Well, after waking up at 4 this morning for a 7a flight, waiting in the Ft Lauderdale airport for an extra 2 hours b/c my in-laws' flight out of NY was delayed, and checking in to the hotel, we have finally arrived in sunny Florida for our 5-day relaxing vacation. I'm looking forward to seeing what the local supermarkets have in the way of "not-budweiser," if anything. To paraphrase Lewis Black, "There's not enough [beer] for this [weekend]." The hotel is nice; right now the lawn guys are here cropping and mowing everything in advance of the holiday weekend. I forgot that freshly-mowed southern lawn smells different than freshly-mowed northern lawn.

The last time I was in Florida was three years ago. The time before that was in the later '90s somewhere. Due to having former family living down here when I was a kid, my parents, brother, and I would be down here twice a year, every year when I was growing up (and even into middle- and high-school). Even with all that time, the palm trees, wide-bladed thick grass, and the smell of the dense heat still seem so familiar. And even though I'm down here visiting new family, it kind of makes me miss the old family a little more.