hroughout my life I have been lucky to have the opportunity to travel. I’ve eaten fried catfish and okra in Arkansas and barrel-rolled in an open-cockpit stunt plane over the Russian River Valley. I’ve watched parrotfish glide silently through shipwrecks in the Caribbean Sea and hiked to Machu Picchu in time for the sunrise.
My adventures have been exciting, delicious, unique. But in my heart, none of them will ever come close to the vacations my family took when I was growing up.
Our annual family trip was a pilgrimage to Islamorada, a cozy resort town in the middle of the Florida Keys. The family piled into our Aerostar for the 7-plus hour trip downstate, past the tourist attractions and creepy highway rest stops, until we finally crossed Seven Mile Bridge from the mainland into the Keys.
We had a relaxed vacation routine that included changing directly from pajamas into bathing suits, snorkeling or fishing, and eating snacks and cold cuts. Some afternoons we’d rest, flipping through books on to find what fish we’d spotted on the reef that day. Other times the family would stroll down to the nearby Tiki Bar resort for afternoon libations for the grown-ups, cheese fries and lemonades for the kids, listening to whatever band was covering Jimmy Buffett that day.
It was idyllic and unremarkable. We made this trip year after year, and we took the every-day sunshine and routine for granted.
Then one year, it rained.
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