June 4: Speed Demons

Ok, so I'm still too young to drive a car.  :-(  You too, right? I can't wait til I can go wherever I want to go all by myself. BUT we're old enough to drive a Segway, blog amigos. And believe me, these little things totally boogie right along. I'm not exactly sure how fast, but it feels so really fast that it's almost kind of scary. And fun!!

I hope you remember my last blog about those wacky Segway thingies. They're like these really weird and wild scooters with little engines and they move when you stand on them and lean forward. So now we're in Birch State Park, remember? And Dad finally learned to drive his Segway and my BFF Juliette and her little brother Spencer and me are all on them too. And the guy who rents them out, Brent, is just starting to take us all on a long drive around this beautiful park.

Now the first thing we see is iguanas - these huge, huge lizards. I felt like we were living in some movie preview for "Land of the Lost" or something. There must have been 10 or 15 of these strange creatures, big and dark green and just standing around in the sun. They look sort of ugly but sort of cute too. They live in South Florida but I've never seen so many in one place before. So all five of us just slowly roll our Segways through this field of mini dinosaurs. I didn't want to laugh and scare them away but I couldn't stop smiling.

Now we get on the road for the first time. It's this long, winding path all through the park. This is where we really start to hit the gas. Spencer is the first to speed way up, of course, then Juliette. Then me. We all just start shooting straight down the road like race car drivers or something. It feels so free and exciting to roll over this path with the wind in my hair. I'm just totally leaning as far forward as I can to make the Segway really take off. Wow, this is another "awesome" moment for sure.

But now it gets tricky for us, blog buds, because Brent takes us off the road again and on this really tiny, skinny, bumpy dirt path. It was like walking through the woods without doing any walking at all. The tricky part is going slow enough to stay in control. But the Segway just rolls right over the rocks and big tree roots and stuff with no problem at all. Pretty cool, really, until ... guess who falls off?

Who else, right? My dad! He's so, like, uncoordinated sometimes. Duh! So I just hear this, "Whoa-whoaaaaa!" Almost like he was on a wild horse or something. Then I look back and there's Dad getting up off the dirt! I have to admit Spencer was pretty funny right then. He just looked at Dad and goes, "Oh cool, are we going fishing after this? That's why you're down there looking for worms, right?"

LOL! Even Dad had to laugh. It seemed pretty funny at the time anyway. But my dad just brushed off the dirt and got back on his Segway and didn't talk too much for a while. I think he felt really stupid maybe. Poor Dad! ;-)) But I know he had lots of fun anyway because he said so when we were done. Dad just says, "I really loved that - even if I did fall off."

We all loved it too, Juliette and Spencer and me. It was another adventure for us in this whole summer of great adventures. Next week I'm moving on from middle school and then our summer seriously starts for real. No classes at all for over two months and lots of time to do more amazing things around this amazing place. Fort Lauderdale really is the best and I absolutely, completely love living here. I don't know what my next big adventure will be. But I hope you'll want to come back for another visit with your faithful blog friend to find out! Because I know it will be something "very cool" as we start this "very hot" summer!! Haha. See ya next week!!