Florida Work Trip
Last week, I went to a conference in Florida and Mike reverted to his days of bachelorhood. Mike ate frozen chicken nuggets and frozen pizza and drank beer “without harrassment” (his words). Half-way through the week, he cooked some chicken (fresh, not frozen) and made salads. Besides enjoying his freedom from our weekly menu, Mike worked a lot.
I went to Florida with Jennifer Durham from my office. The primary purpose of the trip was a DRI Young Lawyer conference in Miami. However, we stretched out the trip by scheduling two client visits and taking a vacation day. We took a red-eye flight Sunday night and arrived in Orlando Monday morning. Neither of us slept very well on the flight, especially with the 1½ hour layover in New Jersey. We rented a car and drove to our client’s office (Budget Rent A Car). We had a wonderful lunch with four people from Budget. They were really laid back and a lot of fun. A tropical storm was striking the following day and it had the potential to turn into a Level I hurricane. The Budget manager gave us his personal phone number “not for business” but just in case we needed help while in Florida. Very nice!
That night, we stayed in the Disney World Hotel Port Orleans Riverside. Jen had never been to Disney World or Disneyland and she let our an excited squeal when we saw the Disney gates. The hotel was very familiar to me and the desk clerk confirmed that it used to be called Dixie Landing, which is where mom and I stayed in 1993. We arrived at the hotel mid-afternoon with plenty of time to explore, so we went to Paradise Island. We walked around, shopped and took photos. We had dinner at The House of Blues. It was really good and the waiter blatantly hinted that I could take home the funky Tiki Man glass that held my drink. I took the suggestion and took the glass.
The next morning, we woke early and went to Disney World. The weather cooperated that morning and was sunny and warm. Jen and I had a wonderful time at Disney World. We rode most of the rides, took a lot of photos, didn’t do much shopping but thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We took photos with Captain Hook (who tried to take my wedding ring with his hook) and Smeed, Eeyore, Chip and Dale (Dale tried to kidnap Jen) and finally, Mickey. Jen suggested Mike would like a photo of Mickey with his family (me and Sammy). Mickey graciously held Sammy in the photo.
Around 11:00 a.m., Jen and I rode Splash Mountain twice and got wet during the ride. We laughed and enjoyed the dousing. We waited in line for Thunder Mountain. We were next in line and we noticed the people getting out of our train were soaking wet and looked surprised. I didn’t remember water on the ride and the people later told us it had started raining. As soon as we exited the tunnel, we realized it wasn’t raining, there was a torrential downpour. The tropical depression had hit. Due to the speed of the train and the rain, I couldn’t even open my eyes during the ride. We rode the ride with our eyes shut, literally sliding across the seat. It was great! Since we were already soaked, we bought ponchos but didn’t let the storm slow us down.
By the 3pm parade, the weather had turned nice again. The parade was beautiful. We went back to our room for a brief rest and dinner. We returned to Disney World, rode some more rides and watched the light parade and the fireworks. The fireworks were truly awesome and the castle was beautifully lit! This sounds corny, but it was a magical moment.
We left early Wednesday morning and drove to Ft. Lauderdale to meet with the Alamo people. We had another fun lunch. The Alamo people were great as well. After lunch, we continued our drive to Miami, South Beach. We were both very tired by the time we arrived in Miami. However, after seeing the view of the beach from our rooms, we got our second wind. We immediately put on our swimsuits and hit the beach and the pool. Instead of going to the DRI reception that evening, we drank two buckets of beer while sitting by the pool. Then, we found a restaurant called Cafeteria which we were told would have burgers and beer. Well, it wasn’t the type of place we expected. South Beach is very fancy and this restaurant was hip. After dinner, the waiter suggested several nightclubs, but told us we couldn’t wear khaki shorts and sandals to them. He also suggested a hotel two blocks down from ours called Delano. At Delano, there were beds by the pool! Apparently, they were supposed to be artistic but we thought they were hilarious and took photos.
The conference was the following day. The speakers started off bad but got better. After the conference (well…most of it), we hit the pool again for a couple hours. Then, we went to another reception and hung out with more lawyers. We went to the dine-arounds and ate dinner at a place called Pacific Time. It was good food and the company was great. There were a couple of people from the Schwabe law firm in Portland and then a lady from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a guy from New Hampshire and some people from Kentucky. After dinner, there was a DRI-sponsored party at another hotel. We went to that, then we left to go salsa dancing with most of the people from our dinner group. The club was closed so we went to another bar. It was a late night.
The next morning, Jen and I made it to the first speaker at the conference. Again, after attending most of the conference, we went back to the pool. A little later, DRI sponsored another party at the pool. We went to that for an hour before we left for the airport. While at the gathering, we learned Britney Spears was staying in our hotel. Not quite as exciting as the Dali Llama (who I saw during the WA DC trip), but still interesting. We were nervous in returning the rental car because there were at least 3 new dents/scratches in the car from parking it in the various Disney World lots. We were both relieved when the Alamo lady was obviously not interested in her job and barely looked at our car. It was a wonderful trip and Jen was a great traveling companion!
When I arrived home after 3am, Mike had just woken up and waited for me at the door. There could have been no better homecoming.
