Florida IIII

“Is it still cold up there in Chicago?” the clerk at the Enterprise car rental desk in the St. Petersburg/Clearwater International Airport, a nattily dressed young black man, asked me last week.

“Yeah, it’s still pretty cold. Spring hasn’t come to us, so we decided to come to spring.”

“That sounds like a good plan.”

And it was. I arrived in Florida late in the afternoon Easter Sunday to a welcome surprise. Instead of leaving the airplane into a sterile jetway, I felt the warm Southern air immediately, because we disembarked down stairs directly onto the tarmac. I don’t remember how long it’s been since I’ve done that, but it was long, long ago in an airport far, far away. A small but worthwhile treat.

At that moment I was traveling without my family. Because of the details of my frequent flier miles, I had one free flight on ATA, which took me to St. Petersburg; also available were two free flights on Southwest, which uses the considerably larger, mall-like Tampa International Airport; Yuriko and Lilly and Ann went there. We flew to our respective Florida airports, and back to Chicago Midway, on the same days, within hours of each other, with me scheduled to arrive first and take care of things on both ends, like picking up a car in St. Pete, or picking up our bags in Chicago. Like any plan that depends on airline schedules, a lot could have gone wrong, but fortunately nothing did. Our flights were all more or less on time.

So we had about six days in central Florida. A line from Tampa Bay to Cape Canaveral, roughly paralleling I-4 and the wonderfully named Bee Line Expressway, formed the axis of our vacation. It was Yuriko and the kids’ first visit to the state, and my fourth. It included an empty beach, the Mouse Empire, strange sea horses, a Saturn V, a brewery with good beer, a busy beach, Salvador Dali, swimming, walking, driving, near-sunburn, crowds, traffic, noise, too much Cartoon Network, excellent orange juice, decent barbecue, stellar Cuban food, warm days, cool nights and commercials on the radio advertising the best way to rid your property of fire ants. It was good to be away.