(This post has nothing to do with the rapper^)
PICTURE THIS:
Jack and Linds cruising around Tampa in a convertible Camaro with the top down on a beautiful day, jamming to Dre's new album, and them swimming at Clearwater Beach with its pristine, soft white sand, known as one of America's best beaches. And its all pretty much for free.
Dreamy, right?
Somewhat at the last minute, we took a trip to Tampa, Florida in early August. Jack was invited there by his job for a conference and they generously paid for everything for the two of us to go to the conference, except for my airfare. So we could not say no to a virtually free summer vacation!
True, it was more of a vacation for me than for him, since he was mostly in conference meetings and panel discussions while I was by the pool...but still.
So he was invited to attend CAAFP -- Conference of African American Financial Professionals. And let me tell you, it is reported to me regularly that my mother-in-law of blessed memory used to like to say, "You just can't beat a black man in a suit," and after hanging around this conference, I'm inclined to agree! What a great-looking bunch! The only problem with that was that my complexion and beach attire in comparison to all those handsome gents made it all the more obvious that I was only there for the food...
I imagined people at every conference room breakfast, lunch, or dinner, noticing that suddenly this suspiciously under-dressed white lady who somehow has a name badge shows up, looking sunburned, whenever free meals are served to conference attendees.
Yeah, well, it's true. No shame here.
Besides that, the only problems with our "vacation" was that (1) Jack was tied up in meetings for far too much of the time, and (2) we took practically NO pictures!
On our first day before the conference began, we had a great beach day and experienced the bizarre Florida insta-storm weather. And we splurged on some excellent coconut shrimp, thresher shark skewers, and gator bites. I'm fairly confident that alligator falls within our Pescatarian diet, since they are water lizards...yeah, let's go with that.
On our last day we went to the Florida Aquarium-- that place was fun! A big outdoor-feeling section in a large glass dome was my favorite part, it felt a little like jungle hiking with all the trees and the animals were just right next to you with very low glass separating us, and birds just flying all around. This section is where we got to pet a baby alligator!
They also have amazing experiences available like going straight from the Aquarium onto a dolphin-finding boat trip, going inside the penguin habitat(!), and swimming in some of the tanks! If your kid is a future marine biologist, this would be a great place to go on some adventurous encounters.
And they have lemurs. How many aquariums have lemurs??
At the end of it all, we definitely got some sun, some beach time, some pool time, and some relaxation. Plus Jack got to "network" ie strike up never-ending conversations with complete strangers, which is pretty much his most favorite thing to do :) So I'd call that a win!
