2/18/13-2/24/13: Fort Myers, FL

Nothing like a week in S Florida in the winter to A) Relax you and make you feel like you are on vacation and B) Get you prepared to go back out into the snow a week later...

Just finished up our randomly (but welcomed) placed week in Fort Myers, FL. Now, having lived in FL for about 20 years AND not being a beach person (I don't swim much, the salty air and humidity make me feel dirty and I hate having sand stuck to me...and crowds...and I burn by looking at the sun too long...), I was content to hang out at the hotel and ready (in the shade) by the pool (when it wasn't too hot out).  But for the rest of the cast - it was definitely a mini vaca. Beach days, Sanibel Island, Sunburns - the whole works.

We were treated to a wonderful night out on Fort Myers Beach to a party at a restaurant called Junkanoo's on the beach by one of our producers who lives in the area.  That was alot of fun - I can handle the beach at night.  In fact my favorite time to goto the beach, and only time I will willingly is mid December around midnight.  Then there's no one there and its nice and cool...Ah.  But not everyone's a vampire like me. Anyway, Junkanoos treated us right - with an amazing spread of edible beach delights and some delicious drinks to boot.  They had their private beach open for us and a good number of the company played some beach volley ball as well.

In fact, the only downside of our little trip was that someone stole my external hard drive.  BIG PAIN IN THE BUTT!!!!  I had brought it down to the business center of the hotel to print some things out - and accidentally left it there when I went back up to my room.  Sadly, I didn't realize this for about a day and a half - when I went to go look for it, of course, it was gone.  No one had turned it in to the front desk (like I would have done...) so I was just out of luck...People amaze me.  Why stealing is perfectly ok to some people...all I can say is I hope whomever the thief was enjoys all the show videos I now don't have copies of - as well as my edited reels and backup of my website.  And I hope they get a virus from it that eats their entire computer and whomever they bring their computer to to by, overcharges them - causing them to not be able to pay their rent and become homeless....but I digress...

Our company manager, Deb, arranged for us to travel from Fort Myers to Orlando after our matinee show on Sunday.  We stayed at the Disney All Star Movies Resort and then flew out of Orlando to Appleton, WI the next day.  Since we were only going to be about an hour from home, Mom and Dad came up to Orlando for a bit.  My Mom just had her birthday - and their 40th wedding anniversary was 2 days before - so I took them out to diner at the House of Blues in downtown Disney.  It was alot of fun - and nice to see them, since I haven't been home since October when I left for NYC to start How The Grinch Stole Christmas rehearsals last year.  After diner, we came back to the hotel, and I showed them around the resort, which was decorated in the fashion of several Disney films. 

Monday morning, we got up and headed out for the airport under the guidance of our bus driver, whom has been dubbed Wandering Wanda.  Lets just say....we drove up to the departing flights drop off point....then drove by it - Circled around to arriving flights....then circled around to the Rental Car section....sat at the gate for 5-10 minutes until Deb finally got out and called someone at the airport for assistance, then we ended up in a bus drop off...back at the arriving flights section and had to lug all our suitcases back up to the departing flights section that we were at 20 minutes before...and that was just the start to a travel day that I'm trying to forget.   But here we are in Appleton, WI - and I'm (probably the only person here) excited to be back up North in the cold weather and snow again - and looking forward to a fun week of Cheese Curds!