Trevor and I just got back Friday from a great vacation in Florida. Florida is a great place to travel to, especially when you live in New York and it’s January. Trevor, our friend Matt, and I drove down to visit one of our friends in Cocoa Beach for a week. It was a blast and then Trevor and I weren’t ready to face going home to the winter weather that awaited us in Rochester, so we extended the trip for another week and turned it in to a little honeymoon for the two of us. We rented a car and drove across the state and spent 3 days in Miami, 1 day in Clearwater, and the rest of the week in Tampa.
Cocoa Beach was a really cute vacation spot. It really had the typical Florida feel. Palm trees everywhere, funky colors and tropical designs on all the buildings, packed beach with travelers. It was a great start to our Florida vacation.
Hanging with some birds at Cocoa Beach zoo
Miami was definitely a good place to visit. Lots of great stores and a beautiful beach. A lot of fun people to look at, but Trevor and me felt a little out of place there. Girls in thong bikinis or topless and men walking around like peacocks showing off their muscles, we just didn’t seem to fit.
Trevor and his broken arms on Miami Beach
We only had a little bit of time in Clearwater, we got there late at night and I passed out quickly after getting in bed. Trevor realized how deep I can sleep. He said he was in and out of the room, slammed the door by accident, and I didn’t even flinch. Now that’s vacation if you ask me. When we finally woke up in the morning it was a little bit chilly but we bundled up and walked around. They had a lot of cute little shops and restaurants. The best part I saw of Clearwater was the beach. It was the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen. The sand was so fine and white. I had to take my shoes and socks off just to feel it with my toes. It was amazing. I just wish it was warmer, I would have spent the whole day laying in that sand.
Tampa was the last place we stayed and probably my favorite of them all. It didn’t have the typical feel of other places in Florida. Not so much hokey tropical designs (although I usually love that stuff). It was very modern. The city is huge and so fun to walk through. It was hard to explore too much in the city because it’s just so big. My favorite area was what they call soho or South Howard. It had a college town feel, definitely a lot of people our age. For a foodie like me it was amazing. The other places we went in Florida weren’t big on gluten free or health foods at all. But Tampa had so many funky restaurants that had gluten free and vegan options. And soo many health food stores. Lots of little stores with local gluten
Enjoying some Mr. Penguin on our last night
free cookies, healthy snacks, and vitamins. So fun to explore them all. If you ever go you have to go to Mr. Penguin! It was an amazing little frozen desserts place. They had a huge selection of Italian ice flavors, most of them dairy free. They also had vanilla and chocolate custard. If you were getting Italian ice, which is what I got, you could get up to 3 flavors in a cup and they were all so good! Trevor got there specialty, something called gelati, where they layer your choice of Italian ice with vanilla or chocolate custard. I had to sneak a bite of that and wow was that good! Tampa is definitely a fun place for anyone who loves eating on vacation!
I always try to be real with my posts, and I can’t finish this one before telling you our trip wasn’t picture perfect. When we were in Cocoa Beach they had a ton of skateboard shops and amazing skate parks. Trevor use to skate and wanted to try out these parks so he bought a board while we down there. It was really fun watching him skate and I kept encouraging it the whole time. “Go faster, you won’t fall!” Well 40 minutes into our little honeymoon portion of the trip when we started driving to Miami we stopped at a skate park. He took a big fall and blocked that fall with his arms. Turns out that was a bad move because he broke BOTH his elbows. Yea that definitely shook up our trip a little bit. Despite what the doctors suggested, we continued with the trip and really did continue to have a good time. He did have to take some extra rest time and take it easy, but for two broken elbows he really did well. We can’t help but keep saying how funny it is though, a sick kind of funny but really, he broke both his elbows on our honeymoon, how crazy is that.