Well, I’m going to get checked up on at the doctor tomorrow, just in case. I am due to go back to work Wednesday, unless the doctor vetoes that. This is more for a friend’s peace of mind (he misses visiting the cats) than anything. The Virginia Department of Health just says I can leave quarantine when I’ve been fever-free for 72 hours.
I’ve already decided that I am moving back to Florida as soon as possible. Which means that will be a while. But in the meantime, I want to take a vacation down there. Go back to Miami, check it out. I used up all my PTO being sick, and the government of Florida is useless and greedy as usual so they’re still a mess re: the virus, so I don’t know when I’ll be taking this vacation. I was hoping to avoid tourists season and go in summer, but that looks like it will be a washout. But I like to think about what I’ll do when I do go.
I plan to drive. No planes or trains for me, I want my wheels to get around. So I will have to set aside a couple of days just for driving. I plan to go all the way to Miami with no stops except to sleep, because I don’t think I’ll have that much time off, and I’m not really interested in checking out the Orlando area where I lived for ten years. Maybe just a pit stop for lunch. I plan to stay in proper hotels or motels. A cheap one is fine. No airbnb (spit) for me. I thought about a hostel — they are so cheap — but depending on how soon I go and what the plague status is, I don’t really want to share a room. Also most of them seem to be on Miami Beach, ugh.
I will probably avoid eating out too much. Restaurants are expensive, and again, I don’t know how things will be re things being open. If they are, one place I do want to go is Monty’s Raw Bar. It wasn’t a big part of my life growing up or anything, but it’s always been there and it’s in the Grove, where I plan to amble around even though the place is still ruined by being yuppified in the 80s. Then maybe I’ll check out that park I used to go to with grandmother and my sister. I might drive by my grandparents’ old house too — it’s still there, though the yard (the last time I checked the internet) was all redone with pavers and tropical plants. Well the previous lawn of crabgrass wasn’t great. I will also drive down my old street just for kicks. The house was replaced by a concrete duplex in 1981, but still.
I’ll drive around Coral Gables and no doubt get lost in the weird named streets as per tradition. I probably won’t get out: there’s nothing there I actually want to see that I can think of. Rex Arts is still there — I might make a pit stop for old times sake. Yesterday And Today Records still seems to exist in some fashion. I don’t think it’s owned by the same people though. Oh wait, it is! Will I stop by? I don’t know, might be too many memories. I’m not going to Miami to meet old friends, not after I burned my bridges there!
Other places I want to visit: the Metro Zoo I mean Zoomiami (keeping up with name changes in Miami has always been an ordeal), the Fruit and Spice Park, where I somehow *never* went even though I lived in Miami from birth to the age of 36, Fairchild Gardens, Matheson Hammock Park, Key Biscayne and Crandon Park and/or Bill Baggs State Park (I didn’t go to that one much, Crandon Park was the beach of my childhood). I may even enter the water. I’ll probably also check out some of the malls, and the Ikea there, and drive around. If I can I’ll squeeze in a visit to Coral Castle and Vizcaya, and maybe even go to Miami Beach if it isn’t under water by then, haha. I wonder if I’ll be able to get a table at the News Cafe (assuming things are back to normal again).
So anyway, I’ll drive around, see some of the tourist things, make some nostalgia stops, eat at a couple of restaurants if it’s possible, go back to my hotel room and relax. I will also scope out some possible neighborhoods to move to and if so inclined, check out the job situation. But only if I feel like it. I would rather work from home and free myself up from having to drive to work, I don’t know how that will go.