* When I first considered if we should go to Florida this year I must confess to feeling some guilt. But our fees for the year were paid to Orange Lake and I didn't feel like passing up the eight weeks we had booked back in April 2025. Use it or lose it!
And I decided that letting Trump cost us that money didn't make logical sense either. So we went ahead.
* From a general standpoint, 2026 was no different than 2025. Nobody brought up politics and Americans were either friendly or indifferent. No change from normal. No political conversations.
What did change was the attendance of family and friends. Other than David's overnight stay after he drove me to Florida, we had no visitors.
Fortunately, Lori and Frank adopted us for the months of January and February, and Jill and Ron took us under their wing in March. Thankfully, we had people with whom we could share our experiences and thoughts.
Part of our enjoyment of being in Florida is sharing our places with the folks who are special to us. We were denied that this year.
* Some of the money we spent in the U.S. went to a good cause. The restaurant industry, as in Canada, is in a bit of distress.
Since Covid, and now with the economic scene, people are not eating out as they previously did. And it hurts the working folks who need it most.
For instance, our Mexican feed on the way home was served by a very good waitress who, unfortunately, was completing her third consecutive double shift, and she was really spent. The restaurants either can't afford to pay enough to attract good people or are afraid to gamble on adding staff.
An earlier visit to Wendy's confirmed the problem in a different way. At the counter I had to wait for a couple of minutes for the young lad to bother coming over to ask what I wanted. And his long, stringy hair wasn't covered as it should have been.
I ordered chili, but when he brought it to the counter he told me that they were out of spoons, so he gave us forks. You guessed it - the chili had the consistency of soup. Lots of meat, but few beans and lots of broth. Mardi managed by adding about eight crackers to thicken it up, but I went back and ordered a burg.
The outlet was advertising for help, but they obviously had to take what they got. Not a good look!
Nevertheless, other than the Wendy's experience we were happy to support the industry.
* We're going back next year. We own the property, and we like the winter heat (especially this year from what we've heard about the Canadian winter).
We'll start boking out time next month. Think about joining us next year folks! And if you don't want to spend money to support the U.S., that's OK too - come anyway 😁.
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