Hoping for the Best

Some of the local fauna of Amelia Island.

I last visited Amelia Island 26 years ago. I am going again tomorrow, and staying at the very same hotel, which is apparently newly renovated and now offering Segway tours of the property. (Note to self: do not do that!) At the time I was three months pregnant and my father had just died, and what I remember most about that particular trip is crying. On the beach, in the hotel, at the pool, it was boo-hoo. While it was indeed a lovely setting in which to cry, I automatically think of the whole place as a bummer. This is unfair to the Amelia Island Chamber of Commerce, so I welcome the opportunity to revise my bad impression.

This time I am not pregnant and I am well over my father's death, so it should be a lot better. Still, there will be a few of those "rubber chicken" dinners, since I am accompanying my husband on what is for him a business trip. Besides that, I am girding myself for the fact that Florida, while close, is not Haiti, which means it could be the same old, same old if I'm not careful, and that is just about the worst thing that can happen after you have endured the airport security lines and the creepy flight stuck inside an airborne cattle car for like five hours, and with a change of planes too. (Up and down twice in one day.) To pretend I am somewhere interesting and foreign, I will avoid all media, ingest only weird foods and strange drinks, and imagine that the people on the Segways are exotic animals with wheels for feet. At the very least, I don't need to get any shots.