Note:  As you read this, I am flying my way back west, but I wanted to put this out.

Florida. The land of oranges and Key Lime. Sunshine, amusement parks, beaches, and fun.

The other day Sully texted me and asked how I was enjoying the food, and it got me to thinking that in all of my travels in this country (California, Southwest, Rockies, Hawaii, Midwest, Southeast, and most of the East Coast), I have NEVER enjoyed food as much as I do right here in Florida. If you’ll allow let me explain:

The first day we hit a Jewish Deli for lunch followed by South American for dinner (bacon wrapped plaintains and steak chimichurri) topped off with desserts that we got from the Italian Bakery which included Key Lime Pie and mini-Cannolis. Wednesday we hit for Bagels for breakfast and wings for dinner, and Thursday we enjoyed the NBC Sports Grille at Universal. On Friday we eat Chicago Deep Dish Pizza in Orlando and then Manny’s which is located in the Winter Haven/Lake Wales area and if you ever get there and need a steak or chicken dinner I highly recommend it. Saturday was an incredible brunch at a taco place where I slammed down filet mignon tacos and the family had bottomless mimosas. And finally we had New York style pizza for the final meal and for those of you who don’t know – there is most definitely a difference between New York pizza and everywhere else.

I haven’t had one bad meal down here, and the markets are absolutely unbelievable, though I would caution these places that service isn’t particularly great – they might want to put a little bit more focus on that.

The point here is that there’s choices – it isn’t limited like it is in so many other places.

And then there’s the people watching, which is particularly amusing in South Florida.  Trust me my friends, if you want to enjoy some comedy, just watch people here, it’s absolutely amazing, particularly the drivers and their horns.

In between grubbing, we hit places like Universal Orlando (if you ever think about coming here, save money starting NOW!), the Florida’s Natural Orange processing plant, and took a drive down A1A in Fort Lauderdale DURING SPRING BREAK – oh my – the place doesn’t change – and my son certainly enjoyed the view.

We even found 15 minutes to go into the Seminole Hard Rock where my wife in less than five minutes won $250 on a penny slot, followed by a $1700 win just four days later when we were killing time!!

Went out to the edge of the Everglades and our friend Big George was waiting. George is a 14.5 foot gator who hangs out around the overlook and is there every March when we arrive. He’s a sneaky bastard too, he’ll creep right up and surface just within feet of where you might be standing. Really cool, so long as you don’t do anything stupid.

But as I was visiting Big George, I came across a really cool fact about America’s parks – there are so many passes that are so inexpensive. As a veteran/retiree, I got a cool benefit of annual free entrance passes into America’s parks and so forth all across the country which include national parks, preserves, forestry and BLM areas as well. And they have something for folks over the age of 62 where it’s $10 per year.

As we drove up the turnpike and got into Orlando, we bumped into the Astros complex in Kissimmee, but unfortunately we had tickets that same day to Universal so we couldn’t stop. Jeff, you know this, but Orlando has gotten too expensive and too big, construction on the roads is going to last a long time, but next season Houston will be down here in West Palm Beach, so I can provide a live report.

And then there was Gumbo Limbo which is a sea animal preserve where they focus on nursing sea creatures back to health. It’s free and we got to see sea turtles, barracudas, eels, stingrays, and squid.

How bout the sports:

MLB – In Cuba.   I’m one who was for some reason excited by this event, but you know what, it was so far overblown it made Fox News look like they were ignoring Donald Trump.

Look, I’m glad it happened and I even watched the 6th-9th innings, but as usual, ESPN beat a dead horse even further into the ground.

And no people, MLB opening up Cuba doesn’t affect MLB’s standing – either positively or negatively.

As for why MLB is going into Cuba, can we just be honest that this is about $$$ via making it easier to get Cuban players into MLB?  Stop with all the altruistic non-sense and just be freaking honest.

MLB – Adam LaRoche. As I read further into this, the more I’m thinking the players on the White Sox are just acting stupid. Is it really true that some of the players called LaRoche’s kid “a leader” of that team? Are you for real? If that’s true, do they realize how absolutely stupid and out of touch with reality they sound?

And for Chris Sale, whose actually livid calling EVP Kenny Williams in essence a liar, then what it tells me is that these players are nowhere near focused on the season, a season where they could be competitive in the ultra-competitive AL Central

Oh, by the way, it sounds like not all the players were necessarily cool with a 14 year old kid being in the locker room up to 120 games for the season. Seems like a lot of games for a kid whose supposed to be in high school somewhere?

Meanwhile the union is “monitoring” the situation. Monitoring? Fellas, he retired. It was his choice, he publicly stated it was an easy decision. What can the union possibly do?

NFL. Yo Johnny Manziel, if you really think that hiring Drew Rosenhaus is a good idea to get you back in the good graces of an NFL franchise, you are even more dumb than I gave you credit for. Holy crap!!! Learn your history son, that agent has not only alienated teams, he’s alienated his own players as I recall.

NFL – Rules Changes. My son and I were having a debate about this today, I think it’s a good thing that the NFL finally outlawed chop blocks – I thought they already did for the most part, but as a parent, I hated chop blocks, but he says it’s part of the game and that if he wasn’t ready for it as a d-lineman, then it’s on him.

In the end…Today is the day we leave Florida and return to California. I will miss it here. My family most importantly of course, but also just the different vibe. And most definitely the food.