March 6-14, 1999: Holiday Trip to Florida

One of many trip reports under the SilGro home page for Alan Silverstein and Cathie Grow.
Email me at ajs@frii.com.
Last update: December 13, 2024
(Previous trip report: 1998_1224-0103_Pennsylvania.htm)

From:  Megan Silverstein 
Date:  31 Mar 1999 17:16:29 -0700
Subject:  my trip! Finally!

(By my daughter Megan Silverstein; edited and HTMLized in 2024.)

My trip to Florida 3/6-14/99

[She wrote back then:] I need to let you know right now that this document is for my memories only. If for some reason it says things that you find dull or boring too bad. It wasn't written for you to see. [But in 2024 she gave me permission to edit and publish this!]

Saturday 3-6-99

The first day of my trip. Yaaah! We are on the road heading for DIA at 7:30. When we get down to Denver we meet up with Cathie Grow [Alan's future wife since 2003, about 2 months after we started dating!] for breakfast at a Denny's or something. We have a good breakfast and go the rest of the way to the airport at about 9am. We arrive in what we thought to be plenty of time to make our 11:40 flight. Turned out not to be true. Upon arrival we come to learn that the 6:40am flight was canceled due to weather, and our flight appeared to be going but it would be delayed. [Nowadays we'd check ahead on FlightAware!] So we got into the unbelievably long line to check our bag in.

12:20 OK it's been long enough. We have finally gotten to the front of the line. What did you miss in that time? Well two girls in my geography class were also supposed to be on my flight, but they gave up and left. And our flight has bounced from delayed to canceled status. That's it. So we get up to the ticket counter and tell the lady there our predicament. Which was this: We were supposed to catch a 2pm something flight from Chicago (where the weather was happening) to St Petersburg. No way could we get there in time. So what are our options? (Which turned out to be grim.)

All flights (other airlines too) have been booked to Florida till Monday. Come back Monday. (That means go home and drive back down there then.)
Get on our flight to Chicago Midway Airport (tiny place) and pray (that we get a flight out). That's what the option got called.
Cancel our trip. (You know we didn't do that, but it was an option at the time.)
Can you get us a flight out of O'Hare? (We didn't know the distance between the airports, but we were desperate.)

So after talking to my grandparents we decided to go the Midway and Pray route. Turns out that the woman that was helping us, her computer was stupid. Tell it you want to get to Florida anyway, you can, but it says, "You can't get there till Monday."

Tell it: "I am going to be in the Midway Airport, now how can I get to Florida?"

"Oh yes, there is a flight leaving Midway to Florida at 7am tomorrow morning."

"Duh, well sign us up."

"One overnight adventure coming right up."

And that's how it was. We now wait for our plane to leave from DIA, spend the night in Chicago, catch the 7am flight out, and arrive at St Petersburg at 10am something.

Now, welcome to the "Waiting Game". Haven't I already played this enough? At that time I didn't know how much more of that I would end up playing. I'll spare you the details but by the time 8pm (and 2 seconds) rolled around and our airplane wheels finally came off the ground, we knew everyone on board that flight a lot better.

11:45pm (Chicago time): We are here at this small and lovely Midway Airport. Before we can get to sleep we talk to the ticketing people there, to see if we could come back to Colorado on Sunday instead of 7am Saturday. The lady there was able to do that for us. So then we headed down to the end to the concourse.

We got about 4 hours of sleep that night after we had eaten; brushed our teeth; gotten a cot, blankets, and pillows; and finally gotten to sleep in front of a story-high glass pane window and the sound of airplanes going by and a cleaning lady trying to do the window...

Sunday 3-7-99

"Wake Up!"

"Huh, what. Oh, ya, I know where I am. Yawwwn. Could it be 6:30 already?"

No. It's a little bit before 5am. The all-night crew (airport workers) had to have all the cots put up before the end of their shift at 5am. Even though I slept on chairs, I'm awake now. So after that rough start I found that I had an hour and a half by the time I started moving. So I just waited and talked with people. I met this lady who said that she would be on our flight back. That was cool.

Soon we boarded the plane and before I knew it we were in St Petersburg. That airport in reality was smaller than Midway, they didn't even have a ramp from the building to the plane. Just a set of stairs and you had to walk the rest of the way in. So we walked on the hot black asphalt and we noticed the air that was wet and full of life. I found myself walking towards the building where my grandparents were waiting anxiously for us.

We said our hello's and went to their place. I really can't remember much of that day. I guess that I was more tired than I thought. I guess we ate somewhere before we went to their house, but I don't remember. What I do remember is the exchanging of presents, mostly to me; the 9" in diameter wonderful green, luscious, with whip cream and a gram cracker crust, key lime pie; the very nice white pajamas with little red flowers; and the nicely-made computer card made for me with the $35 in it; that's what I remember.

I kind of felt bad because the only thing that I had to offer was the rug like thing that I had stressed to make the Thursday and Friday nights before.

After all that we went to dinner at a little Chinese restaurant, which was quite nice. (Nice enough for me to eat way too much.)

Monday 3-8-99

This morning I slept in too late. Oh, it's 11 already. OK well anyway, once I got moving we jumped in the car and drove. And drove to this place my dad read about some where. It apparently had good fossils. It was an hour drive to this place called Apollo Beach. It was a dud. No offense or anything but that was the worst way to spend a full day in Florida. 'Cause that's all we did. Drive down there and back. It sucked. We got there to find no beach. Just a 11" high rock wall.

Well that wasn't the only thing we did. When we got back up to the area near my grandparents it was already four o'clock. We decided that we all wanted to see "Analyze This" which was a very good R-rated movie.

Tuesday 3-9-99

Today we went to Tarpon Springs, a town with a row of stores that are famous. On our way there we stopped in to a stained glass shop that my dad had seen the first night. Then we spent the rest of that rainy day ducking in and out of shops, watching a man blowing glass, and enjoying myself thoroughly. That night we went to a buffet place called "Sweet Tomatoes". Its food was good but not as good as a place we would visit later in the trip called "Buddy Freddies". [2024: Both restaurants have long since closed! Sweet Tomatoes did not survive the covid pandemic.]

Throughout the day today our plans changed a lot of times. In the morning we thought that tomorrow we would go to Epcot and then that evening go to my aunt's house. It didn't end up happening that way.

After I was in bed reading, the phone rang and I wound up staying up a little longer while we figured out what to do. Turns out that my uncle had gotten tickets to one of the final four games in Orlando that Thursday. Basically he wanted to spend some time with us and that wouldn't end up happening if we went to Epcot tomorrow and then he would be gone all of Thursday and we had planned to come back on Friday. Instead we decided to go to Epcot Thursday, which means that we would drive from west to east, tomorrow. Then back west to Orlando Thursday, back east in the evening, hang out with them on Friday and drive back west on Saturday morning. That is what we did.

Wednesday 3-10-99

Today I was woken up the earliest that I had been all trip because today we had to travel all the way across the state to Melbourne. The first place we went was up north to Crystal River. It was a place where the Indians used to live. I bought two statues to add to my collection there, a bald eagle and a raccoon.

Then we left there at about 10 to drive up to see my aunt in Ocala. We met her for lunch at this western type place. The food there was pretty good too.

Then she went back to work and we went on to Blue Springs. This place was a beautiful place where my dad and I swam. It was really cool because we were swimming right above where the water came out of the ground. There were also manatees in the run further down stream. It was just a really neat experience.

After that we drove the rest of the way there and we stopped to eat at a Denny's a few blocks from where they live. We finished the rest of the drive and were warmly greeted by my aunt, uncle, and two cousins. Though I was really excited I didn't stay up too late because tomorrow we were going to Epcot.

Thursday 3-11-99

Got up later than my cousins but still much too early. You see they had school that day. Anyway we got to Epcot not too long after 9am. We went in and the first stop was the bathrooms and then we seemed to go everywhere. I was very surprised at how short the lines were that day!

For those of you who have been there you can have some comparison. For example, we walked onto Spaceship Earth. For those of you that haven't been there it's the ride in the big ball thingy, which usually takes three hours to get onto. We spent the morning on the front half going to all of the exhibits there then in the evening we walked past Mexico and China. We had dinner in Independence Hall, which if you read my last trip report, you know that on my last trip I actually visited the real thing. So that was a neat joke, see the real thing, have dinner in the Walt Disney version.

After dinner my grandparents and father wanted to see the show in America, and I wanted to go to the other half of Innoventions. So I took the boat back over there while they saw the show. I used my ham radio which I hadn't done in a really long time.

Anyway, when I was done, I came outside and grabbed myself a spot on the edge of the lake to watch the fireworks presentation. After that, we met up in a shop where I was buying chocolate for me and my friend. (Which was the only thing that wasn't outrageously priced.) And we went back to my aunt's house.

Friday 3-12-99

I definitely stayed up too late last night.

"Megan, get up! Oh yeah did I forget to mention, it's 11 o'clock am."

"Ohhhhh."

Alright don't laugh. I can hear you laughing stop it. (I'm talking to those of you who are in school, had that week off, and you can't remember one or more days of that week because you slept thought it.) I know you're laughing, stop it.

Anyway, I missed breakfast, as you can guess, and if I hadn't been woken up I would have slept though lunch too. But I'm moving and we all have to get moving because what I thought would be our free day, "has been booked full of stuff, while you were sleeping." Which turned out to be a cool thing.

"Come on Megan, we're going to have lunch at your cousins' school."

"But I haven't had breakfast yet."

Well that's the way it was. I woke up and began to feel sorry for my cousins who had already spend more than half the school day at school. We went there and "signed in at the main office." Where does that phrase ring a bell, oh yeah, it's on every door of my school.

"Visitors must sign in at the main office."

Anyway, back on track, we all waited for Jenny Gillis, my third-grade cousin to go to lunch. How embarrassing that must have been when she walked out of her classroom. "Jenny party of six, Jenny party of six." That wasn't including her, who showed up to have lunch with her.

Anyway we ate and then waited around the school. Neat place. It seemed to be as big as FCHS, on the amount of land it took up. The classrooms were all separate. They had to walk outside to get to the lunchroom and most of the other rooms too.

Then we had our second lunch with Steven Gillis, my sixth-grade cousin. Cool.

After that we went to the Melbourne Airport, tiny place, even, from what I could see, smaller than Midway. My aunt had to change the reservations on a trip they will take.

After that we went to a Walmart superstore, and looked around, I bought stuff, until we had to go and pick up my cousins from school. We all went to Toys-R-Us and let the kids pick out some stuff on my father's $.

Later that evening we went to a beach. "Oh my gosh, let me check, uh huh. You went to Florida and you haven't been to a beach yet! Bad girl..." My friend Rose would say.

Yes we hadn't gone to a beach yet, but we went that night and after the amount of shell fragments ended up in my bathing suit that wouldn't come out, I'm not to eager to do that again. You see I was the only person that went swimming. It was a blast too, out there getting tossed by the waves. It was like being in the wave pool at Water World but it was a whole lot nicer and prettier.

After getting cleaned up we went to another really nice buffet, all eight of us. That was really neat. We went back to their house for the night.

Saturday 3-13-99

I don't remember much of this day. Just that I woke up somewhat late today too, and we said our goodbyes to my aunt, uncle, and cousins and we dove through "Old Town" Kissimmee, not like the Fort Collins old town. It was a purposely-made closed down street that had shops up and down it. I guess it was like our old town but we didn't have the roller coasters, the ferris wheel, or the 200 foot high full body swing. It was a neat place but we didn't stay long. I picked up a gyro, which was really good.

When we got close to my grandparents' house we stopped into a hobby store. And for dinner that evening we went to Buddy Freddies. (That place had the best food!) We went back to the grandparents' house and went to sleep.

Sunday 3-14-99

Our flight today left at 10. I kind of remember. We got to the gate and met that woman again, the one who was on our flight out. We said our goodbyes and got onto a plane. Which seemed like no big deal, except that I didn't want to leave.

Turbulence was pretty bad on the way out to Chicago, after that an hour wait. I felt completely at home at the Midway Airport. An hour later we boarded the flight, with the two girls that sat next to me in Geography, and the school's one and only band teacher. We arrived in Colorado and it was still light out, that was a change because I usually came home in the dark.

Now this story has come to an end. I had so much fun on this trip and I wouldn't change the experience for the world!

(Next trip report: 1999_0717-25_RaftGreenRiver.htm)