Passing the Time

We’re an hour away from Fort Myers Beach, after two days of traveling in the car; it has been an enjoyable trip, nice to spend some time with Dave, given both of our work and home schedules lately. We opted to take his car instead of the Jeep Liberty, a wise choice after he pulled some back muscles last weekend and it is a 20 hour trip. The seats are much more comfortable, but the 1993 Lexus GS (or Cuban gun runner, as my BIL Matt calls it, since it is square and white with dark-tinted windows) is old enough that it only has one cigarette lighter. With the GPS plugged into it, I couldn’t play my iPod, so the radio has been our entertainment all the way here.

Dave is excited just now, because he found a talk radio station, “finally”. I can do without it, but thankfully we’ve also listened to lots of music, and played “name that band” much of the way here. Dave’s got me beat on some of the 70’s music, but I pretty much know the rest and it was fun to pass the time. Whatever we didn’t know we “Shazamed”, with his iPhone – all you have to do is hold it up to the speaker for a few seconds and it gives you the song title, artist, album, etc.

For a gatherer of (mostly useless) information like me, the internet is a wonderful thing. One can pretty much find anything you want to know on Google. Yesterday, we googled “tree with pink flowers”, trying to find/remember the name of a type of tree that was blooming along the roadside as we traveled south. Within less than five minutes, I had my answer – mimosa tree. Technology is a fabulous thing.

I’m looking forward to stretching my legs, unpacking the luggage, and just relaxing. I have all the my vacation necessities: a fresh bag of Churchill’s Sinless Pastry coffee, a stack of library books, a collection of bathing suits (Lord knows I won’t be happy with how any of them look, but I’ll just deal with it), my iPod, and lots of flip flops and other comfy beach attire. More posting and pictures after we get settled in.