Travel Diary: Fairfax to Fort Lauderdale
So far, no real adventures. No spaceships encountered. No magical doors into a land of talking animals. Still, we have had fun.
After Pittsburgh, we spent the night in Fairfax VA with Michele's oldest baby brother, Ryan and our niece Maddy. We last saw Maddie when she was about 13 and now she's 22. I found myself saying all those things old people said to me when I was young, "OMG! You are a grownup! You're so big." You know the thing you swore you said you'd never say? I said all of them. And, I really meant them. I guess I really am old.
Maddie is a budding horticulturalist (get it? get it? budding!?! Har!) and we learned a great deal about plants in a very short period of time with her. 
After a good night's sleep, Ryan, bless him, got up with the birds and us and took us off to catch a flight. Um... on an airplane, not with the aforementioned birds. Destination, Fort Lauderdale FL
Actual picture from our window. For realsies. Why would I lie about something like that? 
We lived in Florida for about five years. Both our kids were born here. I never liked it, and that was before the present governor turned it into a budding authoritarian state. I don't like the weather, it is too damn hot. When we were preparing to move from Florida, we'd tell folks we were moving to Colorado and the response would be a horrified gasp, "It gets cold there!" They apparently didn't notice it had been 100F (38c) for the past eight weeks. With 90% humidity. Now, granted, that was in Tallahassee, far from the ocean breezes of Fort Lauderdale, but still, I'll take winter over that any day.
I seem to have strayed from my happy description of our travels into my familiar rant against hot weather. Apologies. But, if I dislike Florida so much why are we here? Watch this space in coming days for the answer! Suspense! Intrigue! Cliffhanging!
jpj stories by John Jackson is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
