the essence

I'll try to give a semi-condensed story of the rest of our trip this past weekend.

I left off with leaving for the keys. First of all, I can't believe all of the parents agreed that their kids could go. It cost about $25 which really isn't cheap for some of them. But we went & made it about 5 minutes ahead of schedule. In order to keep our reservations for 3:30 we had to be there by 2:00. So, we skipped lunched with the full intention of eating after we paid & got some of our equipment.

Unfortunately, they declined Ray's credit/debit card. Then they declined mine. I asked if they could use credit card information that was faxed to them (i.e. by my parents or Ray's mom, just like we did in Canada). Again, unfortunately they said no. At this point we start to go a bit frantic.

Ray had a credit card in his wallet not linked to our checking account that just wasn't activated yet. He decided now was the time to do that so he called but there was some problem with that too. And the people who could help him wouldn't be in until Monday (GREAT service....).

So, I run (well, drive quickly) across the street to "Tom Thumb" (odd name for a gas station) & try to take out money from the ATM. No go there either. Apparently, over the past two weeks the money in our account dwindled EXTEREMELY quickly. WE were shocked & seriously thought credit card fraud was involved (it turns out all the transactions were legit-there were just a few more big purchases than we'd realized). Anyway, I took out what I could & if we put that together with what the kids had we would have enough to go snorkeling, but not enough money to buy lunch, dinner, or gas for the six hour drive home.

Ray was all for skipping meals (the large kid really groaned about that one) but we still wouldn't have money for gas home.

Anyway, as Ray was talking to the staff again it somehow came up that this was a church group. When they found that out they pulled him aside & said that he could just send them a check later. How sweet is that??? Talk about power!

So, all was good (expect that we never did get to eat lunch) & we headed out to the ocean.

There was this one kid with us, A., a 17-year-old boy & he was the most reluctant about this excursion from the time he found out about it. I was seriously afraid he would get sea sick which I knew in turn would make me sick.

After about 30 minutes we finally came to a stop & began our snorkeling adventure. The girls were the first of our group in. But the boys...what a pain. A. got in but then his brother, M., & the big kid took FOREVER. M. was only in for about five minutes before he decided this wasn't for him & jumped back in the boat. The big kid was in even less time.

The big kid was also the one who had been talking all sorts of garbage before about how he was going to swim down under the water to the coral & was giving all of us a hard time for living in Florida & not owning our own masks & fins like he did.

In actuality, I bet he was scared silly. And when Ray asked him about it later he said the reason he didn't snorkel was because of a cut in his mouth. Umm, yeah. Can you say LIAR???

Anyway, I think for the most part we had a good time. I thought it was great, it was so incredibly cool to be swimming out there (I don't even remember if there was any land in sight) watching everything underneath the water.

There were some really pretty fish, lots of cool looking coral AND we saw a shark (just a nurse shark though) and a barracuda.

Ray had brought his mom's mask for me to use, but apparently her face is a lot tinier than mine because within a few minutes the bridge of my nose hurt so bad I could hardly stand it. So Ray volunteered to switch even though I later found out that mask was too samll for him too. And it was pink. Poor guy, swimming around with a bright pink mask & snorkel. But he's man enough that it didn't seem to phase him at all. :) Three days later the invisible bruise on my nose is FINALLY beginning to go away.

And the down side of snorkeling is the salt water. I couldn't quite get the whole keeping-the-snorkel-in-your-mouth thing down. And towards the end of it so much water had gone in my mouth & nose that I nearly got sick & it felt like I would ahve a permanent salt taste in my mouth. But really, overall it was great.

It was definitely a neat experience that I would do again. Just not when I have to drive for six hours straight after that, go to bed at 2:00 & be up at 7:00 for work. :p

Anyway, since we had skipped lunch we let that money carry over to dinner which meant we could eat someplace really upscale...like Wendy's (I never realized how much more expensive they are than McDonald's). I was starving & I don't even remember the last time I supersized a meal. But man it sure was good that night. Its amazing how good that food can taste when you're hungry.

After that came the drive home. Nothing exciting happened, which is probably a good thing. Within the first hour the three middle school girls in the back seat had falled asleep (it wasn't even 8:00 yet) & thankfully Melissa, the 16-year-old, helped me stay awake by talking to me. It was really nice, I know her, but we had never REALLY talked before so that was very cool.

Anyway, that was our adventure. Of course I didn't include everything, although you might not believe that with how long this is. :)

But that's my story & I'm sticking to it.