Welcome to Sunny Florida

Growing up in L.A. gives you such a skewed vision of the world. And, my latest trek to Florida illustrates many of those visions and their obvious flaws.

1. I never knew that there were baseball teams that played baseball INDOORS.

Huh? I had sort of heard about domes but growing up watching Dodger games and not really being the biggest baseball fan ever, I just assumed everyone played baseball outside.

Yeah, not so much. There are domes and some baseball teams are forced to play in them. Such is the fate of the sig. other's favorite team, the Twins. So, with Spring Training in effect, we headed back down to Ft. Myers to enjoy a few games in a beautiful stadium OUTSIDE.

2. Flying in winter is the same as flying any other time of year.

Duh, right? My flight to Dallas was early as was my connection to Ft. Myers. Easy!

Yeah, not so much. Todd, flying in from Minneapolis, scheduled to arrive 10 minutes ahead of me, was over three hours late due to a snow storm, de-icing and all fun related to flying in winter.

In case you're wondering, the airport in Ft. Myers has free wifi and super friendly housekeeping staff who genuinely didn't mind that I moved a chair and table next to an outlet so I could work.

Awesome office, right? That view is actually of Todd's gate (C9, at the end) and no I wasn't breaking my computer at the time this picture was taken. I was having network connectivity issues and someone nice remoted into the laptop to fix it.

3. Its easy to find good non-chain restaurants when you travel.


Don't get me wrong, L.A. has its fair share of chain restaurants. But, there are tons of mom'n'pop places to tempt you. So of course, going to another city, finding good local food should be easy.


At our hotel:


Todd: "Any recommendations for dinner?"

Jenna: "Only rule is no chain restaurants."


Front Desk Girl: "Hmm, any particular price range or food type?"


T: "Nope, whatever is good."


FDG: "Are you willing to drive because my favorite restaurant EVER is about 15 minutes away."


J: "Sold, where to?"


FDG: "Vapiano's. Its like Subway but classy. They make all your food in front of you fresh to order. Its SO GOOD."


T: Perfect!


Judging by her description, I was thinking a family place with an open kitchen or even a cool old school cafeteria.

Yeah, we didn't know it was a chain until we got there. (You can sort of tell by the whole "package" of the place.") But, I will admit the food was really good and well-priced and they don't charge you for sharing. (I hate it when restaurants do that.)

You get this card and you take it to one (or all) the three food stations (pasta, salad and pizza) and they charge you based on what you order. They also had a bar and a small dessert section. At first blush you'd think it would be great for groups who want separate tabs or people dining together with completely different eating habits. Oddly, we only saw one large group. Instead it was families, seniors, couples...really a huge cross-section of people. I think its a great idea, even if it is a chain.


4. Its always warm in Florida.

This one I know is stupid. But everyone winters there and I know they get some cold weather but I didn't realise how cold. Don't get me wrong we had a beautiful Friday and Saturday. The game Friday was sunny and fabulous. Saturday we drove around Captiva and Sanibel islands and walked on the beach. But Sunday. Yeah.

Before you assume I really let myself go, keep this in mind. I'm wearing the following under Todd's sweatshirt: Short sleeve tshirt, long sleeve tshirt and a fleece zip up hoodie.

During the game I'd say it was windy and in the 50s. I mean look, Todd even put on his windbreaker and that's saying something.

See, even on vacation you can learn something!