The Family History Writing Challenge - Interlachen

When my older three children were pre-teens, my mom decided that she wanted to spend the winter with her friend in Interlachen, Florida.  My children and I went down on Christmas break and took Mom to her friends house to stay.  Her friend was named Fanny.  

That year on spring break in early April, my children and I went back to Florida on spring break.  We decided to go spend a few days with Mom before we went to the Gulf Coast.  My younger sister had already come to Florida and she and her children were at Fanny's too.  

On the way there my boys decided it was funny to say, "We are going to Interlachen Fannies."  They thought that was so funny.  We arrived at Fanny's and a couple of her grandchildren were there visiting too.  It was a crowd, but it was lots of fun.  My sister had five children, she had some little children. Fanny had an old camper that sat in her yard and was hooked up to electricity, water and sewer.  She was used to having a large group of people come to visit.  We stayed in the camper with my sister and her kids.

We piled into my sisters van and took off to visit some of the Atlantic Coast.  We drove to Crescent Beach, it was a beautiful beach, but there was no one there.  We drove to Daytona Beach.  The kids were all excited because you could drive the car onto the beach.  When my oldest son opened the door to get out on the beach he said, "It looks like we landed in a giant ash tray."  People threw their cigarette butts and trash right on the beach.  It was Spring Break at Daytona Beach. There were so many people on that beach.  Guys were sitting holding cards with numbers on them and rating the girls as they walked by.  My mom wanted to get cards and rate the guys.  Instead she just yelled out numbers.  Mom enjoyed having a good time.

We stopped at some shops and my sister's four year old daughter did some shopping that no one else knew about.  The first time we got back in the car she had some coloring books and crayons that she had walked out of the store with.  Her mom made her take them back in and return them.  Later we stopped at a  big souvenir shop and got a few things.  On the trip back, we realized her daughter had picked up some things at the souvenir shop.  We were well over an hour away, her mom just took them from her and she got into trouble.  I'm glad she outgrew that habit! She doesn't remember any of it. 

After a few days we left, it was sad to leave Mom down there.  We weren't sure when she was coming back home.  She was thinking about moving down there.  Sometime in July she decided it was a miserably hot and humid place and she missed Indiana.  That was Mom's last trip to Florida.