A letter to y'all

My daughter is in Fort Myers for the rest of the week. It's the first time she's been away from me for more than two days and as far away as a six-hour drive. My aunt and I decided to meet halfway in Orlando so that neither of us would be stuck with the twelve hour round-trip.

During our drive from Jacksonville to Orlando this past Saturday, Elle reminded me that she had written the family a letter. Before we left the house, all of us were given strict instructions not to open it until she was long gone. I promised her that we would wait until dinner. But in the car she felt she needed to explain one part of the letter.

Elle: "I don't want Uncle and Papa in my room playing with my dolls!" *
Me: "I don't want Uncle and Papa in your room playing with your dolls either."
Elle: "Well, I'll tell you a little bit about my letter. Nana's in charge of everyone. Except for you, Mommy. You don't do anything wrong."
Me: "Thank you, dear."

The kid-exchange went rather smoothly considering I was a total trainwreck on the inside. It was all I could do to keep from flooding the city of Orlando with my anxiety-ridden tears when Elle rolled down the window to blow me a kiss and remind me to "Have fun, Mommy!"

(sniffle, sniffle)

After bawling my eyes out through downtown Orlando traffic (note to self: don't drive I-4 ever again if it can be avoided) and having a delicious mexican lunch (made by real mexicans) with my good childhood friend named Fuz (who is neither fuzzy nor mexican), I made it home. Childless. It's an odd feeling.

But...aha! She wrote us a letter!





It says:

Dear, Papa, nana, uncle and mom.
I am gonna miss yall. and I (heart) yall wen I come back. I will tell yall about My Adventures an trips. an papa an uncle. Nana will be in charge of everything exept mom. cause she does anything wrong.
Love,
Elle

I'm fixin' to teach her t'add the apostrophay to yall since she likes to use it so dern much. Phew...I sure do miss that kid, even though she insists I'll do anything wrong. Good thing she explained it all to me in the car first...y'know, so my feelin's an' such woon't be hurtin' an' all.

* My brother and father don't play with Elle's dolls. It's an inside joke. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's an inside joke. *

the ultimate road trip accessory

You gotta admit - it's cute! And while the idea of "camping" probably doesn't conjure up visions of little teardrop trailers (such as the one pictured above), it is still a lifestyle within a lifestyle. I, for one, love this little teardrop. I also love the $583,000 monster of a RV that came equipped with...get this...a doorbell! The only problem with an RV that large is that I'm constantly reminded of:

a) what it's like to have all kinds of ridiculous dollars to waste (yes, waste!) on this monstrosity, complete with marble countertops, three big-screen TVs, and a second floor.
b) Bret Michaels and those nasty girls he hangs out with on a tour bus almost like this very one.

Eeew.

So Dad and I took my daughter to the RV Show here in downtown Jacksonville. It's a fun thing my dad and I do every year (and probably the only thing we do together at all). In the parkng lot of Jacksonville Municipal Stadium, we think of all kinds of ways he can quit his job, sell the house, and convince my mother that it was a great idea for my father to quit his job and sell the house. Oh, he'd also have to trade in his Honda CRV since it can't tow anything over 1,500 pounds. And that's too bad because that means he'd have to buy a new truck to tow the new camper and that would totally make my mother go apeshit and she'd never buy the whole "it's a great idea!" idea.

So we dream.

I grew up camping in tents and scaling my own fish if I wanted to eat that night. My childhood is full of memories of the orange/brown tent, the pop-up camper, and finally, the RV. It was small, but it got my family from Upper Michigan to South Florida. Our neighbors would all go camping with us so I usually had a playmate to go swimming with. My mother would cook pasties and parmesan fish over the campfire and the grownups would help us catch fireflies in old Mason jars. Then after dinner, our parents would send us into the woods to collect sticks for roasting marshmallows so we could make s'mores. My daughter knows how to make s'mores - in the microwave (I know I should at least teach her how to roast marshmallows over a Yankee candle flame).

Elle was getting caught up in the fun of it all, too. She declared herself the "bed-tester" and would let us know how the sleep comfort rated for every RV or pop-up we visited. Even those campers that came equipped with a Sleep Number mattress had to be tested. Eventually we made our way into the big ones, the monstrosities, the RVs that were the size of Bret Michaels' Rock of Love tour bus. Elle declared herself the "drivers-seat-tester".


Don't fear, America. She is at least nine years from obtaining her driver's license.