Planning a vacation (or torturing myself)

Most of my friends know about our vacation in July of 2005. We planned to be away from Virginia for 2 solid weeks. We spent a great couple of days in Atlanta with friends, a day in Ozark, AL with Kevin's parents and then headed further South to Alligator Point, Florida. Alligator Point is a lovely, but unknown stretch of beach in the panhandle of Florida. It's just a bit Southeast of Tallahassee and seems perfect in all the pictures I've seen. http://www.alligatorpoint.org/ I can't comment on the beauty first hand because Hurricane Dennis arrived the same day we did. My older sister Rose was gracious enough to let us crash at her place in Tallahasse for a couple of nights while we waited for a hotel room to become available.

We spent the rest of the week at a lovely Tallahassee hotel, basking in the sun and playing at the pool Evie:PoolGeek with Stacye and her daughters. We did spend an interesting day at the Ochlockonee River State Park but Dennis had worked his magic there as well. I think the best time we had (other than a birthday dinner at my sisters restaurant) was a few hours spent at Wakulla Springs. http://www.wakullacounty.com/wakulla-30.htm It's supposed to be the largest, deepest freshwater springs in the world. They've still never found the source. I've read that the water is so clear you can see hundreds of feet to the bottom and occassionally, you'll spot a family of manatees. Of course, Hurricane Dennis stirred everything up so badly, they'd cancelled the glass bottom boat tours for the week. We took a regular boat tour along the river & over the springs with the most interesting (colorful) boat pilot/tour guide I've ever had the pleasure of dealing with. If there were Cajuns in Florida, he is what they sound like. He told us that if a snake dropped into our lap from an overhanging tree limb, we got to take it home as a Soo-vaaaah-nee-arh. We lucked out there. :)

I guess I bring all this up because I want to try again. I've been looking at homes for rent on Alligator Point, Florida this morning. Why? It still looks beautiful. It's still affordable. I still haven't been! Anyone up for a trip to the hidden coast of Florida in July? We can rent canoes or kayaks, play on the beach, visit the nature preserve, lay on the beach and drink mojitos, margaritas or just a good beer.

Everyone else is doing it....

Well, I put it off as long as I could. I promise, I did. I'd been warned about it. Doing it just once was enough to get you totally hooked. All my friends were doing it. They said it felt great, it wouldn't hurt me and that everybody that was anybody was doing it. Well, I am an anybody, after all. And yes, if they all jumped off a bridge, I'd do it too. I mean, really, who wants to be left standing on a bridge all alone. Certainly not me. So, I've started blogging. Now all I have to do is insert something really witty here.