Florida: My First Trip to the Ocean

This will be the first post concerning my trips to other states that I mentioned in my last entry. It’s one of my first memories of vacationing in another State, so I thought it would only be appropriate to start here. I was going during Spring Break when I was in second grade with my uncle Clint and his new wife Michelle, along with my cousin Audra and older sister. He came late Friday night in his navy blue Buick with his Sea-Doo in tow, ready to drive us all down to Pensacola, Florida. It was going to be a long trip down, since we were driving straight there. It was something like a 16 hour drive, but to an 8-year-old mind, it’s a veritable eternity to sit in one spot for that long.

I remember my cousin and I decided we were going to try to stay awake until we got to Memphis, Tennessee. I forget why we chose that city now, but maybe it was because we were told it was the halfway point to our destination. No one else could stay awake that long, and I probably would’ve fallen asleep too if I hadn’t discovered an unlucky bit of information about myself: I have a really hard time sleeping in cars. I have to be prone, not in motion, and in relative silence to sleep, and driving affords none of these things. However, it was insanely early in the morning by the time the lights of Memphis started twinkling on the horizon (something like 4AM) and I simply couldn’t stay awake any longer…so I leaned on my older sister and….

I woke up maybe 6 hours later and we were near the edge of Alabama, very near the Florida panhandle. Everyone else was awake again, and there was some excitement because we passed a huge rocket sculpture  on the side of the highway. Being a huge nerd for “space stuff,” it’s no surprise that memory stuck. A few hours later, we pulled into the driveway of the house where we would be staying the week. Apparently it was my Uncle’s friend’s home, and they were away on a vacation of their own, and we were their house-sitters.

One of the first things we did was head out into the back yard through the sliding glass doors. The house was built on the water, so this was my first time looking at the ocean. I don’t really count it that much, because the house was built in a little cove, so the waves that rolled in were little more than over-sized ripples that didn’t even break as they lapped up on the sand. But that was okay with me, because it seemed safer: you see, the ocean was loaded with things like sharks and crabs and jellyfish, and as far as I was concerned it was dangerous enough without the huge waves. I waded out to my knees with some of those dorky swim shoes, but dared to take them off so I could wriggle my toes in the sand.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw a pelican. It flew directly over my head, silhouetted against the sun, and my heart skipped a beat because I thought I was seeing a live pteranodon. As much as I loved space things, I loved dinosaurs even more. The 8 year old in my mind is correcting me even now that pteranodons are not dinosaurs, but merely flying lizards. I remember the bird swooping down to land in the water, and the disappointment I felt when I noticed it had feathers instead of scales. There was also a great blue heron that wandered along the beach near the house, and we decided she must have had a nest around there. We’d often see her in the tall plants near the water, munching on a fish.

We kids would hang out at the house often, eating peanut butter sandwiches or playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 while my uncle would go jet-skiing with his wife. Audra and I had these little plush elephants we had gotten in our Happy Meals and turned our vacation home into the mysterious would of EleLand, and we’d spread our elephant’s ears out (that meant they were flying) and zoom from the bunk beds to the dresser to the shower to the kitchen counter, having hundreds of silly adventures.

A couple times, though, Uncle Clint took us with him to the open ocean. I will never forget seeing the steely-blue ocean for the first time. It was nothing like the “ocean” back at the house. It went on forever and ever until it touched the sky. It made me feel small, and I was scared of it. I didn’t know what was out there, and the waves were too powerful for me. I kept to the edge of the surf, letting the water wash over my feet as I scoured the beach for shells, while my sister and cousin would rollick in the waves. My fears were confirmed when my cousin was stung by a jellyfish on the ankle, and I remember sitting with her on a towel while my aunt and uncle spread baking soda on the wound.

I would later step on a jellyfish as well, but thankfully I didn’t get stung. This unlucky cnidarian had washed up on the beach and was buried in the sand in such a way that only the squishy top of it stuck out. It had a weird sunburst pattern of violet-red and white, and at first I thought I had stepped on an old beach ball or someone’s missing swimsuit top (I still don’t know how my young mind jumped to that conclusion). I ran away from the jellyfish to the showers to wash the ick off my foot, and scared a flock of sea gulls out of the way. Until this point, I thought they were quirky, but interesting, birds. But as the flock scattered, one of them peed on me, and my perceptions of sea gulls soured considerably. I spent a lot of time in the shower after that, making sure I was no longer covered in sea gull pee and jellyfish juice. Looking back, it’s a wonder that I ever wanted to go back to the beach after that day.

I remember the day we left, my sister and I were on the very last level of Sonic, but my uncle turned the power off on us, because it was time to do laundry and pack up. Bummer. My uncle was frazzled because we were leaving a little later than expected, and he got stopped by a friendly Alabama trooper on the way home. Despite the fact that he was doing well over the speed limit, he didn’t get a ticket, but advised my uncle to stop and rest for the night to chill out.  We ended up going to a Holiday Inn or some similar type of hotel, as a result, which was cool with me because it meant that I would have an extra day of Spring Break.

We got up early the next day and went down to have a bowl of cereal for breakfast, then my uncle let us have a little bit of time to swim in the pool. It was all ours, and it was heated to boot. Audra and I had a ton of fun splashing around for an hour or two before we piled in the car and headed home. The trip back to Indy seemed shorter than the trip down, but we still didn’t end up getting home until around 10pm, then it was straight to bed. I’m sure there were other things that happened while we were down there that I don’t remember, but Florida was a lot of firsts for me. I’ve been back several more times, and will probably dedicate a few more posts to some of the other trips I’ve taken there.

My next planned post will be about my first trip to New York and the first time I left the country. Stay tuned!

Tags: florida, states, travel

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 31st, 2010 at 3:41 pm and is filed under The 50 States. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.