An Afternoon in Orlando

The drive from Cocoa Beach to Orlando is about 45 minutes on “The Beach Line”. This toll road takes you from the ocean to the interior of Florida, to the Orlando airport, to Disney and Sea World or into the City of Orlando, and is also the thruway to Kissimmee and eventually Tampa and the Gulf.

So John and I drove to Kissimmee about 10 days ago and spent the afternoon with our long-time friends from Ottawa, Mark(o) and Lisette. They visited the area, played tourists and rented a 2-bedroom house for a week together with their two grandkids, Kariane and Mélina. We joined them for their last full day of Florida vacation.

We arrived at their place around 11 and, after a quick tour of the house and a quicker change into my bathing suit, I was in the pool with the kids! The pool was just the right size for floating about. It also had the neatest thermometer. All you could see floating on the top of the water was the head of a plastic alligator, jaws ajar. The thermometer was attached underneath the alligator’s jaw and you could easily clasp your hand around it. By grabbing the thermometer, you could make the alligator look like it was swimming around on the surface. I had some fun with the kids with that - chasing them around the pool.

And then Lisette got in the pool with the kids and I caught this photo:

You can see Kariane is posing very nicely in front (her Mom would be proud) - she is holding the alligator I described earlier.


You can also see Mélina is offering a set of ‘rabbit ears’ behind Lisette’s head (her Mom would be proud)! Of the four of them (including the alligator), only Lisette is wearing sun glasses!

Meanwhile, Marko and Johnnie talked about working part-time, retirement and RVs.

The entire backyard including the pool was covered by a lanai. In view of the potential for bugs, the lanai was a welcome addition as we prepared for our outdoor lunch. But no BBQ event is complete without one of God’s buzzing creatures and, sure enough, hornets were building their nest right by the BBQ - and the BBQ was outside the lanai. Alas, Marko and Johnnie came to the rescue while the rest of us watched from inside the lanai. The two of them attacked the nest with some sort of aerosol bug spray and, yes - they lived to talk about it!

Alas, we had a great lunch together, celebrated a week early for Marko’s birthday and had a great afternoon in the sunshine. Yet another good day for the memory books. How lucky are we to spend good times with old friends? Very.