Unplanned Florida (FL Part 1)

This is the story of how we planned to go to Florida for a week to camp after being cold all winter in Virginia. Last Saturday we were packed for six nights of camping as we drove south when I realized that we forgot our tent. (I hadn't slipped it in and the end--it's always the last thing to go in when we camp because it's the first thing we pull out.) I called REI, and within ten minutes we had one waiting on hold for us in Jacksonville, Florida. We changed that plan when cousins in South Carolina let us borrow their tent. Ultimately, that plan feel through at 9 p.m. when we pulled into our campsite and discovered that there weren't any tentpoles in the bag.

That's how we ended up in the tangerine-hued Fairway Inn in Florida City, Florida.

To backtrack a bit, with travel books open on my lap as we drove cross-country last summer I made initial plans for this spring trip. Ironically, as we drove west, away from Florida, I read the Florida sections of each book. My national park book detailed three parks at the southern tip of Florida to explore. Additionally, we had learned that the Fort Lauderdale Temple would be open to the public prior to its April dedication date sometime around our spring break. In spite of D's busy month of travel for work, I outlined our plans and pinned ideas on Pinterest. In the end, for the record, we went through with about half of what I had typed out in my Word document.

One day as we drove I was pondering this idea: "when do you let go of a dream and when do you fight for it? Or is it weak to put off a dream to another time?" Looking up at the sky these ideas came to me: "the only good plans are ones you can flexibly change" and "our satisfaction with an outcome is largely based on how we enjoy what we are given." These thoughts along with D's mantra ("the secret to happiness in life is having low expectations") guided my feelings for the week, and it was a great week.

This is the story of how Florida is beautiful independent of all the planning I did with books and websites, and it's the story of how our trip was probably even better than the one on my Word document prior to things falling through.