Back in April of 2021, my older brother, his wife and their daughter invited me, my three sisters and my younger brother and his family to go with them to Florida for Spring Break!  We started out the trip by stopping in Atlanta to spend the night and visit my nephew and his family.

My brother had rented a house on a lake in Cape Coral.  It was beautiful! All the rooms were close together, so it made getting around the house easier for me.  My sister and I got to stay in the master bedroom because it was on the first floor and easy access for me! Our bedroom had a sliding glass door out onto the porch and right on the other side of the porch was the pool and hot tub!  Down near the water was a nice patio and a little strip of a wooden dock.  The wooden dock was more like an extension of the patio, so it was nice and secure!  My brothers and sisters could easily get me down to the water in my wheelchair! 

My brothers and I spent many enjoyable and fun hours fishing!  We could see a big fish swimming in and around our hooks. He did a good job avoiding our hooks for several days.  We all wondered who would finally catch him/her (how can you tell whether a fish is female or male? Unfortunately, you can’t simply ask it!) ha, ha ,ha.  Well, are you ready to hear who finally caught it?  I’m proud to say that it took the woman of the group to get the job done!  Yes, me!  I couldn’t believe it!  My brothers let me reel it in all by myself.  It was kind of hard to reel it in but, at the same time, it was incredibly fun!  It was fun that I, Cate, was the one who finally caught it!  Upon further study we were able to identify it as a Blue Tilapia! (I should note, that all week, we followed the “catch and release” approach to fishing, including my prized catch!)

When I wasn’t fishing, I had fun in the pool and cooking myself in the hot tub.  You know all those warning signs…DO NOT STAY IN LONGER THAN 15 MINUTES… well, it’s amazing; when I’m in a hot tub, something happens to me, and I instantly can’t read (or choose not to read- or even see) a sign at all!  I push the sign (I really can read and see) to its limits! I keep telling myself just five more minutes! When I have the hot tub all to myself, I like to lie down and sprawl out all over!  I imagine it being my very own hot tub!  All I need is for a nice big fresh iced coffee to fall from the skies! On this particular trip, several of us would be out in the hot tub or pool and someone would go inside and bring us all ice cold drinks!  A little bit of heaven come down.  I’ve been known to be hot (DUH!) and a little dizzy when I finally do get out!  I have to say though, the process of getting to that point (being hot and a little dizzy) is totally awesome, enjoyable, and well worth it!

One afternoon, half of our group decided to go for a walk while the other half of the family chose to stay home.  I went with the walkers on my scooter. We went to the other side of the lake by way of the road.  We came across the Lake Kennedy Community Park. The gate to the park was open, so we decided to have a look around.  There was a water park (that was closed) a nature trail and some pretty gardens. We went out on a boardwalk, built over the water, and watched fish swimming around. It started to rain so we all ducked under a little gazebo built on the end of the boardwalk. The rain did not last long, so on we went with our adventure and walk.   

Around 5:00 or 5:30, when we were ready to head home, we discovered that someone must have wanted us to do a lot more exploring, because we were locked in the park! We found an opening, a little hole in the fence, where the rest of my party could’ve gotten out but my scooter and I couldn’t!  We then decided to go back into the park and check out the lake access…maybe someone from the house could row over and pick us up in the boat.  Well, here again, I presented the challenge. We finally decided (realized) our only option was to confess and call the professionals for help!  My brother called the police; he was quick to explain to the person on the other end of the line that it wasn’t a matter of life or death, nobody was in any physical danger, we were just locked in a park! It took a while for the police to track someone down with a key!  A park ranger eventually came and let us out. He told us the funny thing was that some people had done this same thing, got themselves locked in the park a week earlier!  The most important thing…WE WERE NOW ON OUR WAY HOME FOR SUPPER! 

Now, I’ll let you all in on the secret, and why this story is so funny and memorable to us.  All of this happened on April 1st.  When we told the family, who chose to stay home, what happened to us, they thought we were telling them an April Fool’s joke! It took some time to convince them we were serious and fortunately, we had proof, I personally had my picture taken with the ranger!   

I invite you to become an adventurer!  Loosen up a little! Enjoy life!  Even if your adventures go haywire and get totally messed up (you may not find it to be funny right at that exact time) but, even then, you will be creating funny and happy memories that will last a lifetime!