Forty-nine years ago today, I got in the car and left my small-town Iowa home to move to Florida.
It was a three-hour drive to Chicago O’Hare Airport. To a young woman who had never traveled more than 20 miles east, west, or south of home, Chicago felt enormous. The buildings amazed me. The airport overwhelmed me. The airplane frightened me.
I held my sleeping 14-month-old son on my lap and tried to keep my mind busy. I kept replaying the advice my mother had given me before I left.
“Don’t put your shoes on the floor, or they will mildew.”
She also warned me to watch for snakes hanging in the trees. Then she added, “Don’t forget us, because we will never see each other again.”
No pressure, right?
Arriving in Florida for the First Time
My in-laws picked me up at the Tampa airport. I made them wait longer than expected because I stood there taking everything in.
Palm trees waved in the evening breeze.
They were real. They did not just exist in movies. Who knew?
I spent the next week with my in-laws at their apartment in Central Florida. My then-husband, brother-in-law, and his fiancée were still on the road with the U-Haul.
That first week went surprisingly well. I thought I might adjust quickly. My in-laws lived on a small lake, so I spent each day on the beach with my son.
By midweek, I noticed strange spots on my back. I insisted I had the measles.
Nope. Freckles.
Apparently, the Florida sun gives you freckles in places the Iowa sun never reached.
My First Florida Welcome: A Palmetto Bug
The truck finally arrived, and we pulled into the driveway of our new home.
I unlocked the front door and opened it, ready to begin unloading our things.
Then a giant flying bug launched itself at me. It bounced off my face and landed on my chest.
Someone really should have warned me about palmetto bugs, also known as Florida roaches.
I climbed straight into the cab of the truck and announced that I needed to return to Iowa immediately.
We did not have giant flying roaches back home.
Crisis eventually passed. I stayed. We settled in.
Florida Adventures I Was Not Prepared For
The next few weeks introduced me to even more Florida surprises.
We took a trip to Perry, in the northern part of the state. I also had my first visit to a fish camp for oysters on the half shell.
To get there, we drove 45 minutes down dirt roads through some very wild countryside. When we arrived, a wild pig decided our car looked interesting.
Now, my grandparents had more than 100 pigs in Iowa.
Not one of them had three-foot tusks sticking out of its face.
I hid my head, prayed a little, and survived another Florida adventure.
Miami Beach and a Whole New World
A few weeks later, we went to a Barbershop Quartet Convention in Miami.
Finally, I thought, something I could handle.
The Fontainebleau Hotel on Miami Beach was incredible. It had an ice skating rink, a mini mall, and the Boom Boom Room with the Bang Bang Show.
I never did find out what that was about. 😉
We did not even have a mall back in Iowa.
That trip taught me a whole new level of expectations. I asked the doorman for directions and saw his hand waiting for a tip.
Hello. In Iowa, we gave directions for free.
That first night, I wandered around the hotel, trying to take it all in. Near the back, I saw a group of people dressed in very unusual outfits and dramatic makeup. They were heading into a ballroom.
I looked down at my own clothes and decided I must be terribly out of style for Miami Beach.
The next day, I found out it was one of the early Star Trek conventions. They had been going to their formal ball.
No wonder I felt underdressed.
Learning to Adapt to Florida Life
For the first five years in Florida, I would have left if someone had handed me a bus ticket.
But life has a way of teaching you how to adapt.
After 16 years in that small Central Florida town, I made another big leap to South Florida. That move brought a whole new set of lessons.
Traffic that sat still and went nowhere.
More people than I had ever seen in one place.
And older ladies who could string together a sentence with more curse words than I even knew existed.
South Florida was another education entirely.
Still an Iowa Girl, Still a Florida Survivor
Now, 49 years later, I am still in Florida.
I survived. I learned. I grew. I even thrived.
Am I still that little country girl from Iowa?
You bet your boots.
But now I am also part Central Florida sweet tea drinker, part South Florida survivor, and part woman who learned that life can take you much farther than you ever imagined.
It has been a journey.
And really, what would life be without the journey?