What Was I Thinking?

Having spent 5 1/2 weeks in Florida I can confidently say it has moved right to the top of the list of States I would live in only if the Witness Protection Program were somehow involved.

I tried, I really did.  I told myself our stay would be just about the weather.  Millions of people live there for that reason alone.  And the beaches of course - two kinds after all: Gulf and Atlantic.  That’s pretty special.  And Dan could play golf!  In February!  We could sit outside in the soft evening breeze drinking margaritas as the sun went down.  We would be snowbirds and try not to be smug about it as our friends and families huddled inside up north.

Okay, so, the weather.  I’d say there were maybe 6 days in total when it was what I’d expected - in the 70s and not humid.  There were stretches of days when I too was huddled inside because it was too hot and humid to do anything else - and when I did venture out there were mosquitoes the size of chickens waiting for me.  People erect giant mesh structures over their back yards, because you can’t even SIT outside. Then there are the fire ants.  And snakes. And let’s not forget the alligators which people think are big ducks, apparently, and have to be told not to feed.

What was I thinking?  I hate hot weather.  I hate humid weather.  I am not a beach person.  I don’t swim.  I don’t play golf or fish or do anything remotely athletic that would warrant spending over a month in a place where all those things can be done in the middle of winter.  I can sit in a chair and drink margaritas - just not outside it seems.

But none of this really matters.  I understand why people move somewhere for the weather.  It’s a big part of why we moved from New York City to the Pacific Northwest after all.  What makes me sure about not coming back is the loathsome political situation here.  I tried to ignore it, I tried not to write about it.  I know there are good people here - friends Claudia and Ed, and cousins Franny and Alice are the best - and parts of the State would no doubt secede, given half a chance.  But the confederate flags, the disgusting bumper stickers and signs  which people think are okay to display, the anti-gay and anti-women’s reproductive rights legislation, the far right pandering Governor who, God forbid, wants to be our next President - these are too much for this “bleeding heart liberal”.

I had to google what this slogan, which seems to be everywhere, means.  A reporter interviewing a race car driver named Brandon thought the crowd was chanting this in the background.  No, they were chanting “F*** Joe Biden”.  It’s now become a thing. This was on the pretty waterfront street in St. Augustine.

You might have to zoom in on this but honestly, these weren’t the worst I saw.

I tried to find good things to write about Florida. There were a few.  

I was delighted to discover that Walmarts in the Orlando area have a whole section of British goods.  Half my pantry space is now devoted to Branston Pickles and Dark Chocolate Digestives.  Happy days.

This was definitely an “Only in Florida” moment:

When the job comes with a Company Car…..

We got to our RV park near the Kennedy Space Center in time to see this:

And Dan got to cross off an item on his bucket list:

And I got my Pandemic/Trailer Trash hair cut!  Thanks Franny and Alice for arranging an appointment with the fabulous Jimmy in Miami Beach.

We stayed a night at a Harvest Host farm on a beautiful lake and had this glorious sunset.

But the owner made one-too-many thinly veiled references to “freedoms” and the “crazies in Seattle” (code for Liberals/Democrats) and that was that.  At another farm stay in the north of the State, the owners were a lovely young couple who gave us free eggs and spoke about their deep belief in God.  The neighboring properties had confederate flags out front.

We stayed near a town in the center of the State that claimed it was the True Old Florida.  It holds an annual Swamp Cabbage Festival complete with parade, beauty pageant, rodeo and armadillo races.  Great!  We went into town for a look around and saw this:

 

Seriously, Florida, you make my head spin and my heart hurt.

St. Augustine, our final stop, actually delivered the perfect weather for the two days we were there.  I even went to the beach, dipped my feet in the water and slurped a margarita before the mozzies showed up.  

It’s an interesting town - the oldest in America - with quite a remarkable history and some charming houses and buildings. 

 

The oldest commercial street in the country.

The former Flagler Hotel, now College.

It was established by the Spanish in 1565 and fought over for centuries, being handed back and forth between Spain and Britain like a relay baton. We took a tour (will I never learn?) and our garrulous guide, a third generation St. Augustinian, Vietnam Veteran, Father of Five God Bless ‘Em, Proud American, told us quite a bit about his childhood fishing exploits and his theory about Mother Nature and her 100 Year Cycle of Plagues, and not much else.

He ignored the fact that Spanish St. Augustine was the first city to provide safe harbor to escaped slaves from the Carolinas and Georgia (under British rule at the time) in the late 1600s and early 1700s.  They were granted their freedom and many stayed and formed a thriving free community.  Even though Florida joined the Confederacy in the Civil War, St. Augustine remained loyal to the Union.  When Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 this town was one of the few places in the South where any slaves were actually freed.  Their community was renamed Lincolnville and we drove through it while our idiot guide prattled on about his Great Granpappy.  When we drove past the Slave Market, a chilling site, he called it the “place where they took indentured workers”.  

Also not mentioned was the fact that Martin Luther King came to this town and was arrested here, nor that the town made national headlines when the owner of a segregated motel poured acid in the swimming pool when Black and White civil rights activists jumped in to protest.

I give up.  Florida - a nice place to visit for a week in February if you stay on the beach with your eyes looking firmly out to sea.