I'll probably never be able to take another Steemit vacation. Being away from my Steemit virtual home was not fun, but this year I wanted to take an electronics-free vacation to see if I can really live without digital stimulation. Anyway, being sort of paranoid about security issues, I don't announce on social media when I go on vacation. This year, my daughter and I documented our trip in drawings which you will see below.

FLORIDA VACATION

If you're like me, you don't like reading vapid travel blogs about rich people and their descriptions about fine dining, hotels, shopping and "fun". So, during our vacation, which was 100% funded by my Steemit earnings, I was racking my brain trying to figure out how I was going tor write about our vacation in paradise. Don't worry, my neurotic mind turned parts of a perfectly good vacation into something mildly horrible.

DISNEYLAND'S TOILET

We began our trip in Ft. Myers, Florida, a very small island right off the main Florida coast. The sand in Ft. Myers was extremely fine and colored white. The water, however, lacked the crystal clear blue color my mind had manufactured in a pre-trip fantasy. Instead, the water was a murky greenish-brown and even in direct sunlight and with a diving mask on, you couldn't see more than 2 inches in front of your nose. I was mostly able to ignore the disgusting color of the water as my daughter and I enjoyed swimming in it daily. The beach was situated directly in front of our bungalow, so it was the first thing we saw upon waking.

There were two beautiful palm trees that sat directly in front our hotel, and the presence of them really indicated that we were "IN PARADISE".

On this beach, my daughter enjoyed covering up herself with the fine white sand and I enjoyed relaxing on the lounge chairs. It wasn't until 2 days later that the topic of the water came up. As we were taking an evening stroll on the beach, we casually met an older man who was very friendly. I asked him some questions about the turtle egg nests we'd been seeing. Then he told us that he had just put up his $2 million beach condo for sale. He was really mixed about the decision, and had come that evening to visit it. He seemed deeply attached to it. In my characteristic nosey fashion I asked him how he was able to afford such a thing. He told us he had created independent pharmacies which Walgreens had recently purchased from him. I thought to myself, "Drugs get you a $2 million beachfront condo?"

I then asked him about the brown color of the water. To my horror, here was his answer:

"Water from Disneyland, New Orleans and other cities empties into a bay which then empties into Ft. Myers beach. Ten years ago the water was clear blue, but not anymore."

My response:

"So you mean we are basically swimming in Disneyland's toilet?"

The man:

"Yes, pretty much. But no one has gotten sick from it."

OMG.

I suddenly felt a giant wave of nausea sweep over my body. I then began to recollect every small brown wave that had passed over my head and accidentally into my mouth. Disgust, more like horror took hold of my mind in that realization of my paradise beach being turned into the toilet of Disneyland. It was then time to embark upon the second part of our trip: Miami. At the end of our stay in Ft. Myers, I noticed that my feet had developed a strange red rash which my brain was trying to explain. My first thought was bedbug bites. I have a morbid fear of bedbugs, so this idea sent me into terror mode thinking for a few days.

Cuban Uber Driver: Will We Make It To Miami Alive?

I never did figure out what the red bumps were, but they have subsided now, so I sort of put it out of my mind. Onto the next adventure: Miami. I had initially made a decision not to rent a car during our entire trip. We had a long 2 hour drive ahead of us, and so we decided to take an Uber ride there. The hotel we stayed out recommended a Cuban driver that was a longtime friend, so I decided to hire him. However, on the night before our trip, my mind spun out of control (as usual), and I was seized with a variety of semi-conscious nightmares. The first nightmare involved our Uber ride to Miami. In this nightmare, Juan, our driver drove us halfway to Miami then took us to a warehouse where the Cuban mafia were waiting for us with gags and torture instruments. This nightmare was followed by a garden variety one which included a home invasion. After this one, I got up from bed in a panic and began checking all the locks. To my horror, I discovered that I had left the patio door wide open. It would be hard to get into our room this way since it was screened in, but still, it was possible. No one was in there. After these two nightmares, sleep became impossible, so I spent the rest of the night frozen in bed, in terror meltdown mode.

I almost cancelled the Uber ride in the morning, but the sunlight added common sense to the situation. Our Uber ride went fine until the very end when my daughter ended up puking in his car. Luckily we had a bag and coffee cup to catch all the vomit, and miraculously, none of it ended up in his SUV.

I am not sure what happened to my writing stamina, but I am finding this quite difficult! I will need to split this up into several posts.................

Thanks so much to Elena who painted me. That was a big surprise.

The next part of this vacation blog will start with the French girl my daughter met in Miami: