By amazing coincidence, two close friends of mine decided to get married to their respective fiancee’s this year. While that isn’t so amazing, they decided on consecutive weekends, both in Florida, and each asked me to participate in their wedding. So I trotted off to Florida to enjoy the sand, the sun, and a couple of weddings. I was the photographer for my friend Amy’s wedding in Tarpon Springs (near Tampa) and an Usher at my cousin Chris’ wedding the following weekend in Rosemary beach (near Panama City.) Here is the tale of this trip:
Friday, May 26th – An 8AM flight didn’t seem like a bad idea until I realized what time I had to get up to actually get to the airport in time _after_ finishing the packing that didn’t quite get done on Thursday… Oops.
I arrived in Orlando around noon and made my way toward Tampa in my rented Chevy PT Cruiser, er, I mean HHR. Just a note for the uninformed, every road in Orlando is a toll road. Seriously. The only non-toll highway is I-4, and if they could charge money on an interstate, I’m sure they would.
On my slow drive through Tampa to Tarpon Springs I managed to drive by two accidents just after they happened. It turns out this was a good indication of driving in Tampa, terrible. I got lost a little bit and drove by the Yankee’s spring training field and the Buc’s stadium by mistake. I guess that was the scenic route.
I arrived in Tarpon Springs, checked in and then headed for the rehearsal. The wedding was for a friend from college, Amy, and her husband-to-be Tom. I was the official photographer for their wedding, which would prove interesting as it was an outdoor wedding, and I had little portrait type experience. I headed into Tarpon Springs for the rehearsal dinner, and then crashed at my hotel for the night.
Saturday – I headed over to Amy’s Aunt’s house to help record the preparations. Her aunt is a block from the beach park where the wedding would be held, and has one of those great, eclectic, artsy-hippy-Florida houses. It was pretty cool.
Off to the beach for the ceremony itself. The beach was beautiful and the ceremony was beautiful, if a little on the hot side. Amy and Tom got all married up, we took some pictures, and off to the reception.
Sunday – Headed into Largo, FL, to Amy and Tom’s Townhouse for an after wedding pool party. It was nice and relaxing.
Monday – So it turns out Tampa is a popular place. I found this out before leaving as I talked to people who informed me of all of the people I know in the area. Besides Amy, I have a friend that moved there from the Twin Cities, and a couple that I knew in DC are there now as well. And those two live like 5 miles from each other. Crazy. So Monday, I hung out at the beach, then headed into St. Pete and took in the Pier and the Dali museum. I then headed to Oldsmar to meet my friend Robb and his girlfriend for dinner. I had a delicious Cuban chicken sandwich, and then headed north a little bit to see my friends Doug and Sarah, who invited me to stay with them and their kids, two of which I had met. When I got there, Doug and Sarah were out on the screened patio, enjoying the nice evening breeze.
Tuesday – Nothing much. When I got up, Sarah was babysitting for the younger of her kids, as well as _six_ other kids. Oh, did I mention they were all between 2 and 4. Wow. I took it easy and hung out with Sarah and their two boys Patrick and Michael (4 and 2.) I had met Patrick a couple of years ago, shortly before Michael was born. Later we picked up thei daughter Melanie (6) who was born just before I moved to Minnesota. I enjoyed hanging out with the crew, and Doug and Sarah were excellent hosts.
Wednesday – I headed out to make my way towards Panama City. On the way I stopped and saw the Florida Aquarium in Tampa, drove through Ybor (the old cigar district), and then headed north to the Don Garlitts Drag Racing Museum in Ocala. One of the strangest cars was actually a car in the parking lot belonging to a visitor. I don’t even know how to describe it, imagine a Yugo, with huge fender flares, wide tires, and ground effects. That might sort of give you an idea.
I then headed towards the gulf coast to find a nice relaxing hotel that had a deck I could sit on and watch the gulf. Mission accomplished. I found a great little fishing town with the perfect place. Each room was really a little condo. Everything was great, except the shower, which stunk of sulfur. I was informed that this “happened occasionally.” Nice. Eh, who needs a shower when you sweat all day, that’s like a shower all day, right?
Thursday – I drove into Panama City and met up with my Dad, my brother Erik, my sister Karianna, and my uncle Hugh, all of whom drove down for my cousin’s wedding together. We hung out by the pool, and then headed to the town of Seaside to the Old Florida Fish House for the “rehearsal” dinner. I have no idea why this was on Thursday, not on Friday after the rehearsal , and everybody was invited… A little different, but it was great. I met up with a few more relatives, and some other old friends from my DC days.
Friday – We headed into Rosemary Beach and ran into Anya (Chris’ Fiancée) on our way to the beach. We hung out on the beach, where both of Erik and Karianna got good burns. My cousin Sara apparently suffered the same fate. Since I was one of the Ushers for the wedding, I headed to the rehearsal, which turned out to be the most rehearsed rehearsal ever. The ceremony was to take about 30 minutes, but the rehearsal took an hour and a half, as we went through it two and a half times. But all of the rehearsing worked out, and everybody was comfortable with their duties.
Later, we checking into our rental cabin in Grayton Beach State park. Very nice place for a state park, it even had a AC and a dishwasher and a screened in porch , and was in a “gated community”, also known as the state park. Of course you had to be renting a cabin to drive down the road to the cabin’s so it had a very safe, secluded feel.
Later we headed to the “Meet and Greet” at Bud and Alleys in Grayton Beach. Another unusual event, this was just basically a happy hour for all of the guests. But again, it worked out great. I spent the evening with Doug (see above) a buddy Dave, who I last saw in 1999, and one of their friends, Mike. Karianna left early due to sunburn, and my Dad and Hugh left a little later. Erik headed out just after them to get a ride with them as well, leaving me there. I got tired and decided to call it a night a bit later, only to find it was only 10PM, and that my brother was sitting by the car. Turns out he missed my Dad, and then went to go back in to the bar where there was now a cover charge, for which he didn’t have enough money, and he was afraid to go to the ATM, just in case I left while he was doing it. I think he spent two hours sitting by the car waiting. It was pretty comical, although not to much for Erik. Luckily, he’s good humored.
Saturday – The Ceremony wasn’t until 6PM, so we decided to head into Panama City for some fun beforehand. We stopped at a _very_ ghetto Arby’s and then go-karted on a wooden track that was two big spirals on either end with a bridge between them. It was pretty cool, although my sister’s sunburn did not like the bumpy track. We then played some arcade games waiting for my uncle to arrive (he and my dad were visiting a guy my dad knows.) We won some tickets, and got some crappy items to give to Chris and Anya as gag gifts. Once my uncle arrived, we played a full 18 holes of miniature golf, and then headed back to change for the wedding.
The ceremony was about as perfect as you could have, showing that all of that rehearsing seemed to work. I hung out at the reception until we were kicked out, helped pack up, and then headed back. This time at a slightly more reasonable midnight.
It was great to have a brief chance to vacation with most of the family, something that is very rare otherwise. Vacationing with the extended family is even rarer, and was a nice change of pace.
Sunday – Up early to pack and such. As I was packing, my sister calmly says “help, can someone help me”. I walk in to see what the trouble was and, still holding the stuff she was about to take to the car say “I think I was just stung by a scorpion.” And sure enough, there was the cutest little scorpion on the floor, ready to pounce again. I had no idea there were scorpions in Florida, but there are. Luckily, although they can be painful, they are harmless. It did, however freak my sister out a little bit, and nobody was quite sure what to do about a scorpion sting. Luckily, it was very minor, but it certainly added to the odd happenings that we ran into over the weekend.
After my family left, I showered, and headed back to Rosemary beach. I ran into the Chris’ family and talked with them briefly on there way out of town, then headed to the beach. I swam in the gulf a little bit (and yes, this was only time I did) and headed out of town.
I stopped in at the “Museum of Man in the Sea” in Panama City, which was absolutely classic, old school museum. Half junk, half old displays. There were lots of little submarines outside to look at in addition to the fun inside. In fact, most of the cool stuff was outside, and didn’t require the entry fee to see it. I was happy to pay the $5 or so to get in just to help support such a kitchy museum.
I made it to Lake City, Florida on my way back to Orlando, checked into a hotel, checked my email and headed to bed.
Monday – Oops, I got up a little late, then realized I was further from Orlando than I thought, found security at Orlando to be extremely slow, and barely made it onto my 1PM flight… But I did and all was well.
On the drive to Orlando, I started passing bunch of Hot Rods and Muscle cars going the other direction. I was intrigued as they just seemed to keep coming. It wasn’t a few cars, it was several, then several more, then several more… I finally saw the Hot Rod Power Tour truck go by, explaining the multitude of cool, classic cars. It was pretty cool to see most of the Power Tour go by including everything from new C6 Corvettes, Vipers, and a Lotus Elise, to every muscle car imaginable, to hot rods galore, including more Camaros and Mustangs than you could shake a stick at. The power tour is a cross country event that Hot Rod magazine does. I wish I wasn’t so rushed so I could have stopped and taken some pictures or talk to some folks. Oh well.
The End
