Florida sun, post 2

(See my first post about Florida.)
Our Florida vacations consisted of alternating days between the pool and the beach. We were oblivious to the harms of baking in the sun and thrilled with the benefits: relaxation and a tan. If it was sunny out, we'd be laying out. We read books, applied sunscreen to each other, and on pool days, Drew and I perfected handstands and swimming strokes, begging for an audience from mom and dad. An underwater thermometer hung by a string off the ladder at the deep end, an odd fascination to us.

One year in particular, I remember mom joining us late at the pool. She was at the condo with a splitting headache and nausea. We didn't know it at the time, but how dare a brain tumor show up on a family vacation.

Beach days were a little more of a production because we had to drive there. We hoped to find a parking spot on the beach side of the road so we wouldn't have to cross the busy lanes of traffic on foot, but after we discovered the underground tunnel, I secretly hoped for an across-the-street spot instead. We staked out our spot, dug our chairs into the sand, lathered up, grabbed our books, and all four Hardisons sat on the beach, soaking in the sun, lost in our own fiction, only looking up when the sound of a plane overhead announced with a trailing sign two-for-one beers at the beach-front restaurant that night. Drew and I pretended we didn't know what beers were.

Lunch on the beach was always nabs and a Coke. There is of course no other beach lunch. Finally, in the late afternoon, Dad would get up from his chair--a sign that it was time to go--and we'd load our stuff and ourselves into the hot car, sitting still to avoid feeling the hot stickiness of our skin any more than we had to, Drew and I each claiming first dibs on the shower when we got home.

Some days we'd find time for fishing in the canal between sunbathing. One day I insisted on fishing with Vienna Sausages, even though Drew and Dad laughingly told me fish didn't eat sausage. Turns out they were right. None bit. But with Dad's bait at the end of our lines, Drew and I did catch a blowfish or two in that canal.

After dinner some nights we'd drive around, on the hunt for the Florida smell. Only if your last name is Hardison do you know about the Florida smell. It was a mix of peppers and Christmas trees, and it was only in certain spots. When we found it, Dad would drive slow, we'd roll down the windows, turn down the radio, and breathe it in. Sometimes just driving down the road, not looking for it, one of us would yell "Florida smell," which elicited the same response from everyone in the car, like kids filing in line during a fire drill. We rolled down our windows, went silent, and smelled. We never knew the source of the smell. Maybe it would have ruined it if we did. It was probably a bush or flower or something. It was a smell Dad remembered from his childhood, and now it's one I remember from mine.

The sun, fishing, the Florida smell, and more sun. There's one big part of our Florida vacations I haven't mentioned, and Mom is the star. It was the reason she looked forward to this vacation every year. That's post #3.

Drew and me "working out" at the gym in our complex.
Strike a pose, Susan.