Vacation, vacation everywhere!

My first day back from a week-long vacation, I had a meeting at the Daytona Beach Resort and Conference Center. You know how you feel the first day back at work after a vacation - like you wish you were still on vacation? Well I was feeling that way and that feeling got even stronger while I was sitting at the resort watching all the families wondering in and out of the pool deck, drinks in hand, kids in tow with the smell of suntan lotion.

While I love, love, love living in the Sunshine State, it can sometimes be difficult to be surrounded constantly by people on vacation. When I was a kid growing up in St. Augustine, this fact of life was actually a lot of fun.

Growing up in vacationland as a kid, I learned to have a good time with the tourists. My best friend and I would often take advantage of their cluelessness (why do we leave our brain at home on vacation?). From giving tourists the wrong directions, to telling them tales of manatees nesting on the shores of our beaches, we had a great time being real smart-aleks. But the best trick we ever played on these poor visitors was after a hard rain in the historic district. Downtown St. Augustine tends to flood along the bayfront area during rainstorms. This particular storm had left the parking lot of the fort under water by a few inches. After the rain stopped, my friend and I decided to "wade" across the fort parking lot. Only we got down on our knees and trudged through the water. Car after car would pull up to the entrance to the fort parking lot, see us up to our thighs in water and turn away less they get swamped. We took great delight with every car we scared away.

I'm sure the convention and visitor's bureau really appreciated that.