I recently went on Spring Break. Yep, mid 30’s and I went on my first real spring break trip! Toms parents have a time share in Ft Myers and ended up offering it to us this year. At first, I wasn’t too excited about this. I’m not really a beach person. I burn very easily and I really hate having sand EVERYWHERE on my body.
However, because the winter here in Chicago has been so miserable, I started to get excited about going somewhere warmer. We were going with another couple and I thought this might be a really good time if I could just drink enough to make me forget about the sand and 3rd degree burns I was guaranteed to get.
Ft Myers ended up being an interesting place. The beach was beautiful and I loved jumping on a bike and riding up and down the island. We saw a lot of families and young 20 something people. There was so much seafood and tropical drinks everywhere you went. Thinking back about it now, here were my Cons and Pros (I like ending on a positive note).
Ft Myers Cons
If you are not staying on the island, Ft Myers was not that great. Once you get back on the mainland, there is just an endless amount of strip malls and crappy chain hotels. If you are a person that loves to shop on vacation you may love this. I did not.
There are a lot of old orange people there. It comes as no surprise to me that our very own President loves Florida so much. He fits in well with all the older people that basically roast in the sun all day long, 7 days a week. Hey – when you are that old you can do whatever you want. If being old and very orange is how you want to spend retirement…then LIVE YOUR BEST LIFE GUYS! I need that SPF 50.
Sand bugs. Seriously WTF?! Not one person told me that if you just sit on the sand or you dig your feet in the sand, there are bugs that bite you. You can’t see them, or at least I didn’t. I ended up getting like 40 bug bites all the way up my legs. I woke up on day three in the middle of the night scratching myself like crazy.
Our location was good and bad. We stayed in a place that had a lot of older people. Our neighbor, in particular, did not like us. We were not loud and we spent a lot of time out, however, I feel like some old people have a general dislike of younger people on vacation. These people spent most of the time in plastic chairs in front of their room, reading. That is all good and fine but they grew very annoyed with the fact that they had to share public grill space with us.
They liked their quiet little Bookfest 2018 they had going on and just did not like that we were laughing, drinking and grilling some food in front of them. Watching them, I felt kind of sorry for them. I don’t want to ever be like that when I’m older. I want Tom and I to always be curious and adventurous. It was clear that this couple just wanted peace and quiet on vacation. That is fine….but get the fuck out of your room once in a while. Go to a nice restaurant…. go for a walk on the beach.
Ft Myers Pros
The island was the perfect size. We stayed about 4 miles away from the madness of spring break. Far enough to not be so annoyed with the wet t-shirt contests but close enough where we could enter one if we wanted to. We rode bikes up there one of the days and had a fun day drinking day. We had drinks at the Lani Kai and oysters at Shuckers. Still not a fan of the latter.
The beach was clean and beautiful. Tom and I would go down to the beach with some beers and just listened and watched the waves until 3 in the morning. We were pretty shocked that we were the only ones out there. It was so peaceful and I remember thinking that this was a moment I wanted to remember on our trip.
Friday night, we took the trolley down to the more exciting part of the island. We had drinks at a tiki lounge and talked about how much has changed in the last year. After your wedding, you just feel like all the stress is gone. It was fun talking about how we felt about our wedding and how we felt now that it was over. It’s nice to see that after almost 5 years together we still like being with each other so much. Tom still is just one of the funniest people to hang out with.
At one point, a couple of older men walked in dressed as pirate with parrots on their shoulders. The bartenders looked up annoyed “Ugh those idiots with the fucking parrots are back”. They explained to us that although tourists seemed to get a kick out of these guys, the bartenders hated them. They would come in and walk around the bar while their parrots shit all over the place. Right as they were telling us this, we saw a parrot take a huge dump on the back of one of the pirate guys.
My first Spring Break was mostly a success. I enjoyed my few days in nicer weather but was happy to get back to a climate where my hair looked better. Drinking multiple days in a row can be tough too. I’m at least more open to going back to a tropical place which was something I typically dreaded in the past. Again, not a beach person, but I could be one for a few days.
Gurl Jonez 
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