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you gotta keep 'em separated
Jul. 10th, 2005 07:40 pmDespite having lived in Florida since I was nine, going to Orlando has not lost its tendency to feel like a real vacation, not just a day trip. Mike had a dentist appointment Saturday, and I tagged along. The drive was nice and speedy, passed just talking and landscape-watching. We stopped at Mike's favorite gas station (he lived in Orlando for a long minute and his family is still there), a Mobil on John Young Parkway (It goes somewhere! Not anywhere touristy, and too far east, but it doesn't exist independently of the logic of geography and physics either.) The station was running a promotion - a free travel-size bag of Ritz Chips, which any of you who have had the pleasure know are goodness beyond any of its brethern - with purchase of a 99-cent hot dog. I just wanted the chips, since I don't want to buy an entire bag at Publix and Mike's never tried them. The bag was 99 cents too, but when I brought it up to the counter, the cashier girl reminded me of the hot-dog deal and told me to just take the chips when I told her I knew but only wanted the chips. Sweet.
I decided to seek sanctuary at Starbucks while Mike settled up his affairs, wherein I spent a lovely couple of hours over a Chai Latte and some coffee cake with my unauthorized guide to Harry Potter, which has been thought-provoking if somewhat insipid at times. I hate that authors assume the default age for readers, especially for a book like that, are going to be young children.
Regardless, it was time well spent, after which we headed to Sweet Tomatoes for lunch. It's a delicacy for both of us, as there's no such joy to be found in our area code (though Amber informed me between snips of the history of Dairy Queen in Gainesville from as recently as the late 1970s. There were two! On Archer where the Kangaroo station is now across campus and up 13th Street. I haven't a clue what could've gone so wrong.) They had cauliflower soup! And the Asian Chicken Salad continues to delight, especially since Einstein's cruel selling out to the man, or whatever reason it decided not to carry it anymore.
But it was only after this that the day became one I'll cherish. While driving down International Drive in pursuit of lunch, I remarked we should go miniature golfing. Since the Blockbuster park near Sawgrass Mills shut down and I never had the pleasure of Putt-Putt Golf before it became a plaza of mediocre restaurants on 13th, it's been a lifetime since I'd done it. And one thing Orlando is not hurting for is kitch, so we stopped at the next one we came to, one Hawaiian Rumble (there was a volcano) Adventure Golf. We got to pick our color balls, and I bit my tongue when Mike chose dark blue and just picked up my orange, because really, going on five years here, and to be honest it's growing on me.
We were given the Lani course, which didn't take us through the volcano was nonetheless delightful. I scored par on the first hole, which was also one less than Mike, an incident that wouldn't repeat itself too often on the rest of the course. Now, the outer bands of Hurricane Dennis had already dumped some serious water on us on the freeway, but otherwise it's been mostly the choking humidity of impending doom all afternoon. We took to the course, both in black shirts, hoping for rain. So we play, I hit balls into the waterfall and the mulch around the palm trees, but have a great time of it nonetheless because in its smaller form accented by tacky surroundings with synthesized luau music in the background, golf is actually quite fun.
And then, around the end of the 15th hole, the sky opened up.
I don't mean a drizzle warning or sprinkler-style, either - I mean a bucket of water was poured over each of our heads. Sheets of rain began just flowing, not falling, deterred from their course only by the escalating wind. I literally jumped up on the rocks around the pond at the foot of the waterfall, turned my face up into it a screamed my appreciation to the powers that be. It was glorious, cool and thorough, and we finished the last few holes neither one of us being terribly able to see and soaked to our underwear, but it was and probably will be the best time I've ever had golfing. Mike enjoyed it as much as I did, albeit without the screaming, and that was grand, too. We giggled and grinned like idiots the entire time we walked past other golfers in various states of dampness who looked at us like we were insane.
After quite literally wringing out clothes out and en route home, we sang along to The Offspring's greatest hits, and he even indulged my let's-stop-at-the-Florida-welcome-center foolishness. Tour de France developments may be the sole low point of the weekend - my Belgian boy is out of his fetching green, Zabriskie is out altogether, but what a ride for Rasmussen. Amazing that his win was so thoroughly no contest - now let's hope he didn't spend it all in one place.
I decided to seek sanctuary at Starbucks while Mike settled up his affairs, wherein I spent a lovely couple of hours over a Chai Latte and some coffee cake with my unauthorized guide to Harry Potter, which has been thought-provoking if somewhat insipid at times. I hate that authors assume the default age for readers, especially for a book like that, are going to be young children.
Regardless, it was time well spent, after which we headed to Sweet Tomatoes for lunch. It's a delicacy for both of us, as there's no such joy to be found in our area code (though Amber informed me between snips of the history of Dairy Queen in Gainesville from as recently as the late 1970s. There were two! On Archer where the Kangaroo station is now across campus and up 13th Street. I haven't a clue what could've gone so wrong.) They had cauliflower soup! And the Asian Chicken Salad continues to delight, especially since Einstein's cruel selling out to the man, or whatever reason it decided not to carry it anymore.
But it was only after this that the day became one I'll cherish. While driving down International Drive in pursuit of lunch, I remarked we should go miniature golfing. Since the Blockbuster park near Sawgrass Mills shut down and I never had the pleasure of Putt-Putt Golf before it became a plaza of mediocre restaurants on 13th, it's been a lifetime since I'd done it. And one thing Orlando is not hurting for is kitch, so we stopped at the next one we came to, one Hawaiian Rumble (there was a volcano) Adventure Golf. We got to pick our color balls, and I bit my tongue when Mike chose dark blue and just picked up my orange, because really, going on five years here, and to be honest it's growing on me.
We were given the Lani course, which didn't take us through the volcano was nonetheless delightful. I scored par on the first hole, which was also one less than Mike, an incident that wouldn't repeat itself too often on the rest of the course. Now, the outer bands of Hurricane Dennis had already dumped some serious water on us on the freeway, but otherwise it's been mostly the choking humidity of impending doom all afternoon. We took to the course, both in black shirts, hoping for rain. So we play, I hit balls into the waterfall and the mulch around the palm trees, but have a great time of it nonetheless because in its smaller form accented by tacky surroundings with synthesized luau music in the background, golf is actually quite fun.
And then, around the end of the 15th hole, the sky opened up.
I don't mean a drizzle warning or sprinkler-style, either - I mean a bucket of water was poured over each of our heads. Sheets of rain began just flowing, not falling, deterred from their course only by the escalating wind. I literally jumped up on the rocks around the pond at the foot of the waterfall, turned my face up into it a screamed my appreciation to the powers that be. It was glorious, cool and thorough, and we finished the last few holes neither one of us being terribly able to see and soaked to our underwear, but it was and probably will be the best time I've ever had golfing. Mike enjoyed it as much as I did, albeit without the screaming, and that was grand, too. We giggled and grinned like idiots the entire time we walked past other golfers in various states of dampness who looked at us like we were insane.
After quite literally wringing out clothes out and en route home, we sang along to The Offspring's greatest hits, and he even indulged my let's-stop-at-the-Florida-welcome-center foolishness. Tour de France developments may be the sole low point of the weekend - my Belgian boy is out of his fetching green, Zabriskie is out altogether, but what a ride for Rasmussen. Amazing that his win was so thoroughly no contest - now let's hope he didn't spend it all in one place.
