After two great weeks with my parents it was time to hit the road for our return trip home. Other than spending quality time together we didn’t do all that much, which was just fine with us. In the before times we definitely would have gone out to explore but the Covid situation isn’t so great in Florida these days so we all felt better mostly hanging out at the house, swimming in the pool, and taking countless walks with Boomer. As they say, when life gives you lemons, make limoncello and have a cocktail (or something like that). It was also great seeing how the boys enjoy spending time with their grandparents, and them with the boys.
Boomer may actually have had the most fun out of everyone. Back home we don’t take him to the dog park, but since there was one right down the street from my parents house, it’s something he got to experience a few times a day. By the end of our stay, Boomer had become a minor celebrity.
As I mentioned in the last post, when we first arrived, the weather was not very Florida-like. But after a couple of blustery days in the mid-50s (touching the 30s at night) the wind died down and the temperature got into the much more civilized high 70s and low 80s. After things defrosted we were eventually able to get the pool heated to a pleasant 85. Fun fact: pools heat real slow with electric heaters! This one took about three days to heat up.
Since my parents moved to Florida many years ago, we haven’t been able to be with my mom for any of her birthdays. We’d usually come out in the summer or for spring break, and they’d come out for Thanksgiving. February never got any love in terms of coast to coast travel. So it was definitely special to be able to spend my mom’s birthday with her in person. We celebrated by going to a great fish and chips restaurant right on the water in Sarasota. This was actually one of the two times we drove away from the house to do anything.
The other time we left the house was when my mom took me to Warm Mineral Springs. According to her this is a magical lake capable of bettering what ever it is that ails you. The lake is always 85 degrees, and always smells like someone left some egg salad out too long (they say that’s a feature, not a bug). Apparently the proper way to use the lake is to slowly walk laps around the shallow edge of the lake (at about 20 minutes per lap), and if you’re feeling adventurous, cut across the middle every once in a while. The story behind the lake is pretty interesting. It’s the only warm spring fed body of water in Florida and is about 230 feet deep.
Even though my parents live in a fairly developed subdivision, neighborhood walks were filled with much more nature than walks around our own house (unless you’re really into squirrels and crows, if that’s the case than walks around our house are super awesome). The main feature of the community were the ponds and canals, with pretty much every home being on some form of water. That meant there was plenty of room for birds, fish, turtles, and the occasional gator. My biggest gator related surprise was just how skittish they are. Every time I’d try to approach one to take a picture, whether it was on the bank or close to the bank but in the water, they’d take off when I was still pretty far away. We still made sure to keep Boomer a respectable distance from the water though since getting a replacement Basenji is real hard these days.
For the record, Vegas oddsmakers had set an over/under of 4.5 for how many days it would take the HOA to make their first indignant call about our eye soar of an RV parked within their “it’s not that type of community” community. Shocking those same oddsmakers, it actually took 12 days. It probably helped that after the first day, we moved the RV to the still undeveloped lot next door. It was a bit more out of the way there and we were even able to plug it in to keep the fridge working on electricity. It also served as my auxiliary office for when the house got too noisy.
While it will be nice go get back home, it’ll be a bit rough to leave the nice weather behind and drive through the Polar Vortex of Doom before getting back to California.
