering I’m a high-end tequila gal, anyway). Everyone else looked leathery and was gulping down what looked like cheap beer or neon-colored drinks like mine. On the beach, I scuttled toward any bit of shade, like some frightened crab eager for protection. I’m not getting any younger, and have somehow remained wrinkle-free, like some freshly laundered white Oxford shirt. In fact, I received a few compliments on my clear complexion while visiting Florida last week and at first, I thought “What the hell? Are the labels on my overpriced skin care products actually true?” Then I looked around at all the raisins in the sun.

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So what brought me to Bradenton, Florida? Me and my mates from college try to meet up every few years to just hang and reconnect. Without planning for it, this trip fell almost exactly 20 years after our college graduation. Our last jaunt was to Savannah, Georgia, in 2012, so it was good to get everyone together again; our chemistry as a group is something I’d snort and sell because it’s so special. Come to think of it, we meet up in the Southeast frequently and I have no idea why. We’ve met up in Savannah twice and New Orleans twice. One year, they threw me a bridal shower in New Orleans’ delightfully spectral French Quarter, a fantastic time in which I received far too many skimpy pieces of lingerie, drank lemonade that could trigger diabetes, and danced with an eighty-something-year-old man who had some serious sweet moves.

Now we’re all a decade or more into marriages and mortgages, some of us have kids and menageries of pets, some of us are already talking early retirement, because, Holy Crap! the mid-fifties are closer than we care to acknowledge. We’re scattered across the United States, one in Los Angeles, one in Kansas City, one in Washington, DC, one in my hometown of Rochester, NY, and then me. This past winter we were all bitching about the cold, Florida came up in the conversation, and one of us mentioned her mom’s friend’s place in Bradenton where this friend’s mom’s friend snowbirds with her husband. My advice to you, at any age: when a friend’s mom’s friend says “Hey, I’ve got a house in Florida you can use!” you show up. No matter where it is. Just go.

For four days, we hung out in a house about twice as big as mine and purchased at less than half the price because everything is bigger and cheaper outside the New York City region. I was grateful the house wasn’t decorated in the aquamarine-seashell kitsch I expect of Florida. I sipped morning coffee on a lanai—a word I never get to use in the Northeast—while watching lizards dart everywhere. We affectionately referred to the area as “Del Boca Vista” (a Seinfeld reference for those of you who came of age after 1998). Next to the visiting grandchildren, we were indeed the youngest in the ‘hood. The best perk—besides being almost free—was that the house stood just feet away from a beautiful, inground pool—a Florida backyard staple—where the water temperature never dropped below 80. Every day, my friends and I sat in the pool until our skin pruned. The pool was where we chatted bluntly for hours about everything under that unforgiving Florida sun because that’s what you can do with friends who have known you since you were 18; you can say anything, anytime. That’s why we do these trips.

I’ve always been sensitive to my environment, and was worried Florida would get under my skin and make me feel old before my time. The exact opposite happened. If anything, hanging with my college friends made me feel 20 again. We blasted the Gin Blossoms in the car. We gossiped. We compared notes on sex. No one counted calories because no one cared.

Which made driving around Bradenton a little weird because the town, like the rest of Florida, had its fair share of funeral homes, and since I was the one skipping the second daiquiri to drive three forty-something women around town, I noticed these things.

But the area surprised me, too. We encountered Loggerhead turtle eggs on the beach. I ate fish tacos that were almost as good as the ones I ate in Mexico. We visited Bradenton’s quirky, thriving arts community where we bought the same kind of funky jewelry we used to buy 20 years ago. It wasn’t all Winn-Dixies and funeral homes; there was a heartbeat in Bradenton that was still going strong. The Del Boca Vistas in America may be cookie-cutter, but they haven’t flatlined. In fact, they’re oddly rejuvenating.

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By the time I boarded my flight home, I realized I’d had a Doctor Who moment. Yes, Florida is strange—the crazy aunt of the Continental 48, as someone once said—but I had enjoyed time travel. While in Bradenton with my college friends, I got to revisit the old me, which is still vocal, chugging along, and dropping a few too many f-bombs, but is also occasionally overshadowed by the forty-something stuff, which is to be expected. We can’t be 20 forever. Yet it was fun to fly alone. I wore artsy jewelry and bought a $12 dress at some secondhand shop (though I think the term is “upcycled” now). I didn’t feel like a suburban hausfrau. I went four days without talking to a neighbor about school districts, property taxes or who has what disease (their favorite topics, not mine; I’d rather talk about books, but no one in my zip code reads for pleasure). I was just Kate, the blonde woman blessed with good skin tone who always loved to travel but hated to fly, the girl who never could hold her liquor, the one working on a novel, listening to the Gin Blossoms.

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How Eating Waffles Inspired a Trip to See Pigs

This always happens with freelancing: work that actually pays slows down a bit so I turn my attention to non-paying creative writing pursuits, like this blog and a manuscript for a novel. Then work that actually pays shows up in my inbox (and for that I am very grateful if any of my editors are reading right now), creative pursuits get sidelined, deadlines are met, invoices are paid, hopefully editors are happy, and suddenly it’s been weeks since I touched my blog or manuscript.

Time to dust off the blog today, despite deadlines, to share with you our favorite Sunday morning pastime—sitting around the table planning vacations.

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I’ve mentioned my wanderlust here before, and a crumbling kitchen, not to mention two dead trees in our backyard that require professional removal, do not seem to quell my addiction in the least (a note about living in the suburbs: tree removal can cost thousands of dollars or the equivalent of an all-inclusive to the Caribbean). When the weather starts to suck, which for us is usually mid-November when all the glorious red and gold of fall has blown away, Sunday mornings are spent slowly. We slowly eat homemade gluten-free waffles while slowly perusing our various computer devices for vacation ideas. We sit at the table for hours doing this, so much so that we have spring break 2015 planned.

So what’s on the horizon after all this waffle-making and vacation-planning? Next month, we leave for Taos, New Mexico, to enjoy a Southwest Christmas, and then we’re crashing our friends’ wedding anniversary and New Year’s plans by staying at their place in Phoenix, Arizona. Returning to the Northeast after nearly two weeks out West will feel like it always does: a slap in the face. Some Jersey traffic will set us straight quickly.

Ok, but really happened over waffles was this: after we get back from the Southwest, in April, we’ll either visit Iceland for this awesome writers retreat or I’ll be squealing in multiple tongues because I will have been accepted into Sirenland, which takes place in Positano, Italy. Both conferences are fantastic, and I would be thrilled to attend either. Iceland would be a completely new experience for me. I traveled to Italy in 1996, but that was a four-day drive-through visit to Rome and Florence. The Amalfi Coast? That’s Rome’s pampered, beautifully blonde cousin, someone I need to get to know.

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While outlining Spring Break 2014, our family decided on Spring Break 2015, and it involves pigs. We haven’t been to the Caribbean in years, despite discounts constantly plastered on the Internet and at bus stops, especially during long New York City winters, so in 2015, we’re going to spend a week swimming with the pigs in the Bahamas, which is far better than swimming with the fishes here. Wild porcines have taken over a cay called Exumas, and I have just got to see what this is about. In addition to hating planes, I hate boats, but there are some promising-looking tours that take you out for snorkeling and pig paddling, so I am open-minded about this. Mike thinks the water there will taste like bacon. Not salty water. Bacon. This isn’t surprising given that we planned this trip while eating waffles.

Ode to the Swimming Pool

For years, I’ve based my hotel choices not on price or location but on the quality of the pool. Indoor, outdoor, it didn’t matter, but there had to be a well-maintained pool, one that the hotel was proud to showcase, not something hidden on the sixth floor at the end of some abandoned hallway.

I turned my Cheeveresque pool quest into an assignment for The Los Angeles Times (Nora Ephron’s mother is right–everything is copy!). The article appears in today’s LA Times travel section, focusing on Southern California pools with a few pools nearby in the desert, as well as some surprisingly alluring pools in cold places like Seattle and Montreal.

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(Photo credit: Splashtopia at Rancho Las Palmas Resort & Spa)

I wish the Northeast had California’s pool season. I live here, the swankier pools are there, so we travel out west once a year for about a week or two every summer and, yes, we sample the pools (and the beaches) the way you sample Napa wines. You can read about my family escapades to California here. Our annual California vacation involves a week in LA so Mike can visit the Mother Ship (his employer) while Anna and I soak up quality pool time. We make time to explore other parts of California, too. One year it was a day trip to San Diego. Another year we did Disneyland. Last year, we did Big Sur and San Francisco. This year, we’re doing four days in Monterey and a day trip to San Juan Capistrano Mission. Ironically, the day my pool article debuted is the day I paid the bill for our family’s summer town pool membership, though pool season doesn’t start until Memorial Day weekend, so we have a two-month wait ahead of us. Meanwhile, SoCal families may be reading my story now and could spend Easter poolside if they chose to. It’s a sweet life out there in SoCal. New York City’s bagels are better, but SoCal has a lot going for it. It’s always a beautiful sight when our flight descends towards LA airport and I can see all the backyard pools glistening sky blue.

Sprinting Toward Spring Break

It’s hard to write about the beaches in Cancun or along Southern California’s coast when it’s barely 40 degrees out and the sun is ignoring you. But I did it. As we all daydream about where to thaw out this spring, I thought a roundup of some favorite spring break destinations might be in order. You can check out my latest blog posts for CheapOAir, like the one about beaches in Los Angeles or the one about Cancun’s beaches or there’s also Cancun’s newest Mayan culture museum and it’s not-as-new underwater sculpture garden. My tropical wish list includes more of Mexico, and more of the Caribbean, especially St. Lucia. Both have been added to the ever-growing vacation destination list.

What about the Florida Keys? We visited Key West after the annual wave of college party goers had already swept through and locals had swept up the remaining detritus. By the time we arrived in April, we had a clean, quiet island of margarita-sipping grownups who had already partied hard years ago. I love the funky, artsy, “we-answer-to-no-one” vibe on Key West and we look forward to going back and visiting our favorite pools and cafes again.

If you prefer history over the beach, Washington, D.C. is a fantastic spring break getaway because so much to see and do there is free, plus it’s the one time of year the city actually looks like it’s in a good mood (as opposed to humid, stressed-out summers or deadline-driven tension throughout fall and winter as fiscal and calendar years come to a close). How can you be grumpy when everything is blooming pink? Also, the foodie scene is gaining ground and visibility in Washington. Book soon because cherry blossom season is just weeks away.

Speaking of cherry blossoms, our spring break this year will be in Japan, where blossoming cherry trees are treated with the same reverence as Buddhist temples. I’m buzzing with excitement, and really look forward to blogging, tweeting, posting and just spewing giddiness via social media while touring Tokyo and Kyoto. More to come!