Florida or Bust

 It has been a crazy couple of days! At 1am early Saturday morning I was partially packed, beyond exhaustion from a really busy day (I had subbed for someone's shift at the temple, which was so wonderful, but so tiring) and didn't know how in the world I would be able to get everything ready for this trip and not be completely physically ill. 

I knew I had to get up at about 5 am to finish packing, get ready for the day, take the dogs to boarding by 6:30am and somehow make a 9am flight. I am so grateful for tender mercies and answered prayers. I said a prayer that I would be able to wake up on time and not be sick from lack of sleep (any amount of sleep under 6 hours, I become physically ill), get the dogs safely to boarding, that I would be able to get good sleep and make this flight. I finally went to bed.

Once I fell asleep, I slept clear until my alarm went off at 5am. And for the first time, I wasn't insanely nauseous waking up with that little of sleep. I got up, got ready, and took the dogs. I was surprised they were able to eat their breakfast that early. Usually, Oscar especially, is dead to the world at that time in the morning. The boarding place said they would be there at 6:30 sharp, and didn't show up until 6:40, so the dogs and my anxiety started to run a little high.

 I had to wait there with the dogs for about 15 min and you can imagine they were all going a bit crazy in the car in anticipation. So I took Lucy out of the car with me while I waited for them to show up. Once they came and I was able to pass off Lucy then I got Charlie out and I was like, no way am I holding on to his leash. He was so excited. So I literally opened the door to the boarding place and let him run to the back on his own. Then next was Oscar. Somehow as Oscar got out of the car my pinky finger got caught in a really bad way in his collar and leash and if he had moved an inch, my pinky would have been completely broken. I swear to you there must have been some force that made him stay completely still as I got my finger out of the stuck position. There is no reason for him to have stopped as charged with energy as he was. I know this was a tender mercy. Then I got Oscar into the boarding facility and drove home. 

The tears started to fall as I could not hold back the emotion thinking back to our last Florida trip and how Lily had died while boarding during that time. I prayed that all would be ok with our pups while we are gone for this trip. Otherwise, I don't know if I would ever come back to Florida again. I basically cried the whole way home, from that and also likely from lack of sleep, and stress.

 Upon getting home, I had just enough time to change out of my furry clothes, finish packing, and get in the car. I was grateful that our car service guy was early, since I knew we had a really tight window to get to our flight. As I was leaving through our front door, I said, Hen are you coming through this door, or the garage? I thought he said he just needed to get something from the garage but that he would be coming back through that door. So I left it open, not just unlocked, but physically open. 

It was a nice calm drive to the airport as Hen talked our drivers ear off. (Which is pretty standard). I was just anticipating getting to the airport and gate. We arrive at the airport, get checked in and after passing through security discovered that we somehow had made it with an hour before our flight would be boarding. Seriously a miracle. So we went to the Delta Lounge for breakfast.

 After eating I thought to myself that I should turn the alarm on at the house through our app. The Holy Ghost reminded me to check all of our cameras before turning it on, since when we turn it on when we are away, we always turn on the motion sensors and I needed to make sure nothing would set them off. Also would like to note that a couple of days prior, Hen had noticed that the living room camera was out of battery and had been charging it in the kitchen. That morning while getting ready for the trip, Hen had put the camera back in the living room which looks straight at the front door. This was not on my list of things to do. And this could have been easily left in the kitchen. If you think God is not aware of you, or in the details of your lives, you just aren’t paying attention enough, I am sure these things happen to you too. 

So back to the airport, and as I was checking the cameras prior to turning on the alarm, I noticed our front door was wide open. I was like what the heck!! How in the world did that happen? I quickly texted our neighbors and they ran over and closed the door and locked it for us. I am sooo grateful they were home. 

What is so weird also is that when we were pulling away from the house, I remember looking back to see if it was closed and thought I saw that it was, but probably couldn't have really seen from the angle I was at. If Hen hadn't charged that camera, if he then wouldn't have put it back, if I hadn't checked the cameras to turn the alarm on, we could have had a family of deer move into our house, a crazy amount of bugs, or been completely robbed, not to mention our electric bill would have been insane and probably would have frozen over our ac. I am so soo grateful that in my crazy daily life, others are helping us along on the other side of the veil. I am sure we make our guardian angels so tired. 

Following breakfast and that fiasco, luckily our flight was at gate A15 so it wasn't as far to walk as some of our other flights have been recently. It is worth mentioning, that if we wouldn't have had breakfast, we wouldn't have been able to eat all day. We had a connection in Atlanta of only 20 minutes between flights and didn't arrive into Sarasota until after 5:30pm. So I am so grateful we ended up having enough time for breakfast. 

Hen has a bunch of Spirit of Delta passes that we need to use, so we are using them this trip. They are different from our usual standby in that they are guaranteed seats on the flights. Luckily we both had aisle seats in coach for the long flight to Atlanta, but there was someone in the middle of us, who ended up being very nice.

I wish I was able to sleep on the plane, unfortunately I haven't been able to do that in years, so I just listened to music on my 13 year old ipod that I had gotten out and charged before the trip. This is the ipod that was the replacement of the ipod that fell to the bottom of Hen's mom's pool when we were first married. It has been so long since I used it, I was pleasantly surprised to find some of my old albums on there. All of the music on my ipod is from cd's I once owned. Anytime I have tried to move this music to my new iphones, itunes always rejects the songs since they weren't purchased through them. So I keep this old ipod and use it from time to time. All of these albums take me back to my teens and 20's as they remind me of different people and times in my life. 

The next hurdle we would need to overcome was our connection in Atlanta. If anyone has been to that airport, you know that it is huge. We literally had 20 minutes to make our connection for our flight. If our flight from salt lake had any delays we would have never made it as well. Upon arriving to Atlanta we discovered our connection gate was one gate away, you can't make this stuff up!!! Also if it had been further away, who knows if our bags would have made it with us. We arrived at gate T2 and left for Sarasota out of gate T3. I know this isn't a miracle to you, but it was to me, especially since I had go to the bathroom really bad and there was a long line to even get into the bathroom. I don't know how I would have ever made that connection if the connection gate had been in another terminal. 

Once on the flight, Hen had an aisle, and I the window. Hen didn't want the middle person to be miserable between us so he took the middle. I hated that Hen had to be in the middle seat, he was more than entitled to have his aisle seat, and had  more than earned it. I think because he works for Delta, he didn't want a customer of his company to feel like they had a bad flying experience. The guy ended up smelling really bad of garlic, so I'm kind of glad he wasn't in the middle of us. While Hen and I were squeezed in tightly to the wall of the airplane, it was nice to have him by my side. We are used to traveling sitting next to each other in first class, which by the way, this experience definitely made me really appreciate when we fly first class.

 It has been a while since we have flown coach with someone in the middle seat, I had almost forgotten how different it was. But in all reality I really don't mind coach if there is no one in the middle seat. We did fly coach during covid but since the airlines wouldn't put anyone in a middle seat at that time, it was really nice. I understand the airlines need to make money but I just wish that was a permanent change. Now don't get me wrong, I have spent many hours in middle coach seats flying standby over the years because flying is so cheap that way, but in the last few years Hen and I have been just buying first class seats with Hen’s employee discount to get around. Luckily this flight was only an hour long and we finally arrived in Sarasota.

Of course I was so happy to see our bags come on the baggage claim belt since we had such a tight connection and we quickly got our rental car with no issue, a black Nissan Armada this time and headed out to Long Boat Key to get into our VRBO. 

Ok-so why did we pick Long Boat Key Florida for this trip? First this week was originally supposed to be our Viking Norway Fjords cruise flying round trip into Amsterdam. Because of covid, our cruise was cancelled and we had to make other plans. The email from the cruise line mentioned something about having issues with the local governments of our port stops. Which, I completely understand. If I lived in Norway, I wouldn’t want cruise ships coming in and bringing more covid, especially since the cruise line was not requiring the guests to be vaccinated. Which is a complete mystery to me. So anyway, here we are and we needed a plan B since Hen had already taken work off for those days and the dogs were already scheduled to board and I would be on sabbatical. When I was researching places all over the world like figi, bora bora, anywhere really, so many places wanted you to quarantine even if you had the vaccine, or you couldn’t travel to their country unless you were a citizen or a family member of a citizen. So then we decided we will just need to stay stateside for this trip. Originally, we were going to fly into San Francisco and drive up through the redwoods and stay in Oregon. Hen kept dragging his feet on this trip so eventually all the places we wanted to stay in Oregon were fully booked plus the rental car was going to be psychotically expensive since there is a shortage. 

So back to the drawing board again and we decided on Florida and we decided on Long Boat Key because this is a place his Grandma and Grandpa 4 (Becker), came a few times and Hen had also visited them on these trips over the years. Hen always tells me Grandma liked the beach and Grandpa liked the lake. So the compromise was that they would spend time in the summer at the lake house in upstate New York (which was actually built by Grandma’s dad) and spend time during the winter in Florida at the beach. Grandma and I are so alike. I definitely love the beach more than the lake, but I do love all bodies of water really since I love to swim so much.

Additional side note, this is the first time I have ever stayed in a VRBO (vacation rental). After putting down a deposit a few months ago I had a horrible dream. I dreamt that when we arrived to the VRBO, the owners had left their 4 dogs in the bathroom that we would need to take care of and that the there was no elevator. One of the dogs was a Great Dane and another a Chihuahua. And I had to take all four dogs up and down 6 flights of stairs to go to the bathroom the whole trip. Now many of you are going, Kara wouldn’t you love that? You love dogs? The answer is NO! I do love my dogs but they are actually a lot of work, this current pack. They get me up all hours of the night wanting this or that or early in the morning, ok let’s face it, it is usually Lucy. I wish I could just let them access the dog door, but after the neighbors called the cops on us, I don’t feel like we are allowed to have that freedom. As a result I rarely wake up on my own at home. Also at home because they can’t just be left to come and go from the backyard as they please, we literally schedule everyday around blocks of time. Ie don’t ever want to crate Lucy more than 4 hours etc. So part of my vacation is a break from our everyday routines with the dogs. So yes this scenario was a nightmare. 

After arriving to the VRBO, and checking the bathroom to find it free of dogs, we discovered we were staying on a slice of paradise. The view from this sixth floor of this condo was breathtaking. White sand beaches as far as the eye could see and almost no one on the beach. And being on the sixth floor as we sit on the large patio we have seen large groups of pelican’s fly right in front of our faces and then go dive in the Gulf for food. I really couldn’t have picked a better VRBO. I imagine staying here again in the future. The elevator does work also btw. 

After arriving, Hen spent some time on the phone with his cousin Christian, helping him to get a ticket out here for a couple days so that he could enjoy the extra room we have here and I fell asleep quickly on the couch. When I woke up, Hen had stripped down to his underwear already. I was like Hen, we haven’t even had a meal since 8am this morning, what you are doing? Let’s go get dinner. It was 8pm at this point. So we head out in search of some sustenance. Hen remembers a pizza place he liked and head in that direction. We pulled up to it in this dark strip mall. It didn’t even look open. There was one neon sign in the window. Not even a sign that said open. Hen told me to go see if the door would even open. I walk over and open the door. They were, in fact, open. Solorzanos Pizza. http://www.nobodymakespizzalikewedo.com/ On their pizza boxes stacked high was written #1 on trip advisor for 3 years, which makes your mind think (which 3 years?). But they were claiming to be New Jersey style pizza, which you know caught my attention. Growing up in New Jersey for the time I was there in my early years I fell in love with lots of food on the east coast. Pizza was definitely one of those items. The pizza in New York/New Jersey, is so hard to duplicate anywhere else. I swear the humidity definitely plays a role in the dough. So Hen and I got a few slices, and even shared a lemon Italian ice which was the perfect soft consistency. That took me back to when we would visit the Jersey Shore when we would get lemon Italian Ice and fresh soft salt water taffy and even see them pulling it in the window. The pizza was good as well and I am sure we will eat here atleast one more time before we leave. The names of Hen’s slices were Hoboken Heart Attack and Bada Bing. I had the Siesta Fiesta and the Buffalo chicken pizza.

After eating we walked out to the car and a gentleman that had come in right as we were leaving came running out. “Mam, you left your purse in here.” I swear if my head weren’t attached I would lose that too!!! Hen just shook his head. My level of absentmindedness really is astounding, I admit it. I actually had my wallet in hand, but had forgotten that I had brought my purse in there with me and had hung it on the back of the chair. *Shaking my head*

It was approximately 9pm at this point and since the condo was empty of food, we decided to run to a store. We drove over the bridge to Bradenton and happened upon a Winn Dixie that happened to be open and much closer than the Walmart recommended back at the pizza place. Once we got there we literally had 30 min to get everything we wanted before they kicked us out. It was a bit of a super market sweep scenario, but we were able to atleast get most of what we needed for the next 24 hours. I knew Hen was tired and grocery shopping was the last thing he wanted to do, so I was grateful Hen went with me so that we wouldn’t need to shop on Sunday. I am sure that seems so silly to some of you, but I have seen blessings in our lives when we have tried our best to make the Sabbath a special day that is unlike the other days of the week because it is the one day we can devote to worshipping our Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ and have a day of rest.

After our super market sweep we headed back to the condo and when we finally fell asleep we were out like lights.

It was so lovely to wake up Sunday morning to a gorgeous view of the water and frequent flybys of Pelicans. I woke up many times throughout the night but would quickly fall back asleep as I realized there was nothing to get up for. 

After getting up and cleaning the up the condo since it looked like a bomb hit it, since we literally dropped everything when we arrived Saturday evening, I grabbed my laptop and headed out to the patio. Even at 9am, it is 85 degrees and an insane amount of humidity, but the sound of the waves and watching the birds was music to my ears and a happy sight. 

I watched all the birds flap their wings a few times and glide. They seriously don’t know how good they have it. Of all the animals in the world, it is so incredible that they get to fly. I am sure they take it for granted since they don’t know any other existence, but to be able to go anywhere in this entire world and just about any height all with the flap of your own wings is truly incredible. 

A few people started to make their way out to the water. One particular couple looked like Hen and I’s doppelgangers. I chuckled and watched as they entered the water, thinking that is probably what Hen and I look like doing the same thing. 

I opened up my laptop and just started writing. Week two of my sabbatical almost complete and I feel like I have nothing but time, to even sit here and type up this novel of the last 24 hours….

After Hen got up, our church over zoom was about to start. Today is the first day they are putting Sacrament back to the beginning of the meeting, instead of the end. They had an opening prayer, and a sacrament song and then paused the video. Hen prepared the Sacrament in the kitchen for us to take. I played the song “I Know That My Redeemer Lives”, by the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square (they will always just be MOTAB to me). As the music started to play and Hen broke the bread, I felt the Spirit fill the room and the following scripture came to my mind Matthew 18:20 “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Silent tears dropped from my eyes as I thought about our Savior and the words of the song being sung. 

After Hen administered the Sacrament, I returned to the youtube live recording of our Sacrament meeting at home. How nice it is to be able to travel and not have to pack church clothes, but still get to attend Sacrament meeting virtually and I am so grateful for Henry being a worthy priesthood holder that can administer that Sacrament for us. I feel so blessed.

One of my cute young women gave the first talk on the Holy Ghost, one of my favorite subjects, and she did a wonderful job.

A quote the stood out to me from the returned missionary that gave her talk was “Nothing changes the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ changes everything!” How true that is! The Gospel of Jesus Christ has truly changed so much in my life. I have gotten to a point, where I truly couldn’t live without it.

Well that is it for now. I think I will go take a walk on the beach.