Sue and I flew out of Portsmouth's Pease International Tradeport on Allegiant Airlines Thursday 11/29/18 for a visit with the Nancarrows in Altamonte Springs, Florida.
We had been really concerned with that huge storm that hit us the 27th as just a couple of days later and we'd have been going nowhere! Though there was no snow today, it was really, really cold. I dropped Sue and the luggage at the terminal and then parked the car in the long term parking area, which is quite a hike in the cold back.
This was our first time not only using Pease, but also flying Allegiant. It's a good thing we got to the airport early. It's just a really small terminal, and security is horribly slow. The flight itself was pretty bumpy due to some weather fronts crawling up from the south, but that was compensated by the nice weather when we landed at the Sanford/Orlando airport.
Jim, who has been a martial arts student and disciple of mine for over 30 years and holds a 5th Degree Black Belt Master ranking, and his wife Chris picked us up. Because the flight had arrived in the early afternoon, none of us had eaten, and so they drove us to a nice restaurant for lunch. That was nice, to just relax and just chat.
We hadn't seen Chris in years, though Jim had just been up to my recent 2018 Karate Disciple Retreat in Center Harbor, NH 11/01/18. Because we chatted so much, we didn't get to their condo until almost 4:00 pm. What a great place they have, and Chris has it decorated in such a cozy style, including many custom made primitive Shaker style furniture pieces that Jim has made.
Friday morning, after having a nice breakfast Chris had made, they drove us out to the Blue Spring State Park, Orange City. We sauntered along the Jones River that flows through the park there to see the Manatees swimming. It's a really nice park, and we really enjoyed the visit. But we had going to St. Augustine as the real goal. Since that was over an hour and a half away, we jumped into the car, and headed out.
St. Augustine is such a pretty seaside town with so much history. We met up with a friend of Sue's who she had worked with at one time. Nancy and her husband had moved to St. Augustine 5 years before, and had been a volunteer tour guide for some of these places for awhile. And so was just a wealth of neat information about the town and fort. After having a nice lunch at an Irish pub just across the street from the fort, we all wandered over to the fort with Nancy giving us some parting information. The 4 of us just walked around the outside of the fort rather than going in for a longer visit as we wanted to walk through the arts area of the downtown.
The old town area of St. Augustine dates way back, and there are so many cute shops along the pedestrian only brick streets. It took quite awhile for us to wander around before it started to get dark. We went back to the car, and then drove around the main square a couple of times to see all the lights. They call it the Nights of Lights Festival because the town puts out about 1,000,000 lights for display during the holidays. There are dozens of trolley like tour buses that just drive around for folks to see. It's quite a thing to see.
It was a long drive back to Altamonte Springs, and we didn't get home until after 8:30 pm. But there was a movie to watch and desert to have, and the night just kept going until almost midnight. We were all really beat, and it didn't take long to get to sleep.
Unfortunately, when Sue woke up Saturday morning, she had a series of violent episodes of vertigo, and was quite ill. We figured it was most likely dehydration from the flight, and all the walking, and exertion throughout the trip that was causing it. Jim and I went to the pharmacy and got her some medication, and a couple of bottles of energy drink loaded with electrolytes. She seemed to feel a lot better after that, but she was so weak that she spent the day in bed.
Jim, Chris, and I watched Christmas movies and just visited. I checked on Sue about every hour, and by evening she was feeling up to coming downstairs and having some dinner. She even made it through the wonderful movie, The Way, but after that she was ready for bed. But then I was as well as we had to get up at 4:00 am to catch our 7:30 am flight back to Pease.
Sue wasn't feeling her best, but made it back home. But she was so exhausted that she just crawled up to bed and slept until late afternoon. We had a quiet dinner, watched a little tv, and went to bed early. But it would end up being several days before she was feeling anywhere close to normal, and even then had to take it easy. She did go into the doctor, and found out that she had had a weird virus that had then just been complicated by the dehydration. The doctor didn't give her any medication, but suggested that she continue with the electrolytes for another week just to be sure her body chemistry got stabilized properly.
