Ormond Beach With My Yid

A year ago, my family and took an RV trip (see RV Yeshiva). It was memorable. This summer we decided to take a beach vacation as it was clear that no one was going with me on a repeat RV vacation.  So off we headed to Ormond Beach, Florida, a quiet beach a few miles north of Daytona. The day before we left was Tisha B'av, a fast day. This meant we really could not pack (too weak to lift my arms much less a suitcase) until late that night. We were traveling with 7 people (2 adults, 2 teens (we celebrated my son’s 20^th birthday at the beach), 2 eight-year-olds plus my mother-in-law…she had priority seating) in a minivan. You are now trying to imagine how we all fit into a minivan. While you are doing that, try to imagine all of us, plus my sister and brother in law (who visited us) staying in a 2-bedroom condo. It can be done! Everyone was instructed to bring no more than 1 SMALL bag that fit in the “foot-space under their seat” or in the "over head compartment" (bag on top of the car). Yes, there was a small revolt from my teenagers ("I can't be an outfit repeater!" and "How will I fit all my electronics?"). Of course, we had to bring a couple boogie boards, a skim board, Torah books, tefillin, etc. I am not sympathetic to "over packers" so I ignored these outbursts, realizing that the result of not following my instructions would be very cramped legroom and not a real problem for me as the primary driver (I managed to keep myself in that seat for most of the trip, avoiding the way back “sibling separator” duty). 
Our next issue was that my teens who have spent the last 8+ years in the 3rd row of the van during any family outings, had decided that this year, they would demand "middle row" seats. I acquiesced. Not 20 minutes into our drive, my (now 20 year old) son said (at 5:45 AM) "I don't have anywhere to rest my head in the middle row.” It seems like his early morning nap had been uprooted by a lack of head support. Oh how I love letting the natural order of consequences occur. By 6:30 AM everyone was "adjusted" and grossly engaged in a personal electronic. No license tag games, no talking, no singing, no highway ABC games that I grew up with, just plug in and “zombify” your way to the beach. Ah...silence is golden. How I owe so many techno geeks for providing my children with technology addiction. Laura, our GPS (paper map?? who do you think we are??), directed us to our destination without any disturbance from her passengers.
Our first stop at the beach was the Food Lion (sans my mother in law and kids). I am pretty sure this Food Lion had never had an orthodox Jewish family purchase a week's worth of food. Our plan was that each family member would be responsible for a day’s meals. This went over about as well as “you need to clean up your room”, but we would not relent! Anyway, as we approached the check out and the cashier eyed our 2 overflowing buggies, she paged over the loud speaker "I need help at checkout #3". She looked distressed (all that scanning might wear her out). The bagger was panic-stricken. $300 later we leave Food Lion with a weeks worth of "kosher" food and a beautiful beach waiting for us.  That night we ate out at the one kosher restaurant on Ormond Beach. Seems like we’d exhausted ourselves at the grocery.

During the week, we went jet skiing where we saw dolphin… really close up(mom and younger boys on slow speed; dad and teens on lightening speed), surf (well some of us…I tried but got swallowed up by a wave and I have a wound on my knee to prove it!), boogie board, skim board (nothing like watching your kid learn a brand new skill and excel at it), swim, play putt-putt, visit Baskin Robbins…. We even made a trip to the 7-11 for slurpies and were spotted by other “yid”. They saw us and said “What’s in Daytona? Going to the 7-11 for slurpies?” I mean, why else would we be at a 7-11? Our down time was spent playing cards and side-by-side technology usage.

And thanks to my husband, my little Shabbos travel bag (candles, matches, wine, wine cup, havdallah candle and spices) and the Jerusalem café’s catering our Shabbos meal, we were able to bring Shabbos to Ormond Beach. So if there are sparks of holiness floating around, we gathered up some of them from Ormond Beach, Florida. Does that give us any brownie points? New Year is coming up and we can use some. It was such a great week and I am so grateful that what could have been an “un”vacation, became a real vacation. After all, a vacation where your kids feed you is something to be happy about.