travel day! there should be a law that says:if you drive past the beach you must stop!

sooo...we woke up early the next morning to head up to orlando, but before we did,we sat on the balcony one last time, had some coffee, and relaxed (it was nice not to be too rushed). sabrina thought it would be a good idea to call and mess with lori (the adult version of 80's "is your refrigerator running? go out and catch it, hahahah)...i mean..i didn't stop her- but i'm pretty sure lori had to go take some blood pressure meds and breathe into a plastic bag in the corner...until finally sabrina stopped short and told her she was just joshin' (otherwise we might have had to remote call 9-1-1). #sorrylori

we checked out and figured out that the durango had its own nav system, so we figured that out, and as we were driving, i decided to play with some buttons on the dash, and sabrina gave me her best 'mom' look and said, "don't go pushing buttons-you don't know what they're going to do!"  (no worries, there wasn't an auto-eject button, nor was there a self-destruct-in-10-seconds button)...but we finally did figure out how to make it quit stalling-we think.

once we got to the ft lauderdale area, i was losing the battle of the bladder, so we pulled over by a sketchy gas station with an outdoor bathroom-with a door that opened to the outside-which didn't lock. but i wasn't worried-i knew that if it came to it, sabrina had my back-i have no doubt she would've pulled out her best football tackle and wrestled them to the ground. (i hope, right?)

at this point the coffee and power bar breakfast was wearing off, so we found ourselves a little natural burger restaurant.
lady at counter: oh, those large fries, they'll feed three.
us: oh...perfect, we're from texas.
i don't know three of what she thought they were going to feed...it was the perfect amount!

then we found a parking spot on the next block, where we could see the ocean just down the way, so we parked it.
change in the street--CHECK
pay the meter--CHECK
think we can walk to the water barefoot--CHECK
feel like my feet are blistering and the skin on my soles will completely peel off--CHECK
keep going to find "shade" in the dune grass--CHECK
being laughed at by the locals--CHECK

it doesn't get cheerier and more relaxing than that!

sabrina was wise enough to turn around and put her flip flops back on in the shade. but foolish me...whoever came up with the stupid motto no pain no gain was probably high on morphine, too. just sayin'.

finally we got to the cool, wet sand-and praised Jesus for it! we walked north until we found a spot that was slightly less populated. not that you need to know we were going north, but just in case anyone out there was wanting to really envision it, we turned left. there ya go.

the water was beautiful and refreshing! we spent a good amount of time just wading and enjoying. got some sun...one never notices it in the moment, but i definitely had lines.  at one point while we were out there, some idiot man brought out a bag and began feeding the gulls...mine.mine.mine.mine...for a minute i thought he'd break out in song with "feed the birds, tuppence a bag." umm that wouldn't be weird or anything...eventually we had to go in and move our belongings a little further up, so the rising tide didn't get them, and while we were sitting there, observing our surroundings and taking it all in, we were trying to avoid looking over at the couple in the water pretending to be....dolphins? dolphins expressing way too much pda? maybe. and then there was the girl on her paddle board with the watermelon slices on the boobs and buttocks (not real watermelon, that'd be on the strange-food-fetish side....nope, she just looked like she'd purchased a toddler bathing suit)...AND add to that she nearly ran into us on her board, when she turned around to make her way back and oops, there she was!

while there, i got a text from my dear friend, brandy, asking if i was in orlando-she'd gotten my letter. well, no, but we were on our way! so she suggested dinner and i said yes. sabrina was a trooper-she offered not to go so we could catch up, but i begged her to go because i really love it when people i adore meet other people i adore, because shouldn't everyone in the world be friends?! #justdoingmypart so after our long haul to orlando, we found our rooms, and sabrina got a business call before taking a record-breaking shower (must be a mom thing, but seriously impressive!) then we may have missed the turn..not once, but twice! my fault....probably both times...oops.

a little dark...and the lighting wasn't that good either ;)

appetizers were good, company was good-we got to help sabrina work through some things about her daughter wanting to go on a mission trip, laughed at some guys who were 'pea-cocking' like college boys..wait a minute..they WERE college boys, no wonder! after a wonderful, albeit too short of time with brandy, we called it a night. went back to the hotel and it was our last night, so we hung out on the balcony one last time...unplugging the overhead light, because it was so bright. good times, i tell ya.

it's getting long-more tomorrow-
julie