I am Going To Jupiter

An unforgettable mini-road trip to a clear blue ocean with the people I love.

Endless Searching

It is Saturday and I wake up early contemplating what I should do for my wife for her birthday, it is on Tuesday but we want to celebrate on the weekend.

For the rest of the day I am brainstorming we have been together since high school so we have done almost everything we wanted to do in Central Florida.

We have gone to amusement parks, hotels, resorts, restaurants, local spots, parks, beaches, etc. It is now midnight and I am still up brainstorming. The equation is a little more complicated because we have an 18-month-old baby and I am trying to figure out a plan that works out for all of us.

Then it clicked! Jupiter Beach! My wife and daughter love the beach. I do not like the beach that much, I mean it’s beautiful and I love the ocean. My favorite animal is an ocean animal (orca whale) but I can only stay for an hour or so then I want to leave.

It is 1 am and I am googleing my heart out to create a quick plan on what to do. A tactic that tends to work is Google Map the destination and zoom in and look at all the restaurants and places nearby and google what they look like and their reviews because when you google places to eat near “destination” it is only places that won the SEO game and you may miss some hidden gems.

I wake up my wife and baby daughter early in the morning. Also, my little brother (19 years old) said he is down to go with us. The drive from where I live is 2hrs 20min. We are not staying at a hotel, we are going there and coming back on the same day.

Our baby daughter is truly an angel from above.

She is in the back seat singing her toddler songs, laughing, and having a great time with my wife, and then after an hour she falls asleep and wakes up when we get to our destination.

Quarters For Life

We made only one rest stop 10 min before our destination because I had to use the restroom and couldn’t hold it. We all take a break and stretch our legs and I head over to the vending machines to show my daughter how it works because she has never seen one.

There is a machine that says get change and I think in my head great I could use some dollar bills, and I put in a twenty dollar bill.

Quarters started pouring out (twenty dollars worth) and I felt so stupid. Of course, it’s quarters but it didn’t say it on the machine, but it makes sense and now I have all the quarters in the world.

I get my baby mini chocolate chip muffins and we all get water bottles and snacks (since I have so many quarters).

As we are getting our snacks I look behind me and feel a bad presence. I look and an older white man with grey short hair is staring at my daughter.

He didn’t know I was looking at him.

The way he was looking at her still haunts me. It was disgusting and evil.

I look at him and I am angry and I am about to make my way towards him and he sees me looking at him and looks terrified and starts to move quickly away.

I tell my brother, my wife, and my daughter that we need to leave now.

We head into the car and as we are driving away I see him wandering around in the grass area of the rest stop by himself.

He gave me the creeps and reminded me how dangerous this world is.

Another Beach Another Planet

We arrive at the beach and right before you get to the beach there are benches and grills and cabanas for people to BBQ at and behind that are tons of beautiful palm trees hiding the beach.

There are a lot of people from all kinds of backgrounds. You can hear people speaking Spanish and on the other side, you can hear country music.

There was so much diversity but even with all this diversity everyone stopped and stared at us when we arrived.

I and my brother look different because we are mixed with Argentina and Guyanese but we look mixed with Spanish or Middle Eastern, and my wife is white American with an England background so that makes my child a mutt maybe that was why we were getting looks?

Oh, and my brother has blue hair wearing a metal spiked belt with ripped jeans looking like a classic punk rocker mixed with a Johnny Depp vibe; so that might of been the other reason why everyone stopped and stared.

I looked at everyone and smiled and said hello, and everyone smiled and said hello back. They were nice and relaxed people.

We finally hit the sand and it is blazing hot so we have run and set up our umbrella for the day. My 18-month-old daughter doesn’t fear much, even the ocean.

This is only her second time in her life going to the ocean (the first time she walked straight in the water and a wave hit her face and she stood there with a big smile and yelled out Beach!) and she still has no fear.

I pick her up and we all head into the ocean. The water is cold and refreshing. The water is blue and clear. My daughter sees boats up ahead and starts saying Ponyo (an anime movie that she loves; she loves studio Ghibli movies).

Also, she plays a game where she takes her water shoes off while we are in the ocean and tosses them and starts saying “Oh no, oh no, shoe” and we all pretend to panic and grab it for her and give it back to her and she starts cracking up. We hang out and build sand castles, eat fruits and snacks, go in the water, get sea shells for about four hours and then we head out for food.

Pizza Planet

On my search at 1 am, I found a pizza spot that had over one thousand positive Google reviews. We head over. But before we head over there was another spot I wanted to check out that was by a lighthouse.

It is the part of the ocean where spring water meets ocean water and it seemed interesting to check out.

We arrive and all we see are security cars and cop cars everywhere. I find it odd. We parked and headed over. There are tons of people everywhere and they are not friendly.

I am still smiling and saying hello to people but not one person is saying anything back to me; only mean glances. The water was completely still, clear, and up to our ankles to say the least it was boring. The smell of weed, sweat, and alcohol was taking over the air.

Six teenage boys were cursing and fist-fighting over a simple football game that was in the water, and there were children left unattended in the water while all the parents were drunk (it was only 3 pm).

I did not like the environment at all and now can see why there were so many cops present. Oh, and on the right-hand side, it was blocked off and it was the ocean with personal boats zooming by.

We head to the pizza.

The pizza shop was located in a new outdoor shopping plaza that had a merry-go-round, splash pad (my daughter loved it), frozen yogurt, restaurants, whole foods, and my favorite store rei co-op.

The pizza tasted amazing! It was a mix of Brooklyn-style pizza and flatbread pizza.

Next to the pizza spot was a toddler and baby clothing store.

We enter the store and it is fancy with high prices. A basic shirt was $40 and a dress for her was $60. In the back of the store, there was a table with a play tea set for children to play with and my daughter started playing.

The store owner, a Guatemalan woman with three kids of her own, came up to her and started talking to my daughter like a baby.

My daughter looks at her and says “Hi, teacup” and hands the store owner the teacup.

The store owner jumps up in shock and says OMG she can talk? I said yes she says hundreds of words and even almost knows all of her ABCs.

She said “It scared me because she looks too small to talk. We started talking to each other and she fell in love with my daughter and started to give her toys to take home for free.

I told her no it is okay and she insisted we did because she is too cute and smart. My daughter of course was loving this and was showing off all her words and jokes. The store owner gave her a light-up chicken and I asked my daughter what sound a chicken makes she said “Pok Pok Pok” and wobbled her feet and body like a chicken.

The store owner said to me that the world is a crazier place now than it was ten years ago. I said, “Yes, the world will always be crazy, but it is the relationships that we build that will keep us safe, not money or items”. I said, “that is why my whole life I always focused deeply on building lasting relationships with people, and if they can hang or don’t want to I let them go”. She looked at me astonished and said I can see you running for the presidency. We all laughed.

She said bye to all of us and we all said thank you, and she told me and my wife that we have lovely family and that my daughter is social just like her dad.

We end the day buying random gelato ice creams, teas, and snacks at Whole Foods, and my daughter plays with other toddlers at the splash pad.

We drive back home and our daughter takes over an hour’s nap and wakes up happy. The entire long day we had and she never once cried, or whined.

I have two little brothers, two little nieces, and two little cousins that I have seen all grow up and also helped take care of, and it is just not common in my perspective for a baby to not cry once.

For the majority of her life, she has not cried, whined, or had a temper tantrum. I know she is young and it will get more complicated, but I know that she is special and my wife and I are blessed to have her.

My wife puts on her favorite movie on my wife’s phone My Neighbor Totoro.

It was a beautiful and amazing memory that me, my wife, my brother, and my daughter will always have and cherish.

Getting lost is sometimes what your soul needs. You never know where your soul will lead you.

For some reason when my daughter is happy and content, it makes me want to cry with joy. At night I lay in bed and wonder how I got so lucky to have her soul be a part of my life. She has my soul. My wife has my heart.

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