We’re back from our big spring break ’26 trip, and as usual, I must recap the entirety of our trip for posterity.
Back Story
Lauren proposed several trips for spring break, mostly centered around National Parks. Three of the itineraries involved Utah/Colorado/Arizona/Nevada, and then there was the Florida one. Chances are high we would have picked one of the western locations had it not been for a family hike in February where Edie freaked out over too much walking. It was decided she was too young to bring along on a hike-centric trip, so Florida won out. And outside of Fort Myers and the extreme east panhandle, I personally had not done much of Florida either. If we hadn’t bought the house last year, we were going to do a father-daughter Miami trip… alas, plans changed and the trip was scrapped. So all signs pointed to Miami and surrounding areas this time around.
Thursday, March 12
We departed the house late for my taste, 4:15pm with a 6:40 flight. Traffic was awful, and the airport traffic was even worse thanks to SXSW. Bag check was lengthy and even TSA precheck was pretty bad. We grabbed a quick meal to go and were to our gate with ten minutes to spare before boarding. You know how the internet meme says “gotta make sure my gate exists before I do anything else”? Well, I literally had to do that. Gate 38 was not visible and I panicked that something was amiss. But lo and behold we found it. Most people would call this good planning and perfect timing—I called it tempting fate!
The flight to Miami was smooth, but it was 10:30 ET when we landed and close to 11:30 by the time we had our rental car, and we still had an 85-mile drive! On the drive, John took off his shoes and socks to air out, and the smell was so pungent it caused Edie to puke in the car. We arrived to the Juno Beach Holiday Inn Express well after 1am with an exhausted bunch.
Friday, March 13
Let the fun begin! We awoke to torrential downpours. It was supposed to be our big beach day. Rain or not, Edie and I headed out on foot to explore the ocean. We had the beach to ourselves and declared it was good to go. We raced back to the room for the family and carted all our beach gear over in the rain. It let up a bit, but it rained the whole time we were there. It didn’t phase the kids any—they were out in the big waves having fun for hours. We called it a day around 2 and went to lunch at The Rusty Hook, one of the better meals of the trip. After chilling in the room for a while, we decided to go to a spring training game. The Astros and Cardinals were playing just 4 miles down the road. But then it started pouring again and the game was delayed an hour. The kids moved down behind the plate where they could be seen on TV for some of the game. We only made it to the sixth inning before calling it a night as everyone was sleepy.
Saturday, March 14
We awoke to sun! It was time to hit the beach again for a short while. After a bit, John and I split up from the gals to take in another baseball game—a Marlins split squad vs the Nationals. It was as anonymous of a bunch of players as I’ve ever seen play a game, but we had a blast. I sampled local IPAs and John caught another baseball from a random Marlin (Dillon Lewis). Seeing this game had some significance for me as I’d never before seen the Marlins in person. All these years, hundreds of games, and this was my first time catching them play. One could still argue I’ve never seen a Marlins regular season game, but for my checklist it still counts.
We met Lauren and Edie at a restaurant afterwards where John and I pulled out our devices and joined our fantasy baseball league’s annual draft. I shelled out big and got Aaron Judge and Tarik Skubal with the first two overall picks of the auction draft. In the evening we found a good spot for dinner, Captain Charlie’s Original Reef Grill.
Sunday, March 15
We packed up the bags and hit the long rainy road south, all the way down the Keys. After lunch at Islamorada Brewery & Distillery, we made it to Key West and our hotel, The Truman. (Highly recommend that hotel!) We toured the town on foot and got our pictures by the famous “southernmost point in the contiguous US” buoy. It was at this point that angry Edie showed up. She hated walking around town and melted down at the Ernest Hemingway House. After she cooled down we had dinner at a famous Cuban restaurant, El Siboney.
Monday, March 16
The highlight of the entire trip was our all-day Monday excursion. Lauren’s bucket list item of seeing Dry Tortugas National Park was not an easy item to check off. The only way out there is by ferry, private boat or byplane. Dry Tortugas lies 80 miles west of Key West in the middle of the ocean. The ferry was long ago booked, so we said screw it and rented a private boat complete with our own crew. It was expensive, but worth it. Our 37-foot boat with Captain Rob and Guide Nick departed the marina at 7am. They threw some bean bags down in the back and we jetted off. It took 2.5 hours to reach Dry Tortugas on choppy water. We were among the first to arrive for the day and Nick gave us a private tour of Fort Jefferson.
After the tour, we boated 3 miles to nearby Key Loggerhead where we docked and ate lunch. Then, it was time for snorkeling in the crystal clear waters. We saw all sorts of sea life, definitely worthwhile. With about a half hour left, we asked to go onto the beach of the deserted island and swam around and walked the shore. It was a blast having that tropical island all to ourselves. Captain Rob was worried about the windy conditions, and we set sail back to Key West. The ride home was rough—both kids barfed at one point or another. We got back to land by 5pm, tired and sunburned, but very glad we had done it. The kids took a swim break at the hotel and at night we went out to dinner at Old Towne Tavern. Quite a day!
Tuesday, March 17
Well, to this point the trip had been perfect, aside from kid fights and bickering. In hindsight, we should have parked it in Key West for another day. But we didn’t. We packed up in the morning and headed back up the Keys, stopping for lunch at another brewery, Florida Keys Brewing Company in Islamorada. By mid day we arrived at our next destination, Everglades National Park. It was actually cold, barely 60, with a whipping wind, as we explored several trails and saw some gators and wildlife. While we can say we were there, we hardly experienced Everglades. We didn’t do a fan boat tour or ventured far past the visitors center. We stayed in Florida City for the night and ate at a random place called Chefs on the Run for dinner.
The day was interspersed with plenty of lowlights. There was the near accident in the Everglades parking lot, where I and another car nearly backed out into each other. Edie decided to give the other drivers the middle finger, resulting in a punishment that had her bawling. The local traffic was terrible, with me sitting at a left hand turn for several minutes, drawing the ire of other drivers with me getting tailed after finally making it through. Plenty else happened, but we returned to the hotel at night not enamored with our day.
Wednesday, March 18
We departed in the morning east to the coast to see Biscayne National Park, which is 95% water. We were unable to book any excursions so our visit to the park consisted of a walk around the visitors center. We were all snorkeled out anyway from Monday, so we said we were there and went on our way. The plan was to head into Miami and do our urban part of the trip. On the drive, John broke out into an all-out anxiety attack, screaming and crying as his sunburned back hurt him so badly. We had to pull over in a residential area to calm him down. I’ve never seen anything like it from him, he was completely inconsolable.
We envisioned planting ourselves someplace central where we could bounce around to fun local attractions in the sun, but we wound up booking a last-second hotel in Miami Beach, the trendier area of town. Not only did it prove to be an odd fit for a family with nothing particularly noteworthy to do, but the rains came down very hard. We were more or less confined to our hotel. We still found good spots to eat and grab a beer, as always, like Azteca and South Beach Brewing. In the evening, Lauren and I parked it at the very busy hotel bar for happy hour and had the kids sit at a nearby booth on their screens. Parents of the year!
Thursday, March 19
Our final full day of the trip again was supposed to be filled with fun Miami stuff, but we were all vacationed out and did pretty much nothing. We had a good breakfast at News Cafe, but there was a whole spilled drink episode that dampened spirits. We tried to see a street art area but someone hit us in the rental car. We tried to go to the Science Museum but the moment we walked in the power went out and we were escorted out. So we checked in early to our airport hotel and said screw it, we’ll just let the kids swim in the hotel pool. We had a final dinner at Pisco y Nazca and called it a night. No fun Miami stuff aside from a quick stop at the Marlins’ stadium, LoanDepot Park, just to say I was there. A bummer of a day, and honestly, the whole Miami urban thing was a total bust.
Friday, March 20
We were up at 4am and made it to the airport and home safely before 11. It felt good to be back for the first couple hours. But then kids got bored and I got restless in the house and we all took naps.
It was really the tale of two trips—the first 2/3 and the last 1/3. The first part was everything we hoped for. The back end dragged on too long, kids were really misbehaving, and the rains and other misfortunes soured the experience. In hindsight, we should have done a better job planning and preparing for the Miami part of the trip instead of winging it. Staying in Miami Beach was a mistake, and relying on driving in the outrageously bad urban traffic tried my patience. Seriously, of every city I’ve ever driven in, from San Francisco to Boston to Chicago to Dallas and everywhere in between, Miami was the worst by far.
My Recommendations
Juno Beach – A+ experience. The Holiday Inn had the beach amenities we needed so we didn’t need to bring, buy or rent anything. We could easily have done another full day there.
Key West – A- experience. It was a little bit of a touristy town, but not obnoxious with the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not type of places. It had its charm. Dry Tortugas was a must-visit. The entire Keys experience including our two stops in Islamorada was great.
National Parks – C experience. Obviously we did Dry Tortugas right, but Everglades and Biscayne we can merely say we were there and did not fully experience them.
Miami – F experience. As I said, we did it wrong at about every turn.
Where to Next?
Almost every major American city has been checked off! These kids are very well traveled domestically. The major cities we haven’t experienced yet would be Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego and Atlanta. Those remain the likeliest places for a future family trip in the US. Hawaii would also be on the list. Lauren is high on the idea of more national parks but Edie is just not old enough yet to do much walking without fits, so those will have to wait 3-5 years.
We’ve alternated a lot between trips where we plant ourselves in one spot (Mexico resorts, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Chicago), and trips where we do a lot of driving and relocating and try to cover a lot of ground (southeast Canada, Cincy-Columbus-Cleveland-Detroit, Germany). The next trip HAS to be a stay-in-one-place kinda trip where we don’t rely on a rental car. I like to base them around baseball stadiums I haven’t seen, so I bet next year we do something like Philadelphia.
But the actual next trip for me (outside of Tulsa for work) is back to South Dakota in May for alumni with Edie. I am looking forward to that 8-day trip as we’ll either plant ourselves on the farm or do some light traveling within South Dakota. Depending on if I can justify taking more time off, I could see a midweek trip to the Badlands or something as Edie’s never been.
Ryan Glanzer Blog 