It's nice to wake up to sunshine, sand and warm ocean water. I didn't rent a car for this trip. I planned to order Doordash and Uber Eats and walk to where we wanted to go. For the most part, it worked. We usually do lots of sightseeing and touring, but because of Florida's spiking Covid cases, I changed the plans to spend most of our time socially distanced on the beach. Mimi joined us today. The kiddos said she wouldn't get in the water. So far, they're correct. Mimi is holding that beach chair down. I took a break to meet our intern for lunch. I left work in the ATL, but when your intern travels across the country to vacation in the same city at the same time, you find a moment to meet in person.
Lunch at Little Brazil was so good that I didn't miss the meat. Y'all know I'm on day 56 of a 60-day meatless journey. Who goes to Miami and doesn't have a bite of seafood? This girl. Lawd, these beans, rice and veggies gave me my entire life. After lunch, the kiddos and I enjoyed the water. One thing about divorce, your vacations offer zero chill, especially at the beach. When I'm not in the water with the kiddos, I watch their every move from the beach chair. There's no book reading, napping or woo-sahs in this camp. You are the eyes and ears of this family operation, and should anything happen, I'm ready to Baywatch my way to my chickadees. We stayed until they asked us to leave so they could put the beach chairs and umbrellas away. They close at 5 p.m., and it was 5:45, so I kept my indignant scowl to myself.
Editor's Note: This blog was published in 2022 but written in 2021 to capture our first beach trip after the panorama. Unfortunately, I got sick after returning to Atlanta, and I didn't discover that I had never published one of the family's best beach vacations. So here they are in all their year-late glory.