Florida Vacation Quotes

Why should Dickie want to come back to subways and taxis and starched collars and a nine-to- five job? Or even a chauffeured car and vacations in Florida and Maine? It wasn't as much fun as sailing a boat in old clothes and being answerable to nobody for the way

Most lives vanish. A person dies, and little by little all traces of that life disappear. An inventor survives in his inventions, an architect survives in his buildings, but most people leave behind no monuments or lasting achievements: a shelf of photograph albums, a fifth-grade report card, a bowling trophy, an ashtray filched from a Florida hotel room on the final morning of some dimly remembered vacation. A few objects, a few documents, and a smattering of impressions made on other people. Those people invariably tell stories about the dead person, but more often than not dates are scrambled, facts are left out, and the truth becomes increasingly distorted, and when those people die in their turn, most of the stories vanish with them.

I’m a one-hundred-percent, made-in-Florida, dope-smugglin’, time-sharin’, spring-breakin’, log-flumin’, double-occupancy discount vacation. I’m a tall glass of orange juice and a day without sunshine. I’m the wind in your sails, the sun on your burn and the moon over Miami. I am the native.

There was no Disney World then, just rows of orange trees. Millions of them. Stretching for miles And somewhere near the middle was the Citrus Tower, which the tourists climbed to see even more orange trees. Every month an eighty-year-old couple became lost in the groves, driving up and down identical rows for days until they were spotted by helicopter or another tourist on top of the Citrus Tower. They had lived on nothing but oranges and come out of the trees drilled on vitamin C and checked into the honeymoon suite at the nearest bed-and-breakfast. "The Miami Seaquarium put in a monorail and rockets started going off at Cape Canaveral, making us feel like we were on the frontier of the future. Disney bought up everything north of Lake Okeechobee, preparing to shove the future down our throats sideways. "Things evolved rapidly! Missile silos in Cuba. Bales on the beach. Alligators are almost extinct and then they aren't. Juntas hanging shingles in Boca Raton. Richard Nixon and Bebe Rebozo skinny-dipping off Key Biscayne. We atone for atrocities against the INdians by playing Bingo. Shark fetuses in formaldehyde jars, roadside gecko farms, tourists waddling around waffle houses like flocks of flightless birds. And before we know it, we have The New Florida, underplanned, overbuilt and ripe for a killer hurricane that'll knock that giant geodesic dome at Epcot down the trunpike like a golf ball, a solid one-wood by Buckminster Fuller. "I am the native and this is my home. Faded pastels, and Spanish tiles constantly slipping off roofs, shattering on the sidewalk. Dogs with mange and skateboard punks with mange roaming through yards, knocking over garbage cans. Lunatics wandering the streets at night, talking about spaceships. Bail bondsmen wake me up at three A.M. looking for the last tenant. Next door, a mail-order bride is clubbed by a smelly ma in a mechanic's shirt. Cats violently mate under my windows and rats break-dance in the drop ceiling. And I'm lying in bed with a broken air conditioner, sweating and sipping lemonade through a straw. And I'm thinking, geez, this used to be a great state. "You wanna come to Florida? You get a discount on theme-park tickets and find out you just bough a time share. Or maybe you end up at Cape Canaveral, sitting in a field for a week as a space shuttle launch is canceled six times. And suddenly vacation is over, you have to catch a plane, and you see the shuttle take off on TV at the airport. But you keep coming back, year after year, and one day you find you're eighty years old driving through an orange grove.

Vacations in my family are rare events squeezed between races. I can count them on one hand, and even those amount to only a few hours each. Shopping in Los Angeles. Sinking my toes into snow white sand in Florida. They are tiny slips of memory strung around horses.

The power that was your father's." He looked at her bewildered face. "To get it, I need to take you away." "Where to?" "A vacation to somewhere warm and cozy." "Florida?" "Nearly. Hell." Piper glared. He shrugged. "I don't know why people are so down on hell. It never rains; it's always hot; you can get a nice tan; there's plenty to do.....

With a century and change between the 1880 convention and now, I’ll admit I rolled my eyes at the ideological hairsplitting, wondering how a group of people who more or less agreed with one another about most issues could summon forth such stark animosity. Thankfully, we Americans have evolved, our hearts made larger, our minds more open, welcoming the negligible differences among our fellows with compassion and respect. As a Democrat who voted for Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, an election suspiciously tipped to tragic Republican victory because of a handful of contested ballots in the state of Florida, I, for one, would never dream of complaining about the votes siphoned in that state by my fellow liberal Ralph Nader, who convinced citizens whose hopes for the country differ little from my own to vote for him, even though had those votes gone to Gore, perhaps those citizens might have spent their free time in the years to come more pleasurably pursuing leisure activities, such as researching the sacrifice of Family Garfield, instead of attending rallies and protests against wars they find objectionable, not to mention the money saved on aspirin alone considering they’ll have to pop a couple every time they read the newspaper, wondering if the tap water with which they wash down the pills is safe enough to drink considering the corporate polluter lobbyists now employed at the EPA.

Anybody who can get through March without breaking a glass, a friendship, a secret, a promise, or somebody's nose is either a saint or on vacation in Florida.

When a German American vacationing in Florida was caught unprepared by a cold snap and exclaimed within hearing of witnesses, “[D]amn such a country as this,” he was arrested for having violated the Espionage Act.

When young I'd visit my aunt in small town Tennessee. Her place was carved into the side of a steep ridge. All red mud and gravel. The driveway was too steep for most. You just parked at the bottom and struggled up to the front door. You really had to want to visit. The closest anything was a truck stop off I-75. Near where fog caused a 99 car crash. We went there to eat biscuits and gravy. Wash it down with whole milk. Prostitutes advertised by CB. They found a dead trucker in a restroom once. No one seemed surprised. There was a rigged Coin Pusher machine. Elvira Pinball. I set the high score. Then returned to Florida. Where teachers asked me to write about my summer.

CHAPTER 1: Fourteen year old Augustus Tomlin's day started out just like any other—normally. He got out of bed, dressed, brushed his teeth, then headed for the kitchen to join his adoptive parents, Earl and Marge for breakfast. This was the first day of their vacation, and admittedly, Augie (as he liked to be called) wasn't as excited about it as he would've been had Earl and Marge decided to take them all to Disneyland instead, because firstly, he'd been dealing with a paralyzing fear of water all of his life, and secondly, they were staying in a cabin on an isolated stretch of beach in the Florida Keys. Nevertheless, there was no way for Augie to know just then that by the end of the day he'd be traveling in an under-sea carriage drawn by four of the most incredible creatures he'd ever laid eyes upon, heading for destinations untold somewhere at the bottom of the ocean at a million miles an hour.

Hagen understood that the policeman believes in law and order in a curiously innocent way. He believes in it more than does the public he serves. Law and order is, after all, the magic from which he derives his power, individual power which he cherishes as nearly all men cherish individual power. And yet there is always the smoldering resentment against the public he serves. They are at the same time his ward and his prey. As wards they are ungrateful, abusive and demanding. As prey they are slippery and dangerous, full of guile. As soon as one is in the policeman’s clutches the mechanism of the society the policeman defends marshals all its resources to cheat him of his prize. The fix is put in by politicians. Judges give lenient suspended sentences to the worst hoodlums. Governors of the States and the President of the United States himself give full pardons, assuming that respected lawyers have not already won his acquittal. After a time the cop learns. Why should he not collect the fees these hoodlums are paying? He needs it more. His children, why should they not go to college? Why shouldn’t his wife shop in more expensive places? Why shouldn’t he himself get the sun with a winter vacation in Florida? After all, he risks his life and that is no joke.

Actually I brought a friend for you to meet.”   Ruby looked over at Kate. “Is she going on vacation here?”   Kate smiled and stepped closer. “I wish I could go on vacation,” she said easily. “But actually I

If you could travel anywhere in the US for a vacation, where would you go?" He reached up with his free hand and rubbed his jaw, two creases forming between his eyebrows. She wanted to take over for him, brush her fingers across his whiskers, make him groan the way she had earlier. But she decided to behave herself. For now. "I've always wanted to go to Yellowstone," he said. "See all the wildlife. Maybe go fishing.".... "I'd pick a beach, Florida or California. Where I could be in my bikini more than not, rarely wear shoes, and wake up to the sound of the ocean." "Well, if you're gonna be wearing a bikini, I'm switching to a beach vacation with you.".... "Okay, so foreign vacation," she said, snuggling against him. "Then where would you go?".... "Let's just cut to the chase and say wherever you'd go.

The Untheory of Evolution, and Other Scientific Studies Including Hunting, Fishing, and Sex" by William C. Berdine needs to be available to put in my favorite books list. This book is excellent for any young teen to stumble across and read. I found it while my parents were driving me to Florida for a vacation and as a preteen I fell in love immediately with the book and the person behind it.

Lake Misquamicus was no major vacation destination, no tourist attraction. Just another Florida lake, quaint and quiet, almost obscure. A few campgrounds and cabins surrounded it, a lakehouse or two.

We'll never know. In the summer of 1971, against the advice of his mother, Howard Myers took a vacation to Florida. The combination of the heat and his medical condition combined to give him a massive heart attack which killed him. He was forty-one years old. There

Those signs start at the top of the state, between the population centers, facing north on the interstate, nestled among all the other billboards that are only designed to reach out-of-state travelers driving south into Florida. So now you got signs for truck stops, motels with free Wi-Fi, citrus stands, fast food, and pictures of car crashes with jagged red lettering to remind people that they might be in pain from something that happened in Cleveland. I mean how does that work? Are this many people suddenly making major medical decisions on vacation? When you’re driving to Niagara Falls, do you see a hundred miles of billboards for joint-replacement surgery, ‘Call 1-800-HIP-OUCH’? . . . Or is it an impulse thing: ‘Let’s see, I’ve been on the road for hours, so I need to stop for gas, use the restroom, get a Big Mac and develop a drug problem.

Eventually my father bought a vacation house for us in Port Saint Lucie, Florida. My dad's friend had died, so my father bought the house from his widow. We would go down there once a year, and my father believed that he had bought a good investment property. Twelve years later he would sell it at a loss. Almost immediately after the sale, Club Med built a resort there near where the New York Mets would set up their spring training camp soon after. I've tracked articles since then about how Port Saint Lucie has had the fastest growing home prices in the country. When I told my friends at Rye Country Day that we had bought a second home in Florida, they were unimpressed because it was not Palm Beach. When I told my friends in Tarrytown that we had bought a house in Florida, they were sad and asked me when my family was moving. Gosh, poor people can be really dumb sometimes.

Separate vacations have become more popular among married couples. We don’t think this is a good idea. Over time, doing your own thing will cause you to lead separate lives. We are not talking about a three-day trip to Florida with your sister or best friend—if you want to take small trips like this, feel free to. But if you want to take a major vacation—say, to spend two weeks in Europe—your husband should be your travel companion. But suppose your idea of a fun vacation is going to Europe or lying on the beach in the Caribbean, while your husband loves tours of historic sites and museums. Our advice is to figure out a way to do a little of both. One year, you can go to the beach, the next year you can do a tourist package together, or go on a trip with a beach near some sites of cultural interest. Once you start planning separate vacations, you become like roommates, not lovers.

I’d booked three nights at a hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. It would be our first vacation ever, and I couldn’t wait. The pictures on the hotel’s website showed couples lazing in hammocks, or sipping cocktails beside the pool. Also? Miami Beach was supposed to be one of the gayest vacation spots in America. And Caleb and I had never seen the ocean yet. There was just so much to look forward to.

Yeah, but Patrick hates Florida. He says it’s a sauna filled with tourists and little old ladies from Ohio who can’t drive. Our girls can’t even get him to go to Seaside, no matter how much they cry and beg. We vacation pretty much anywhere but Florida.

The past often rides on the notes of a song, and as this one wove its way around the car and out into the open air, it carried with it all the carefree vacations we’d taken to our favorite Florida beach before the loss of our father changed everything.

Seeing a lie as a wish allows us to continue seeing our kid as a good kid—and this is critical in responding to lies. Using the language of wishing in response to a child’s falsehoods changes the direction of the conversation, as it allows for more options than just “telling the truth” and “lying.” Now there’s an in-between place, and your ability to see and vocalize that gray area can soften the intensity of the moment and create a way to connect with your child. When your child says, “I’ve been on a trip to Florida too!” you might say, “Hmm . . . I bet you wish we vacationed in Florida. It sounds so sunny and warm there. I wonder what we’d do if we went?

The town of Destin was a slice of heaven on the panhandle of Florida’s Gulf Coast. Originally a small fishing village, the area’s white beaches and emerald-green waters made it one of the most popular vacation spots in the United States, attracting families and tourists from all over.

McCall was reelected seven times, that is, until 1972, when Florida Governor Reubin Askew stepped in and suspended him after yet another violent assault on someone in his custody. This time, McCall was indicted for second-degree murder for allegedly kicking a black prisoner to death. The prisoner was in jail for a twenty-six-dollar traffic ticket. McCall was acquitted. But he lost the election that November. Blacks were now able to vote, and they turned out in force to defeat him the first chance they got. “We sent cars out and taxicabs,” Viola Dunham, a longtime resident and a sister-in-law of George Starling, remembered. “We started getting these people out to vote.” Then, too, a new generation of whites had entered the Florida electorate, the younger people who may have identified with the young freedom riders in Mississippi and Alabama even if they would not have participated themselves, and the snowbirds, the white northerners who were buying up vacation homes or retiring to central Florida with the boom that came with the arrival of Disney World and who couldn’t relate to the heavy-handedness of a small-town southern sheriff. And now it seemed that even the most steadfast traditionalists had finally tired of the controversies and felt it was time for him to go. The defeated sheriff retreated to his ranch on Willis V. McCall Road in Eustis, where he tended his citrus grove, welcomed his partisans, and held forth on his decades of lordship over Lake County. He could take comfort in the fact that, for better or for worse, Lake County would not soon forget him, and he took pride in his role of protecting southern tradition.

The grove owners and their packinghouses had a near monopoly on the growing and selling of citrus. They were among the richest men in central Florida; their European vacations and their daughters’ cotillions and the visits of their children from the best boarding schools in the South were all chronicled in the local papers that everyone, including workers like the Blye brothers and George, could read. It was a multimillion-dollar industry fed by the demands of wealthy and middle-class families from Chicago to Long Island who expected orange juice with their toast and coffee every morning.