Ocean Paradise

Postcards from Florida...my first time there doing anything besides changing planes.

Thursday: Full on Florida tourist
As befitting the daughter of a man who never takes the main road when she can meander a back road, we drove from the Orlando airport to Melbourne Beach via Route 1, providing a trailer park introduction to the state. Favorite business name: the Econo-Kill.

Favorite thing about Florida? 70+ degree weather in December. Not only that, but the ocean was warmer than it had been on the Outer Banks in July.

Dinner was at Bunky's, the kind of place that might as well have been in Ocean City, full of visiting families at large tables, food served in baskets and wine chilled in a Budweiser plastic bucket. We sat at a table right next to the aquarium and I did what any self-respecting first-time tourist would: ate a basket of gator tail bites (half fried, half grilled). There, that's done.

And is there anything more restfully wonderful than sleeping with the balcony door to the ocean wide open all night so that the sound and smell of the waves become part of your dreams? Not for me there isn't.

Friday: A day at the races
A good beach vacation day begins with a walk and on ours we saw two fisherman with a very active cooler. Walking up to see what was thrashing inside, we saw an 18" fish of indeterminate species. The guys had no more idea than we did and pulled out a handy-dandy chart/measuring device to determine what they'd snagged. Best guess? A spot, although my walking companion and I had never heard of spots that size.

From gator to greyhounds, we spent the afternoon at Sanford Orlando Kennel Club aka a dog racing track. At the front desk, an ancient and informative woman named Ramona, who'd worked there for 48 years, gave us the scoop and a tip sheet.

Despite a thick program that provided all kinds of information about each racing dog, I chose solely based on the dogs' names (She Ain't Right, Bonafide Gypsy), not the wisest move since out of the eleven races we saw, I won only two (Media Hype and DC Iridescent, both chosen for obvious personal reasons) for a grand total of $6.40. It worked out well, though, because the Patron I drank sitting in the clubhouse watching the lanky dogs run cost $6.84. Never mind all those $2 bets that never panned out.

We drove home with our non-existent winnings through Cocoa Beach (a place I remembered as the setting for "I Dream of Jeanie"), deciding to eat there and naturally when you're on vacation at the beach, where do you want to eat but at a German restaurant?

The Heidelberg was like a '70s time capsule of a restaurant and I mean that in a charming way. With upside-down patio umbrellas hanging over curved banquettes and brightly-colored, groovy paintings on the wall, it seemed like a place our parents could have gone, right down to the guy at the piano playing things like "Edelweiss" and "Climb Every Mountain" while we ate cheese fondue and goulash. I wouldn't be surprised if it had been there during Jeanie's days.

After a leisurely dinner where we outlasted everyone and got activity recommendations from our affable server, Joe (who became our devoted friend when we laughed at his "Homie don't play that" joke), we moved to the other side of the building, the Heidelberg's companion, Heidi's jazz club.

"The Way You Look Tonight" was playing when we walked in to a room of all couples, dark and romantic and, again, feeling very much like a throwback. Heidi greeted us, suggesting a ringside table for the Ron Teixeira trio, but we took a table further back so we could watch other couples woo in front of us. The band was made up of long-time musicians, comfortable and talented, and their repertoire ranged from Duke Ellington to Elton John and lots of slow songs for the couples who wanted to dance.

You know how old school Heidi's was? A photographer went table to table asking couples if he could take their picture (black and white, natch) for a souvenir of their Cocoa Beach evening. Is Florida fabulous or what?

Saturday: Insert culture
We had lunch plans all the way over in Lakeland, a two-plus hour drive that took us past a serpentarium, a place that would have repulsed me but whose name I found very clever. The unexpected treat of the afternoon was a visit to Florida Southern College, not because of its Methodist roots but because it has the largest concentration of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings anywhere in the world.

Now I took a lot of architecture history classes but I can't recall ever learning that bit of info. Wright apparently thought most college campuses were architectural failures and set out to correct that with a blank slate in the flatlands of Florida. Who knew? The afternoon was sunny and perfect for a stroll around the campus, admiring esplanades and covered breezeways so low even I could touch the ceilings with my fingertips.

The centerpiece of the campus was the Annie Pfeiffer chapel and we went inside it to admire its cantilevered balconies and colored glass-inset walls made of sandcast blocks shining jewel-like in the late afternoon sun. And here I'd expected Florida to be a cultural wasteland.

This time we meandered back toward Melbourne beach via Vero beach, stopping for dinner at Citrus Grill, a seaside restaurant in a tony little area of boutiques and eateries and wildly busy on a Saturday evening. It was about as far from Bunky's as possible and we took seats at the bar for dinner.

Beginning with a bottle of Piper Heidsieck allowed us to learn about one of the staff's little games. Apparently whenever a customer orders bubbles, the bartender takes the wire cage from the top of the bottle, shapes it into a turtle and leaves it somewhere around the bar for another server to discover.

He set our turtle on a container behind a screen and a server found it within a few minutes, but he showed us one he'd done and put next to a bottle of liquor and said it had been there for months.

More interested in food than games, we began with one of the evening's specials, an heirloom tomato slice topped with onion salad and a head-on U-5 prawn, which I followed with an entree of grilled sourdough with another gorgeous tomato slice topped by lightly pan-fried flounder, a stellar marriage of incredibly fresh flavors.

I have to say, the abundance of local and heirloom tomatoes was an unexpected surprise since we've long since lost that luxury here and I took advantage of it whenever I could. Tomatoes with flavor in the last days of December? Yes, more please.

As if Citrus Grill hadn't already won my heart with its creative and well-executed food, they sealed the deal with a dessert menu that included "dessert bites" at $3 each. You know, for those times you need just a couple of bites of sweet to balance out your savory. I only wish some Richmond restaurants would jump on that trend.

We sold out, though, choosing three bites for $8, still a great deal and offering us a variety of sweet endings - key lime pie, cheesecake topped with apple compote and a chocolate cake with chocolate cream- even though we were stuffed by then and didn't need another bite.

But on vacation, you ignore those little details.

Sunday: Dangerously local
The beach walk began by walking south for a change and it wasn't long before I spotted what looked like a piece of blue sea glass but turned out to be a small brilliantly blue jellyfish still moving on the sand, so not dead. Amazed at such a thing, I took a picture only to discover as we walked further along at least a dozen more just as blue.

A thunderstorm was rolling in and it began sprinkling just as we got back, so we took books to the balcony for a while and read while the storm moved from the causeway behind us to the ocean in front of us. I was reading Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar," so the tempestuous weather was a practically perfect accompaniment to her personal upheavals.

Our bodies exercised, our minds stimulated, we set out for sustenance and fun, deciding to head over to the Indian river side and look for a waterside place to spend the afternoon. We were sold as soon as we saw a sprawling place called Squid Lips and I about went into paroxysms of excitement when I saw that their sign said, "Johnny Danger 2-7 p.m." It was 2:45.

Holy cow, we couldn't have asked for a better, more Florida-like place to wile away the afternoon. Situated where a grand old hotel called the Oleander had once stood (I know because I read an old newspaper clipping and the historical sign), Squid Lips was a multi-room venue with something for everyone.

Our first choice would have been the sand bar on the beach, but the weather had closed it, so we got the next best room, the one open on two sides to the river and with variable-layered canvas awnings for a roof. Johnny Danger was on break when we arrived, allowing time for us to find a table near the river and order food and drink.

Over the next four hours, it would rain for a while then clear up, both of which made for stunning views of the river, coastline and bridge. During one brief shower, we even got a pod of dolphins frolicking right in front of us.

Squid Lips wasn't going to give the Citrus any competition, but my basket of fried shrimp and fries went quite well with my Patron and we had a great view of the stage, such as it was (actually a platform off the walkway connecting one of the upper bars to the outside one where we were).

Johnny knew his crowd and played to it ("Hey, I'm looking at you, bald guy at the bar!"), with nothing more than a guitar, his voice and a karaoke machine that provided all the sounds of a band and back-up singers anyone could hope for on a Sunday afternoon. Steve Miller Band, Temptations, Billy Idol, he had the crowd dancing in no time, even yours truly.

I'm not gonna lie; when someone as dreamy and talented as Johnny danger croons, girls just wanna have fun. True story, even if it is to an Eric Clapton song.

During a pit stop just before leaving, I met a local named Hillary with an almost-crew cut and red and blue feathers dangling from her ears and asked for tips on where to eat, drink and hear music. By the time she finished with me, I could have stayed another month and never had a night free. I found out where to go for tango lessons and about the classic rock band that goes to their van mid-set and puts on beards and brings out a spinner guitar to play ZZ Top tunes.

I felt like we were kindred souls in our passions for our respective neighborhoods.

Monday:
We did the Melbourne beach version of the pipeline walkway as we repeatedly walked over an enormous pipeline on the beach laid there to pump sand in to help make reparations after Hurricane Sandy. Beginning our walk at a state park, we saw a crude sign saying "Home break of the Melbourne surf club," a clever phrase that alerted us to the fact that even surfers form clubs.

Walking this new-to-us stretch of beach on a cloudy day, we were astounded to find fishermen with companion animals. One guy had a pelican who let us get within three feet of him, giving us the eye as if to decide whether we might have fish in hand. The fisherman said, "He's my friend. He turns up everyday while I fish, been doing that for five months now."

Another guy had a crane who did the same, sometimes walking right up to his cooler to see if any pieces of bait were left behind for him. It made for really easy picture-taking, but somehow seemed wrong in terms of survival of the species.

For lunch, we went to a joint called Bizarro's pizza, run by obvious Jersey transplants (lots of hair product, lots of gold chains, lots of attitude) who yelled to the kitchen staff in Spanish ("No chilis!") in between cracking jokes with customers. We ate outside where seagulls walked over people's feet to score dropped bits of pie.

Since it was our last day, we decided to take the ritual beach nap, awakening to find the clouds gone and the sun waiting for us downstairs at Rio's the oceanside bar we'd so far only frequented at the end of an evening. Refreshed from a nap after doing nothing more taxing than eating and walking, we watched the sun turn clouds to pink and reflect off the ocean for the last time this trip.

After the final vacation bottle of Piper Heidsieck, we took our last dinner at Cities Grill, notable mainly for fake torches, a lovely $6 glass of Pinot Noir and a good-sized $6 bowl of plump mussels that would have cost more almost anywhere I can think of. Prime rib and a burger rounded out our last evening in Florida before returning to the balcony for some late night Roxy Music-inspired Pandora.

Do I have what it takes to be a snowbird and spend winters in Florida, surrounded by cattle ranches and citrus groves, friendly pelicans and dessert bites?

Well, I suppose if the right oceanside no-tell motel owner wanted a social director to lead the limbo contest or organize a weekly late night dance, I'd consider it.

No photographer, no gator bites. But every room includes a bottle of Piper Heidsieck and is oceanfront. Most especially mine.