My Life in a Van - Florida - Who Needs Vacation?

Life Could be a Dream, Sweetheart

I write this now from Naples, Fl, (picture not from Naples, I just thought it was cute) where @Dashie and I are in the midst of a vacation from our Rialta. We are visiting with Dashies mom, sister and grandparents, who all came down to escape the harsh winter, for different lengths of time.

Dashies Grandparents had a house in Weston, FL, which they had spent many years in, but sold last year as most of their former friends had passed away. They needed a change of scenery for their snow-birding months, and decided on Naples.

We are so lucky to have family in Florida. My mom moved down to Sarasota a bit over a year ago, then recently relocated to FT. Myers, citing the need for some diversity (apparently Sarasota is the whitest city in America). Dashies grandparents come down in the winter, and my grandma recently began snow-birding on the East Coast of FL too, maybe it's a Jewish thing.

All this family in Florida means that after a few weeks camped out at a WMA, or bouncing from big box store parking lots, we get to spend some time with family, sometimes in the Rialta parked in a driveway, and sometimes inside the house, if we behave, on a blow up mattress, like we are now.

Staying with family is the vacation within a vacation. The way I live everyday, with minimal stress, no commute, no responsibilities outside of getting the necessities (food/water/where will we sleep) already feels like a vacation from the rat race that we've been made to believe is the only acceptable path toward someones distorted "American Dream."

So to be able to eliminate the already minimal responsibilities on my mind, by staying with family, mine or Dashies, taps into some sort of nostalgic past, in which I was just an innocent kid, and the things that weighed on my mind were related to when I would get to hang out with my friends, what kinds of sports we would play, and which girl did I like at the time.

There is a certain magic in the way that we are able to live, and I feel grateful for it. I am grateful to Creation for the opportunities we have been given, and I am grateful to my spouse for having the same open mind and living on the same wavelength as me. I could not have asked for a better partner. I am grateful for Dashie and for the life we are making.

Speaking of child like, last year around this same time we were in Weston, with Dashie's Grandparents, enjoying a vacation within a vacation, and I captured this great video of Dashie dancing with her 92 year old grandfather (Poppy) to an awesome street musician.

Poppy doesn't look a day over 70, and Dashie probably doesn't look a day over 16, but I guess it's her playful nature and child-like wonder that keeps her looking so young; that, and olive oil moisturizer.

Keep Dreaming, Onward Indian.