All The Way Home, and Home Again.

The monster round-up post. Here goes...

I don't fly well. I fly even worse when I'm sitting in row 25 because Spirit Airlines makes you PAY to reserve your seat when you order your tickets. Which is absurd. Which I would not do. Which I would never have ordered from them if I knew that that little tidbit was coming. I would have flown American into Miami instead.

Thankfully, starting in November, Most Awesome Airline Virgin America will have straight flights to Ft. Lauderdale (twice daily!). Hallelujah. Moving on.

We arrived at Ft. Lauderdale International Airport at 6:30am on Thursday, and promptly picked up this baby:

LOVED LOVED LOVED the Mazda 3. Sigh. The whole trip I kept reminding myself that there's no way I'm getting a new car. (Note: And yet came home and immediately looked into the cash for clunkers program. My '94 Toyota Corolla doesn't qualify. Moving on.)

Driving to my friend Marlisa's house where we stayed a couple nights, I slowly remembered my way around and soaked in the sunshine and the GREEN EVERYWHERE. Everyone says that Coral Springs has changed so much, but it doesn't seem that different to me. Except for the big hole where a Publix used to be before it was condemned following a hurricane. Not sad I missed that joy!

It was so great to see Marlisa and we chatted for quite a bit before MBF and I crashed for a nap in her guest room. Then that night we met her husband Randy after he got off work and we ate at Mississippi Sweets, which was super yum. (I kept forgetting to take pics of food this trip, sadly.) And then we headed to the Lion and Eagle Pub. I'd just let a bunch of peeps know I'd be there in the hopes of seeing more people on my trip. I've always been one of those people who has friends from all different groups, so it's difficult to impossible to make specific plans to see everyone. So let me just stop right now and say THANK YOU again to my friends that came out. I'd picked a place in Boca because I'd hoped I'd have people coming from both directions, but only peeps from Coral Springs came out, so thank you SO MUCH for driving up north!

 

It worked out great, thankfully, because the Lion and Eagle was super fun. It was quiz night, and our team with Marlisa, Randy, MBF, Corinne, and Debbie came in 3rd overall and smoked the team I was on with Daz, Barry, Jeannie and Rich. We did good, but not good enough! This was a great night, and mostly the only time I got teary.

Friday, MBF and I went to one of my favorite places on the planet, The Morikami Museum and Gardens.

I wrote about our lizard sightings, but we also enjoyed the exhibits and a nice lunch in the cafe. MBF found a sign for a favorite garden:

 

Unfortunately, the beer garden wasn't going to make an appearance until the next day, which was the magical Bon Festival. I've been many times; it's wonderful. But I had a reunion to get to.

The reunion started on Friday night at a place called America's Backyard. Which, unfortunately, I hated. I hated it before we even stepped foot into it, as horrible loud music came pouring out the front door. I'm fairly certain that you could lure L.A. hipsters there, hit the lights and music, and they would spontaneously explode into dust. And clearly, I've got more L.A. hipster in me than I thought, because a dusting was seeming like it would be a relief.

There's no roof on America's Backyard, which is clearly channeling the old Baja Beach club (sans air conditioning), so it was HOT. And the music was so LOUD you couldn't really have a conversation without full on shouting. Not really conducive to the beginning of a reunion where you're seeing people you haven't seen in years.

Also annoying, the invitation from First Class Reunions said there would be "passed hor d'oeuvres." Instead, you had to go downstairs out of the reunion area, across the whole place, and there you could make a sandwich and get some potato or macaroni salad. Which was edible, but completely mediocre. You had to make the same journey for decent beer, which your drink tickets weren't good for.

I definitely definitely enjoyed seeing some great peeps from high school, but Friday night was mostly miserable. The best part of the night, besides seeing my friends of course, was getting this pic, which I call, Different Outfits for Different Jobs:

Saturday, we went to lunch with Marlisa and Randy and enjoyed the best Cuban sandwiches in town. Randy got a Cuban BURGER, which was quite amazing. Then, we bade our friends farewell and headed to the W Hotel in Ft. Lauderdale to check in.

And WOW. It is BEAUTIFUL. I already showed you the view from our room, but here's us having some fun with the welcome committee:

 

 

We enjoyed the beach so much. We really lucked out on this trip and got the most beautiful weather. We also checked out the pools and had a wonderful breakfast (I had salmon benedict on a latke) overlooking the beach at Steak 954. Where I was too shy to ask the waitress to take the pic AGAIN after I blew it by not putting the flash on auto-on:

But before that Sunday morning breakfast, Saturday night was my 20-year high school reunion. And it was OK. I saw even more peeps that I was totally psyched to see, and the buffet at the Hyatt Regency Pier 66 was pretty good. They took a group picture of all the alums that were there, and I enjoyed the balloons in our school colors. My friend Daz got a certificate for longest married (I think it was 17 years), which was nice. Marci from San Diego beat me out for longest distance traveled. My friend Katie - who I met in 4th grade - snapped this pic of MBF and I:

Between seeing people I hadn't seen in years and years and finally being back in Florida, I was somewhat overwhelmed by the whole thing, truth be told, and I wasn't as social as I would have liked to have been. I mostly stuck with my closer friends and tried to enjoy the fleeting time with them, whereas I do wish I'd been more social and flitted around the room and danced a bit. But before too long the music got way too loud and the lights unbearable, and we had to flee. I enjoyed some final conversation out in the lobby where a group of people had convened to talk where one could see and hear. And then we were back in the hotel room watching a poker tournament on TV from the big, fluffy bed.

The next day after breakfast, beach, and pool, we made our way to my friend Jeannie's where all the talk about people's kids turned into time with actual, real kids. My friend has the most adorable 4-year-old twins, who immediately took to MBF, of course. I think I did OK, too. They were very sweet, and it was very nice of them to allow us to take over their play room with a giant air mattress! Later, Jeannie, Rich, MBF and I went out to a yummy dinner. Sadly, this establishment was closed:  

 

So we brought wine back to the house and stayed up chatting. I was really thankful the next morning that they were able to go to breakfast on a workday, too.

It was so hard to say goodbye to all of my Florida friends.

On our last day, we visited my friend Grant and took him to lunch at the Ale House, where we enjoyed our last Yuengling beers, and MBF found a little pink pearl in a conch fritter. Grant was, as always, extremely happy to see me:

We'd really hoped to hit the Seminole Hard Rock Casino before we left, but settled for simply driving by it, filling up the rental car, and heading to the airport. Our flight home was much better than the flight there, once we switched seats with peeps so we could sit together.

And then we were home.

Comments

[Zandria]

Great wrap-up! I'm glad you guys had such a good time.

(My little sister has a Mazda 3, and she really likes it. Hers is 3-4 years old by now, though.)

(Cute pic of you from high school!)

[lizriz]

Thanks! We really did have such a great time. It was amazing to take such a nice vacation.

*SO* not thinking about how awesome the Mazda 3 is. No, I'm not! No, I'm not! lol

Oh, that picture. It's all eyebrows. Oy.

[grant]

Look at me! I'm *punchable*!

Too bad you didn't get to throw some craps.

[lizriz]

We picked you over poker! (any day, any day) ;)