We recently took a trip to Florida. It was a mix of “business” and pleasure.
This was a first time flying anywhere during the pandemic. It was interesting how things have changed in the last two years.
The first part of the trip was mostly “business”. We were in Florida for a national soccer showcase event. Our youngest plays travel soccer and we were there for a soccer showcase.
Travel (youth) soccer is like a job.
A showcase is like a tournament, but not. You play three games over three days and college coaches can come and watch the games and players. There are no tournament winners though.
This year, we didn’t get a lot of college coaches. But if my son plays soccer, at this level, again next year, his team will have a lot of college coaches watching games.
The first few days of the trip were mostly soccer. Once that was over, we had 4 or 5 days for pleasure. During this time, we spent time at Universal Studios, Gatorland and Walt Disney World. I am hoping to write more about these parks in future blog posts. But for now, I’ll say that we had a lot of fun.
The weather in Florida was chilly and rainy from time to time. But the weather was much nicer than it was back here in Pennsylvania. We had two perfect days (75ºF+ and sunny) there. On our coldest day there, it was in the 40s. 40º is much better than the low at home of 9º one morning.
Close to the end of our vacation, there was a storm (Winter Storm Kenan) that was going to be hitting home. We heard snow totals of anywhere from 3” - 18” and lots of wind. We watched the storm throughout the week. The storm was supposed to be at it’s peak right around the time we would be landing at home. We ended up changing our flight home to later in the day and reserving a rental car as an extreme backup.
The storm stayed more off the coast. We could have flown home at our normal time without much of any issue. When we did get home, we had about 3-4” of snow on the ground.
We had a great time in Florida. I kinda wish that we could have stayed longer. Stupid work and school.
I hope I get a chance to write about the parks we visited soon. If/when I do, I’ll update this post with links to the new posts.