Sunny Florida

Dear readers - I’m sending this dispatch via the magic of email from sunny Florida. I’ll try not to gloat about the fact that it has been in the 80s every day I’ve been here. Well, I’ll gloat a little bit, but I also realize I’m going to suffer the cold more when I return next week. This heat is NOT helping me acclimate at all.

I’m on a working vacation. Our daughter and her husband went on a church-related trip to Israel, so I’m babysitting our grandsons. They are six and a half and almost eight (Dec. 1 is the quickly approaching birth date). I’m being reminded daily why people have children while they’re still relatively young. There’s so much energy and go-go-go in children. My go-go-go up and left me some time ago. Yes, I still do a lot and stay pretty active, but I go at a slower pace with plenty of rest breaks. These boys go until they drop. I do, too, but our drops don’t seem to coincide well.

Luckily, there’s school. Their day starts at 6:30 a.m., which is 4:30 a.m. Montana time. There’s a quick breakfast, followed by getting dressed, then leave the house by 7:10 (sooner if I can get them in shoes quicker). I pack lunches while they dress, which means I have to be dressed and ready to go before they get up.

The trip to school either involves riding bikes from home, or driving part-way and walking the last half-mile or so. The total distance from their home to the school is 1.4 miles. I had to look it up. It seems so much farther on a bike. (I hadn’t ridden a bike for five years, so hadn’t realized how out of shape my bike-riding muscles were.)

I only had one small mishap: there is a sharp turn getting back onto the sidewalk after crossing a street. I forgot my brakes were on the handlebar not at my feet, and so I rode straight into some low-growing juniper bushes. But I didn’t fall over, so that was good. By the time I extricated myself, the boys and their friend Hudson were far ahead of me. Not once did any of them think to look back to see if I was there or not. (The woman walking her two small children behind me was quite entertained, though.)

And these trips (walking or biking) will happen twice a day. School lets out at 1:55 p.m., so I’m there to greet them and accompany them home again. At least the second bike ride eased the tension out of the sore legs.

This trip has expanded my knowledge. I now can use the maps app in my smart phone. I’ve only made a couple of wrong turns - once too soon, and once I was in the wrong lane to get to the exit I needed. Having boys chattering and poking each other in the back seat doesn’t help your concentration. I even managed the interstate, with four to six lanes going both directions, full of traffic, all going at least 70 mph. Quite the change from Highway 24N, where if there are three cars together you think you’re in a traffic jam.

Maybe next week I’ll tell you about roller blade hockey (outdoors) and ice hockey (obviously indoors here in Florida). I’m enjoying my time here in the warmth with my grandsons. (Had to throw in one more gloat. Not sorry, either.)