The return to reality

All good things must come to an end, or so the cliche goes. I guess that also goes for needed vacations. Our 10 day frolic in the sun ends today. I'm up early again (no surprise) and strangely, have found a weak wi-fi connection in my corner of Pleasantville.

With our need to control expenses, budget air accomadations were the order of the day, when we originally booked our flight on Allegiant Air, which only flies into Sanford, a three plus hour drive from where we are staying (Port Charlotte). The drive down was fun, as we took back roads and played the part of tourists, with no time constraints affecting our trip. Today, we'll battle interstate and tollway traffic as we creep northward, back to the Orlando area.

This may have been one of our best vacations, not so much for what we did, but for what we didn't do. I spent very little time focusing on news and politics, other than reading the local newspaper. I did listen to NPR each morning while preparing breakfast, but Mary made me turn it off if I started shouting at the commentator. This only happened twice, both times in relation to a story involving the war in Iraq and our woeful president.

Since we didn't have cable TV (just an antennae, which pulled in about 5 stations), we read. I plowed through two books by Jonathan Franzen and started another one by Harmon Leon, the very funny, Republican Like Me. Franzen is a very good writer and The Corrections is one of the better works of fiction I've ever read. I'll probably tackle one of his other books in the next couple of months.

From our 10 days of sun and 80 degree temps, I'm sure I'll be shivering come Monday, as I battle to restock my wood box and get a fire going, all to ward off the 30 degree days that await us, back in Maine.