My Weblog

Mini Mine

Call it a mid-life crisis.

Call it impractical with 2 kids.

 

Call it a police radar magnet.

Call it what you will.   As for me, I'm calling it MINE, MINE, MINE, ALL MINE!

[oh and don't call it an it.  She is a she.  And her name is Mimi.]

A Tale of Two Hotels

I believe I mentioned that we stayed at the cruddiest hotel  in Ft Lauderdale (and quite possibly all of Florida) on our way to our final destination in Naples, Florida.  There were a number of conveniences that were worth noting however: 

• Our room was conveniently located directly across the hall from the garbage collection area (where we found a whole bunch of clothes strewn around the next morning, just in case we had needed extra clothing). 
• No shampoo or other personal grooming products were provided but they weren't necessary because of the powerful cloying fragrance that billowed through the place and coated your body and all of your belongings.  That smell will no doubt persist onsite long after the motel has disintegrated and cockroaches have taken over the earth.   As an added bonus, free epidermal exfoliation was provided via thin, abrasive sheets and pillowcases.
• Also convenient was that the former closet doors had simply been removed, leaving completely unimpeded access to the one bare wire shelf inside.   There were no annoying hangers to clatter around or get in the way.  
• Wake up service was provided for free thanks to the extremely thin walls which meant that every time someone opened or closed a door somewhere in the building, walked past the room, or coughed next door, everyone woke up.

I could go on, but I'm sure you get the picture and have probably had the memorable occasion of stumbling across a similar location at some point in in your life.

Now, some people might question the judgment of the person who selected this particular lodging.  But let me assure you that said person, who prefers to remain humbly anonymous, knew exactly what she  was doing.  Because staying at the cruddiest hotel in Florida was the perfect way to prepare ourselves -- both mentally and physically -- to appreciate our second hotel, the Naples Grande Beach Resort.

Aside from having an absurdly pompous name -- the Naples Grande Beach Resort, The Waldorf Astoria Collection -- the hotel was lovely.  [What's with the "e" in Grande, anyway?  Is that supposed to be like a Grande Latte?  or is it like the silent middle English "e" in shoppe?  and don't get me started on "Collection".]  Anyhow, it is a beautiful hotel, it smelled pleasant, there were toiletries galore, closet doors and hangers, the sheets were cool and luxuriant, our room was quiet (except for SpongeBob who seems to follow us on TVs across the country).

 

The lobby was sleek and stylish.  I need more sleek and stylish in my life.
 

There were helpful people just standing by waiting to assist me.  I don't seem to encounter this so much at home.
 

We rode up and down the escalators for fun. It's what we do.

These were lamps in a little sitting nook.  I want them.  I also would like to have more nooks in my life.

 

Here was the Fam having breakfast at the coffee shop in the lobby.

The pools were beautiful but it was too cold to swim. 

Wait!  What's this?  Turns out the pool was heated.


I would have braved the 5o degree air temps to go in myself, but I had to man the camera so that I could share our tale of two hotels with you loyal readers.  I'm selfless that way. 

The Girl Who Cried Gator

I'm glad to report that our discoveries in Florida were not limited to just manatee nostrils.  In fact, we saw some entire animals. 

Our first night in Florida was spent tossing and turning at possibly the cruddiest (and smelliest) (and loudest) (and most uncomfortable) (and, well . . . you get the picture)  roadside motel in Ft. Lauderdale.  Sometimes patronizing the local establishments doesn't turn out as well as hoped and we daring adventurers just have to suck it up and try to sleep off our mistakes. 

When morning finally came, we headed toward Naples on the road that is called Alligator Alley.  Now, friends, call me naive but it never occurred to me that the name Alligator Alley was meant to be taken literally.  So, as we were speeding along at about 70 mph and Julie suddenly shouted "I SAW AN ALLIGATOR!", I thought that she was either (a) a little bit addled from lack of sleep due to the cruddy motel, (b) mistaking something like a big, black log for an alligator, or (c) joking.  I gave her one of those patented patronizing mommy lines like "oh really, sweetie? that's nice."

Which was just barely past my lips when Gary shouted "There's another one!" and sure enough, we then saw alligator after alligator, all lazing right next to the fence alongside the road.  HUNDREDS of them just basking in the sun along miles of highway.   Although I laugh in the face of death on a regular basis, I have to confess that it made me glad to live in Arizona where if you happen to be lucky enough to find a body of water, you don't have to worry about something lunging out and eating you.

Since I was driving I couldn't get pictures of those gators, but on our manatee-nostril-viewing-excursion, we did see this guy hanging out in a lagoon.  

  

He was about 6 feet long but I'm pretty sure I could take him, what with that left arm missing and all.  Lucky for him, he didn't threaten the children, so I let him alone.  We saw some less threatening wildlife too.

 

 

We also discovered that Floridians have a strange penchant for taxidermy.  Here is "Big Joe", a gargantuan American Crocodile at the Everglades Wonder Gardens.  I'm pretty sure I could take him, what with him being preserved and stuffed and all.
 

And some of the many, many stuffed inhabitants of the Shell Factory in Ft Meyers -- a place that bravely goes well beyond Tourist Trap and into the realm of Tourist Black Hole.   Because nothing attracts eco-tourists like stuffed bears fighting over a shellacked salmon while supervised by a beheaded, wall-mounted moose.

So, while the manatees were elusive, we did see a lot of animals on our trip.  And, next time my daughter cries "gator!" I promise to believe her.  Although since we're back in Arizona, I'm hoping not to hear that any time soon.

Adventures in Food

Despite my dubious (and entirely self-delusional) reputation as a daring adventurer, I have to admit that when we are on vacation I have to fight against the tendency to just stick to familiar chain shops and restaurants.  For example, after our exhausting but thrilling journey to view manatee noses, we came close to stopping for lunch at Joe's Crab Shack.  We daring adventurers  (and food lovers) don't readily admit that kind of thing, but I feel safe doing so here because I know you kind readers won't judge me, and more importantly, because I can foist the blame onto my unsuspecting son who won't eat anything but chicken fingers and fruit.

Just to be clear, I have nothing against chain restaurants and I am, in fact, personally offended if I can't find a Starbucks at every major intersection on earth.  But, I figure that the whole point of traveling is to see and do new things.  And, as Gretchen Rubin of the Happiness Project (one of my favorite blogs) reminds me:  novelty and challenge increase happiness.

So, on our trip to Naples, we passed up Joe's Crab Shack and even the Cheesecake Factory and went to some places we'd never heard of.  First, there was Pinchers, which was new to us (although for all I know it might be the McDonalds of crab shacks in Florida). 

It had bright, multicolored rooms and a big window overlooking the water outside with some local pelicans flopping around. 

 

I ate some crab chowder and this guy:

Who had apparently just come up short in the last race.

Incidentally, have you ever actually eaten a Maryland Blue Crab?  As I was tearing it limb from limb, scraping out a whole lot of green slimy stuff and bypassing those weird alien-lung looking things, it occurred to me that eating crabs is disgusting.

But really, really delicious.  We daring adventurers never let a little green slime come between us and a good meal.

Anyhow, the  bright colors of Pinchers really inspired the artist in Daniel.  No, those are not manatees or even crabs on leashes.  They are our guinea pigs, Patch and Curly.   OBVIOUSLY.

 

The best thing about Pinchers is that it's in a bunch of old, historic buildings called Tin City which used to be an old seafood processing plant and boat buildings, now turned into a little shopping area.  

If we hadn't stopped at Pinchers, we never would have discovered this fun, unique spot.  This has just further strengthened my resolve to keep pushing beyond the familiar and comfortable and trying what the locals have to offer.  The Cheesecake Factory will still be waiting for me when I get home.

Save the Man-And-Ts

It turns out that someone (my observant and obviously wise father-in-law) actually noticed that I haven't been blogging in a while.  This was such positive affirmation of my very existence on this earth that it's motivated me to reach out and make contact with my fellow human beings once again. 

So greetings, fellow humans, from my humble blog.

Just for the record, during what I'm sure will come to be known around the world as The Great Blogging Hiatus of 2010, the Fam and I did reach out to make contact with some of the non-human inhabitants of our planet.   Specifically, we left the sunny desert, took a 5 hour airplane ride, a 3 hour car journey and a 1 hour pontoon boat excursion just to meet the gentle denizens of the deep, the Florida manatees.  Here's one now:

Well, technically, that was a Man-and-T, but it is a better photo than I got of any of the actual manatees that we saw on our trip.

Normally, I would not have consented to take a trip all the way across the country just for a weekend excursion, even one involving charming, chubby sea creatures.  But, you see, my daughter and I have a thing for manatees.   I did my first school report about manatees back in the day, and -- completely uncoached by me -- Julie chose manatees for her 3rd grade school project.  Here was the diorama we "whipped up" (in about 63 hours using $150 worth of craft supplies, the average for mandatory elementary school projects in my experience).  Having actually sculpted manatees with our bare hands from raw materials, it seemed reasonable to take a pilgrimage to see the real thing.

But, as some of you east coasters may have noticed, it has been a cold winter and Florida has had its share of unseasonably cold weather.  The day of our manatee safari was in the 50s and quite windy.  So, we mostly saw a lot of manatee noses as the gentle beasts bobbed up to the surface to take a quick breath among the whitecaps.  If you've never seen it for yourself, for your edification I bring you -- manatee noses:

On nice calm days, you can actually look down into the water to see them through super-cool polarized sun-glasses. 

Personally, even though we couldn't see much through the chop,  I considered it a success in that Daniel didn't lean over and drop the glasses into the water.   Here he is looking all Miami Vice.

While we didn't see much more than manatee noses on our excursion, it was still amazing to be there on a boat with them quietly drifting to the surface all around us.   And they truly are the coolest creatures.  They are invariably gentle, and vegetarians who spend most of the time grazing and in search of more food.  In fact, they make me feel a lot better about the my current stubborn dieting plateau because they eat nothing but grass and lettuce and they still pack on the pounds.  I can relate, my beloved blubbery brethren, I really can.  If I could live under water, I'm sure the manatees would take one look at my recalcitrant love handles and welcome me into the herd.

We got to see plenty of other Florida critters on our trip (and more than just their noses), so stay tuned!