Day 57, Dec. 13th: Every time I begin to have just the beginning inkling that I might be getting some handle on technology- the fates laugh – and laugh – and laugh. We finally could go onto the Indian e-visa website to fill out our visa applications. Everything went fine until I had to load a copy of my passport photo. I took the photo – transferred it my computer – loaded – has to be a PDF. OK, I’ve converted a file before. I go back and find the instructions, convert to PDF – aaannnnd – still can’t load – it’s too big. I try resending the photo from my phone as a smaller file, convert – aaannnd- still too big. I look up how to compress a pdf – download the program (which then also requires all this funny stuff when it comes to “displaying ads”) – and when I’m done – it can’t compress the pdf. I can handle stressful situations – I have run two simultaneous codes – one with respiratory failure and the other having a heart attack (both lived). I deal with people with critical health issues frequently and no problem. But when technology does not work properly or parameters are set to make it difficult, I become a two-year-old in a tantrum, with a much larger bad-word vocabulary. I take a shower to clear my head and remember my Kindle has a camera feature. I get some lousy photos but when I convert it – it fits! Now it’s 10:30 in the morning and we need to leave the air bnb by 11. I get part of John’s done, but again, have trouble with the files. With his, the photo from the Kindle is too small and then we needed to leave. We set off to the west coast of Florida to visit family in Bradenton, which is just south of Tampa, driving through pouring rain. In the middle of the day we hit terrible traffic around Orlando, which is expected, and again off and on driving along Interstate 4. The 3-hour drive took 4 ½ hours, but we made it. For the next few days we stayed in an Airbnb at a trailer home and RV park. There’s a lake in the middle, a work-out room, pickle ball courts, and 8 shuffleboard courts. The “cottage” is a one bedroom, one bath trailer home – complete with a washer and dryer! Technology continued to frustrate us. We finally got John’s passport photo to load, but now we couldn’t get the printer to connect. I tried one way, John another, we didn’t have the right kind of cord to connect the laptop to the printer directly. After giving up we watched the original “Friday the 13th” – it starts very slow, but the end even had me letting out a squeal.
Day 58, Dec. 14th: We started the day with a workout taking advantage of the exercise room, I got in 3 ¼ miles on the treadmill, John used the weights and then we tackled technology again, but still could not get the printer to work. Since we had to mail the packet out, we went to the UPS store and – for $2 – printed out the one sheet we needed and another $22 we mailed the packet with all the required info to Cruise and Maritime. With that accomplished, we could spend the next couple of days visiting family. We wandered the local farmer’s market, bought some ground coffee from a local roaster, then had a nice cup of coffee at a café called “The Connection”. We ate lunch with John’s sister Maria and her boyfriend Nick at Pier 22, which overlooks the water. Both Maria and I had the grouper sandwich, John had a salmon blt, but Nick had the best-looking lunch with a seafood salad. John and Maria caught up on life and we headed to Anna Maria Beach, walking, talking, had a glass of wine looking over the water, then close to sunset we headed back.
They were setting up for the boat parade, so we could either leave then or be there for the next four hours, and the wind was picking up. We left then. After bidding adieu to Maria and Nick, John and I grabbed dinner at the Bubbaque near the cottage, where we got wings and salads. The chicken wings themselves were very good – smoked chicken, nice and tender. Even though we ordered the spicier sauces we found them mild, barely registering a 3 out of 10 for heat. We stayed up to watch Saturday Night Live- which was funny, but the best part was the SNL commercial for kids clothes – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVXN85TJabg
Day 59, Dec. 15th: I got in some weights, jogged the mile around the lake, and finished a blog post, a productive morning by all accounts. We filled our day with a few errands for the big trip, and at 3 we met for some snacks with Maria before heading over to John’s brother Tony’s house for dinner and celebrate niece Sabrina’s birthday. Like with all good family gatherings there was good food, a little drink, and a lot of fun conversation. John found out about Tony and Maria last year through ancestry.com. Other than that, it’s his story to tell.
Day 60, Dec. 16th: Monday was not my day. I discovered I had lost my driver’s license (likely when I was jogging in St. Augustine) and my India visa was denied due to “poor copy of the passport”. According to their own web site, if there is a problem with an image, they will reset something and you can upload again. Nope, this said denied. I emailed them since they are 10 hours ahead, so calling would not help. I did not have a photo of my license, but luckily University does and the wonderful amazing Esme – the offices Administrative Assistant – was NOT on vacation and I have her email. She promptly returned my email with a copy of my license so I could order a replacement. Then we headed back to the east coast of Florida to Daytona Beach to visit Uncle Gene, Aunt Cathy and John’s other sister Mary (the sister he grew up with). The drive was much better, but since I couldn’t print the temporary replacement, John had to do all the driving. This time it took the expected 3 hours with better weather. We were on the beach, though a little further south on the A1A than we anticipated. It was an “Air BNB in a hotel” – that then charged us a “resort fee” – the place was under construction, no light breakfast, no exercise room. There was a working pool but you had to walk through the construction area to get to it. Not going back to Oceanside Resort again. We did have a nice view.
Uncle Gene’s golfing buddies were having a party at a local bar with the back area having a tiki theme. They poured generously, and for dinner was hot wings and Mac and cheese. For those without restrictions there were also pork sliders and bacon wrapped something. After being social we returned to our room for a decent night’s sleep – so high up (9th floor) there was not a lot of street noise.
Day 61, Dec. 17th: It was a pleasant morning so John and I had a nice long walk on the beach,
checking out the birds – we saw a flock of terns
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generally, you will find a couple of terns mixed in with a flock of seagulls, but there was a group of just terns. Originally, we were supposed to meet Mary for breakfast, but she worked the night before so we met for lunch instead. We found one of John’s Mom’s old favorites – Kuppa – and had a basic eggs and biscuit breakfast. They had really good grits and wonderful biscuits – big and yeasty that absorbed the butter. For lunch, Mary loves Olive Garden, but after lunch she was tired, so we didn’t get to visit for long. She did her proper grandmother job, she made sure we saw all the new grandson pictures. We spent the afternoon and evening with Gene and Cathy – playing the longest game of Uno I have ever participated in – lasting well over an hour. We grabbed dinner at Cheddars trying to get ahead of the rain, and we lingered long enough for it to get going in earnest. Luckily, no hail or tornadoes, which they had said were possible.
Day 62, Dec. 18th: Too stormy and windy to do anything on the beach, so we packed up and met Gene and Cathy for breakfast before heading down to Miami. The Sunrise Café had walnut and banana pancakes, with the ingredients cooked into the mix. With full belies and plenty of coffee, we hit the road. A little over three hours on the road, we stopped in Ft. Lauderdale at the Top Hat deli – John had been craving pastrami and the Top Hat was highly rated.
The pastrami was piled high, but John said it was a little overcooked and not very seasoned. My egg salad was very good (light mayonnaise, added chives, on very good sourdough). We checked in with Cruise and Maritime, who have offices in Ft. Lauderdale and made sure they had all the documentation needed for the cruise. With that as a go, we drove down to Miami and got a room at the La Quinta near the airport. It’s a very hard hotel to find, even with GPS, so after a few wrong turns and a call to the hotel (which, in their phone tree had a number to press for directions) we made it. By the time we unloaded and settled in, it was dark, and we looked for some nearby bars. We started walking and saw the sign for “Casino Miami” – so with that beacon, we walked the ½ mile to the casino. John didn’t like the blackjack machines, and wasn’t doing well. When he found me, I was $20 down. We walked to the cashier for John to cash out when – woo-hooo- there was an “Invasion From Planet Moo-lah” – so John had to wait. Fifteen minutes later I was up $1 for the day, so time to cash out. We ubered to a local sports bar recommended by our Uber driver, where they had about twenty beers on tap and “award winning wings”.
Still not spicy, but the wings with the bourbon sauce was good. Then back to the hotel to veg out in front of the TV, in Miami. We’re not quite party people.