Monday, December 19, 2005

9:35 PM Monday, December 19, 2005

Please accept my apology, as it’s been over two weeks since I’ve put anything on the blog and tell me—where does the time go? We’ve been visiting with family and exploring the “first coast” (St. Augustine area) and then we left the “treasure coast” (Port St. Lucie area) this morning all the while enjoying a few warm and sunny days with a whole lot of rain and chilly thrown in for good measure along the Atlantic side of Florida. It is reminding me of my time spent in the frozen north … but of course, this is just my opinion.

I lived in Alaska for several years over two decades ago. It wasn’t long after becoming a resident that I began to mimic the overall mindset of the locals that the “last frontier” saved the great weather—the sunny days with blue skies—for residents and threw the worst—gray overcast skies, snow and bone chilling temperatures—at the tourists. The reason? Alaskans are so territorial they give newcomers (aka cheechakos) the cold shoulder and superstitiously believe the state is in on the game. Once in a while, a vacationer will get a peek at the mind-boggling beauty of that magnificent state during a visit and go home exclaiming how wonderful it was (I was one of those) and many times, they end up moving north (again, I was one of those).

Alaskans understand and fear that phenomenon and since they really don’t want to share their space (even though they have more space per capita than any other U.S. citizen) they really hope for lousy weather during tourist season. They need the tourist dollars but want these visitors to go home convinced the bad weather is normal and harboring few if any aspiration about ever moving to Alaska.

So, that’s my theory about what’s going on in Florida as I speak. Over and above the repair and renovation of damage from hurricane Wilma going on, this state is booming—with a capital B! It’s the beginning of snowbird season and the danger of hurricanes no longer threatens so people are traveling south by the thousands to settle in for the winter and enjoy what is supposed to be the closest thing to “paradise” in the continental U.S.A. So where is it? We’ve been in the state for three weeks now and so far, much to my disappointment, we haven’t experienced enough “paradise” to encourage thoughts about hurrying back. I smell a conspiracy! Floridians are somehow concealing the good weather from us tourist-types—I can just feel it in my bones! Well, I’m not easily fooled so we will be here for another week or longer hoping for a peek at “paradise” … wish us luck, okay?

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