The number of pictures I take at the beach is as much a function of proximity as anything else. It’s not that I don’t enjoy doing anything else; quite the contrary. In fact, some of the best times I’ve had outdoors have been at some of our state parks that are miles from the nearest beach. Some of you have probably had enough of me gushing over our camping trips at Gold Head Branch State Park.

Recently we had a little more than just a couple hours in the afternoon, so we made a trip over to the Hillsborough River State Park, just on the other side of Tampa.

In the summer, when it feels like a swamp everywhere, visiting an actual swamp holds little attraction (for me anyway). Oh, but when our glorious winter finally arrives, I love wandering the thick forests.

Although the Hillsborough River is one of many fresh water sources in Florida that has been run almost dry by our single-minded focus on economic growth, it’s still a cool place to visit. It’s one of many state parks that owes it’s existence to the Civilian Conservation Corps.

And I’m lucky… I’m married to a woman, and I have two children, who enjoy wandering around with me.

My glaring weakness as an office bound civil servant is my penchant for daydreaming. Something catches my eye, stirs a memory, and away I go… off to lands far and wide. It can happen at home just as easily as at work. In fact, I just got back from a flight from the inner realm a little earlier this evening.

The catalyst for tonight’s journey was a photograph I took on a weekend getaway, about a year before our first child was born. We spent a weekend in Ft Meyers, a stone’s throw from Sanibel Island, at a resort just across the intercostal waterway on the mainland. The photo I was looking at is right above this entry… or was when I typed this… a shot of the clouds gathering off shore, a mile or two off the beach on Sanibel Island. While the selection of that picture has significance beyond the scope of this entry, it reminds me of one of my favorite mornings of all time.

It was the first trip I took with my first SLR camera. I’d been dying to dabble in more serious photography (which I figured required something other than a point and shoot), and I had enthusiastically jumped at the chance to pick up an old Pentax that someone was giving away. As a recent college grad budgets were tight, we had aspirations of buying a house and having children, and I already had two relatively expensive hobbies (cycling and computing)… so I’d been waiting for an SLR for a long time. It’s only power requirement was a small watch battery for the light meter (everything else was manual). There was no built in, auto flash; there was no auto focus… and I loved it. If I wasn’t such a stickler for the instant gratification of digital photography, I’d probably still be using that old Pentax (out doors anyway… the external flash unit died six years ago and I just couldn’t justify the expense of replacing it).

It was the first time my wife and I had stayed in an expensive resort (we were only there because we got the room for free). As I often did in the pre-children era, I brought my bicycle along. Cheryl was planning to sleep in, and I was in the habit of taking early morning, Saturday bike rides. So just before sunrise on our first day I walked my bike out the resort lobby in my lycra outfit, my cycling cleats clicking on the ceramic tile (in case I wasn’t conspicuous enough), sporting a backpack containing my newly acquired Pentax and lenses.

I couldn’t take any pictures for about twenty minutes because of the change in temperature and relative humidity, going from the resort to the muggy early morning outdoors… all the lenses fogged right up. On other days I might have been frustrated, but it was an otherwise gorgeous Florida morning, and I set out across the deserted causeway heading out to Sanibel Island. The sun was just peaking above the horizon and I felt like I was the only person awake in the world. It was quiet. The water was calm; like a sheet of glass. I was on my bike traveling a road never before traveled, and the scenery was postcard Florida. After my camera lenses warmed up I’d stop and dismount to snap the occasional shot with the Pentax.

Put together my love of bicycling, the excitement of exploration, the serenity of my surroundings, and the fun playing with my new (long sought after) toy… and you’ve got one hell of a morning.

We don’t do that kind of thing often enough. Maybe that’s something we’ll have to change when I get better.

There is little I find relaxing about a summer vacation in Florida. What about Central Florida theme parks? Here’s a theme for you: dehydration, heat exhaustion, and sun stroke.

So here are my first three responses to the proposed weekend trip to Orlando that just passed:
1. “No.”
2. “Please don’t make me go.”
3. “Ah… um… (Sigh)… fine.”

Now here’s where the whole thing gets a little weird. Despite years of experience suggesting the contrary, I had a decent time. This was due largely to much of the Kennedy Space Center being enclosed and air conditioned. Although we spent A LOT more money than we anticipated, I felt good knowing that the folks at NASA seem to be putting that money to use keeping up and expanding the visitor facilities. Perhaps the biggest surprise was finding the old Saturn V rocket still on display… but indoors… in a newly built facility showcasing the Apollo missions. Where else can a space buff eat pizza underneath the third stage of a moon rocket? I’m telling you right now, that all by itself was worth it. Everything else: the walk-thru of the International Space Station assembly building (seeing the next pieces to go up being worked on), the tour of the launch facilities, touching a moon rock, seeing the newly recovered Liberty Bell 7, watching an AWESOME 3-D IMAX movie about the Apollo missions – that was gravy. I’ve been to Kennedy several times, and before this weekend I never would have said there was too much to see in one day. No more. We barely had enough time to go on one tour, eat lunch and see one of the IMAX movies. Left unseen was three quarters of the original visitor’s center and all of the Astronaut Hall of Fame (which was included in our admission fee).

It was one of the few times as an adult that I left a Central Florida attraction not feeling satiated. You don’t catch me being overly enthusiastic very often, so when I say: “I was blown away,” you know it must have been good.