High Five for Friday

Since we're in Key West for the weekend, I thought I'd do a modified H54F. 

There are a few things that are abundant in this southernmost place in the continental US.

1.  Coconut Drinks

2.  Roosters

These guys are EVERYWHERE here.  They wander around all over the streets.  It's endearing in a quirky kind of way.  
 
3.  Scooters.  

It was definitely tricky navigating our beast of a vehicle through narrow streets, around pedestrians, bicyclists, and these little zippy scooters, but Craig did a great job.  (I, on the other hand, almost ripped the passenger side mirror off the car.)

4.  Beautiful Homes.

 5.  Sidewalks lined with lush greenery and tropical flowers.

Hope you have a beautiful and sunny weekend!

Miami

This vacation schedule is starting to make the days all blurry.  Do you know that I got up this morning thinking that I needed to write a H54F post?  And then when I realized it was only Thursday, I crawled right back in bed and went to sleep for 2 more EST hours.  Oh, we're going to have such a hard time getting back into regular schedules...

Yesterday, we reluctantly left beautiful Clearwater and made our way across this giant bridge...

Have I mentioned that I'm not a huge fan of bridges?  Well, I'm not.  None of them.  Not overpasses.  Not beautiful little footbridges over scenic rivers.  Not covered ones at the golf course that are made of wood and sound like they're going to fall apart under the weight of my swiftly walking feet.  And especially not the ones that are many miles long and cross over water??  I have a completely unreasonable fear of the bridge collapsing and the vehicle that I'm in plummeting into the water.  It was worse when there were three carseats in my vehicle.  Ugh...when did I get to be such a neurotic worrier??  One of the benefits of this trip, though, is that I've had to face my fears and close my eyes and get on those bridges. 

This one, the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, is particularly scary impressive.  It towers 19 stories above Tampa Bay and it is 15.1 miles long connecting St. Petersburg to Bradenton.  It is the longest precast concrete span in the western hemisphere!  (I'm sure you can understand my delight in knowing this little bit of information BEFORE we crossed the bridge.)   

Well, you'll be happy to know that we made it safely and successfully over the bridge.  This was my favorite part...the downhill half where we could SEE the rest of the bridge in front of us...and that it was completely in tact. 

We passed a super long fishing pier, too, that was filled with fishermen.  

And then, after several long hours of inland driving, we ended up here...

We're in downtown Miami for a couple of days.  It's so super upscale and posh here, we're all feeling slightly out of place.  Everyone looks like Gucci and Michael Kors, and we look more like Old Navy.   It's like walking around a scene from CSI Miami...good thing we rented that super sexy, black Yukon!  

I love waking up in the morning entirely surrounded by water...  

Leaving Clearwater

We're leaving Clearwater today for the next leg of our trip.  This place is amazing and I'm not sure how the next place could be any better, but Craig assures us it will be.  We have totally loved lounging around on beaches and next to pools for the last two days and we are once again so grateful that we got to tag along on this business trip. 

Clearwater

Holy cow!  This is what it looks like from the balcony of our hotel room...

That's the Gulf of Mexico on the left and the Atlantic Ocean between the buildings in the background.  

This is it for a post today.  We'll be busy playing on the beach...and in the pool...

Road Trip Day 2

This is what Mobile, AL looks like at 6:00am...

Isn't it beautiful?  We watched this barge come in while we ate breakfast.  Amazing.  McKay was glued to the window the entire time.  I love that the kids got to see something completely different than anything they would see in a normal day at home.  

After breakfast, we took a very long and leisurely drive down the panhandle coast toward our next destination and stopped at Perdido Beach so the kids could put their feet in the sand.  It's like walking in fairy dust.  It's so soft and perfect.

they're all trying to spot crabs in the water...there were tons!

We are loving these Florida beaches and we're looking forward to a few days outside of the Yukon so we can enjoy them!  

 
We arrived at our destination tonight, but once again it's too dark to see what's outside the hotel room.  We drove over so many bridges, though, that I'm pretty sure we're entirely surrounded by water.  We'll find out in the morning. 

Stay tuned...

Road Trips

Surprise from Mobile, AL!!

This morning we woke up at 6:00am and loaded our beautiful rental Yukon with all of our worldly possessions...well, just about all of them.  It is seriously SHOCKING how much stuff 6 people need for a vacation AND that it all fit.

We drove 600 miles, stopped 4 times for bathroom breaks, 3 times to take pictures, twice for food and once for gas.  We took a little detour through Gulfport, MS just to see the water up close and those beautiful antebellum homes.  

It's dark here in Mobile, so I haven't yet seen what it looks like, but we passed through some gorgeous roadside scenery along the way.

It is vastly different to travel EAST from Texas instead of WEST.  I love driving through America!  

High Five for Friday

1.  Sandals

I have a serious shoe problem.  These are just the ones I've acquired this summer...eek! 

2.  Clean Beach Towels

They don't stay this way for long, but I love having a giant pile of freshly washed and fluffed beach towels ready for the next round of summer fun.  

3.  Salt Water Taffy

We don't have salt water taffy in Texas like they do in Utah.  It's in giant bulk bins in the grocery stores there.  Craig and Savannah brought me back a giant bag of tropical flavored taffy.  The banana is my favorite!

4.  Treasures

My friend, Karryn and I went furniture browsing the other day, and we saw this gorgeous thing.  I'm pretty sure it needs to come home and live in my entryway.  

5.  Saying of the Week

This is so true...especially when the marshmallows are roasted over a campfire!  

Hope you have a great weekend!  

Throwback Thursday

Linking up with Bonnie again this week for another round of retro memories...

www.thelifeofbon.com

I'm still digging through all those boxes underneath my desk.  The purging process has slowed considerably, though, as we ramp up for both a LATE family vacation and the start of the school year shortly after we return from Florida (more on that later...)  

In my digging, I came across a whole stack of pictures from a Hawaii vacation in 1981.  My parents LOVED to travel and we made some major trek every summer to national parks, beaches, campgrounds...always in the car, always with the Kenny Rogers cassette tapes, and always with stops along the way to various rock shops and roadside stands.  This particular summer, though, my parents decided that they needed to take their close friends on a trip to Hawaii.  These friends were from New York and had never been to Hawaii before, so what better tour guide than my mother who had grown up there and still had people there?  She conspired with her best friend, Irene, to put together the multi-island tour of a lifetime...and it was!  (If you've been reading here for awhile, you'll recognize Irene's name.  In 1981, I thought she was just my mom's best friend, just "Auntie Irene."  Later I found out that she was my BIRTH grandmother.  Read here and here for further clarification on that confusion.)

Irene and my mom took us around all the touristy sites on Oahu, Kauai, Maui and Hawaii.  As many times as I had been to Hawaii with Granny for summer vacations, I had never been to the outlying islands and certainly had never done any of the touristy things, so this was a whole new experience for me.   

this is the whole group of us outside a hotel waiting for my dad to pick us up

We traveled in a giant pack of six or seven at all times, which is normal for me now, but completely unnerving for 11-year old me.  When you're used to being an only child, adding even one other kid in the backseat can be a tumultuous experience.  On one of the islands, we rented a station wagon.  My parents sat in the front seat.  Their friends sat in the back.  And their 13 year old son was my traveling companion in the rear-facing backseat with two suitcases piled in between us so we wouldn't have to look at each other.  I remember thinking on that whole vacation how nice it would have been if these friends had had a daughter instead of a son.  (ugh...I despised that kid.)

Despite suffering through the close proximity of a 13 year old boy for two weeks, I thoroughly enjoyed that vacation.  It was so fun to hear my parents talk about their island home with so much pride and delight.  Their friends LOVED the trip and were overwhelmed at the beauty of the islands and the warmth of the people they met.  

Macadamia Nut Factory, Hawaii

Fern Grotto, Kauai

Diamond Head, Oahu (it's that volcano in the background)

this is a postcard, but this is what our sinks actually looked like in the hotel...I was totally impressed

Punaluu Black Sand Beach, Hawaii

I loved looking through all these old pictures and once again got completely lost in the memories of this amazing trip.  I'm so grateful that my parents decided to take their friends on that tour and to have all those memories of the wonders and sights of Hawaii ingrained in my memory.  I love that I can claim that place as my heritage.  And we look forward to re-creating that trip for our kids in the coming summers.