Andrew & Carrie & Lily & Nora & Charlotte & stuff: Florida, cottaging

And then there was another year. Time flies when you're not doing much vacationing.

We did go to a cottage in March with a couple of families, including my little sister. That was fun, and not too far away.

Everyone got all foodie of course...

People chilled...

... some more than others.

There was an indoor hot tub, which got lots of use. Carrie went in it one day for a minute, for which she was rewarded with a giant itchy rash for the next couple of weeks. Hot tubs are gross.

And then more life happened. And then it was the last week of school. A friend need to go to Florida for work stuff. He wanted to drive, and he wanted company so as not to fall asleep on some interstate. So I volunteered to tag along, leaving the kids with our wives, on the busy final week of school, what with its school trips and half days and graduation stuff.

We set off Sunday evening, making it to the border pretty quickly. Getting into the US was no problem. We strove to take the most direct route, but Google keeps pushing fuel-efficient routes these days. What's with that anyways? Let us burn gas if we wanna burn gas. It's good for the economy.

Speaking of which, gas was anywhere between the equivalent of $1.40 to $1.75 a litre, at a time when back home it was over $2. Nice and cheap!

Toodling down the interstates, we were impressed by the number of roadkill deer we encountered. Hopefully they were taken out by big rigs and not cars. Must be a few dented grills driving around.

And those rigs... yikes! More often than not they kept up with traffic, happily going 130km/h. No speed limiters in those things, apparently.

Another random microburst

At any rate, we made it to Fort Myers area in about 24 hours, with a couple hours of sleep each. No real incentives to stop, except, perhaps, for ... (*drumroll*) ...

Pedro's! Giant billboards announce it for miles as you approach the North/South Carolina border. A big ol' tourist trap boasting glorious slogans such "You're always a wiener at Pedro's". Seriously though, you never sausage a place!

We did not stop. Made it to Fort Myers, stayed for 44 hours, headed right back home.

Palm trees make any scene nicer

A random parking lot turtle

We hit a bit more traffic coming back (thanks Orlando), so the return trip was about 26 hours in total. The border crossing into Canada was thoroughly uneventful; although we were well prepared with our ArriveCAN apps, none of that nonsense was even required.

Arriving home on the last day of school, I wasn't in any shape to attend the grad dinner with the rest of the family, but I did manage to drag myself out for the grad ceremony that evening. Duty done.

The week following that, a few families headed off to a cottage resort near Parry Sound. Each family occupied a little full-featured cottage near the water. Oh, except no air conditioning; the first night was brutal! Fortunately I had the foresight to bring a couple of fans along, so those sort of saved the day.

Our waterfront home

Our view

A private beach for the resort

Boerenkool for supper on our screened-in deck

There were a bunch of kids, and they mostly got along just great, spending time at the playground, in the water, or just hanging around.

Someone brought this giant pad... tons of fun

The kids made lunch! They really don't need us.

A couple of hiccups during our week... First, we kind of forgot to bring entertainment for our kids, so we had to visit a nearby Walmart one day.

Problem solved. These girls love colouring/drawing.

The other hiccup was bladder infections. Carrie has had them off and on since then; at the time, it wasn't clear how bad things would get, so we ended up spending an afternoon in the emergency room. We lucked out... we were out in under 4 hours!