Vacation Recap: Day 4 (Saturday)

Urgh. As I am writing this recap of our final day of our vacation, I'm sitting at home with the Cupcake having a snow day, and I'm reminded all over again about why Day 4 of our vacation sucked eleventy kinds of ass: bad weather. Not in Florida, of course -- there is no such thing as bad weather in Florida at this time of year, as I understand it. But everywhere else, apparently, there was horrible weather of biblical proportions, according to the airline people.

That marvelous misadventure will come in due time, though. First, we'll spend our last few hours in Key West at the beach:

This is what I imagined our entire vacation was going to look like -- sun, sand, surf, seagulls, against a background of palm trees and pastel hotels. I'm actually glad it wasn't all like this, because while that is fun in its way, now that we have a toddler, we need something to keep her entertained. And she found these birdies highly amusing, if a bit frustrating. I think she's still mad because she couldn't bring one of these home with her. (She doesn't yet understand that these are the same birds that hang out in the local Wal-Mart parking lot.)

The last time I was on the gulf coast of Florida, I was in 10th grade. My parents and my sisters and I drove down to Florida with my "aunt" Kim and her husband and their two kids (this was before their daughter was born, and she's a senior in high school now, so I am suddenly feeling very very old). Between 3-day stints at Disney World, we stayed at a condo on Marco Island. I don't remember very much about the trip except that one of my sisters had a broken ankle and we saw dolphins.

I know for sure that I don't think the Gulf of Mexico was ever as lovely as it was on this particular occasion:

The we drove 4 hours back to the Fort Lauderdale airport, where we waited for a hundred thousand years to get on the plane back home. Our return flight was supposed to leave at 6:45pm, but it was delayed due to bad weather in Chicago. (Yeah, I don't entirely get it either.) But suffice it to say that we didn't get on the plane to come home until after 11pm. We got in very early the following morning, and then we saw my sister and Joey and Cupcake tried to eat my nephew because he is delicious, the end.