It's our last morning in Florida. The hotel is letting us keep the room until lunch time. That's wonderfully convenient. Outside, it's no longer 100% sunny, but it will be warm. We can have a final swim splurge.
Breakfast here is great (and expensive!). Outside, with a buffet for those who want to put together their own selection. The girl, who normally is happy to skip the morning meal, loads up her plate and eats it all. (Too, kids start to open up their palates to new tastes with greater enthusiasm at her age. It makes for smoother travel!)
Yesterday, the pool in the sister hotel (the one with the water slides) got pretty crowded. Sort of like our community pool at the peak of summer. This hotel, on the other hand, offering fewer kid attractions, was more sedate. So it's a trade off.
But we know to get to the slides early today -- before the families come out of the woodwork.
Traveling with me as she does, I always wonder if Snowdrop misses her friends. She's getting to that age when they're all important. But right now (or is it that this is her personality?) she's content to have this break with ancient me. Not in a hurry (yet) to return to her friend pack back home.
Still, I don't go into the pool nearly often enough. She mostly finds ways to amuse herself. In California, the kids her age banded together. Here, they're both younger and older and no one looks beyond their own family. This isn't a Florida factor. It just happens to have brought together a different group of people. Too, I have to believe most everyone at the hotel has some plan to go to one of the theme parks. They don't just do the pool in Orlando. They're here to cavort with Disney characters and go down rapid rides. The interlude by the pool is just that -- an interlude. And it is for us as well. A very wonderful interlude.
Eventually I have to get her out of the water. We pack up, shower, and get going. Back to the airport. Return the car -- so much easier than picking it up! -- catch our flight, this time to Minneapolis, where we pause so that Snowdrop can have supper. Pizza. We liked it a year ago when we were passing through the airport on our October return from California.
I ask Snowdrop -- isn't that the same waitress we had here last year? She nods. I ask -- might have you been working here then? Indeed! A very coincidental and very sweet encounter!
And finally home, to Madison. Where her dad comes for her at the airport.
I drive home. Hi Ed! Hi gorgeous. Have a good time? Yes, we did...
with so much love...
