Seeing the VP in God's Country

My Mom got tickets to see Vice President Pence give the commencement address at Taylor University and wanted some company so she flew me up for a quick weekend in God's Country.

The timing was actually kind of crazy because early Friday afternoon Jackson landed back in Ft. Myers from his work trip in New Jersey only for me to pick him up, take him to lunch and then him drop me off at the Punta Gorda airport up the road to catch my flight. Since this was a super last-minute trip, I flew Allegiant. Ugh. My flight was delayed which is no surprise with Allegiant. You truly get what you pay for with them which isn't much. Once I finally got on the plane I was seated next to two people who had been over-served to put it lightly. Before we took off two people were removed for being intoxicated, neither or which were the wild folks next to me. As the flight went on the two folks next to me (a mother-in-law and son-in-law) started getting to know each other in the biblical sense. I was at the window so I eventually became so annoyed that I demanded they get off each other and let me go to the restroom. I let the flight attendants know what was going on and they let me move seats. Once we landed my sicko former seatmates tried to start a fight with me, but the airline crew made sure I was safe. Maybe Allegiant isn't the absolute worst after all.

Anyway, since we don't have a regular sitter for MacKenzie and he'd been gone for over a week for work anyway, Jackson stayed back in Naples while I went back to Upland. MacKenzie tries to keep things in order while I'm gone, but she can only do so much. ;)

Jackson stayed back and roughed it here in Naples ;)

MacKenzie is threatening to tell on him for
eating in the living room if he doesn't share! 

My flight ended up landing really late so I grabbed my rental car and headed straight for Upland. I was pretty tired at this point and almost drove to our old townhouse in Fishers before remembering that the new owners probably wouldn't welcome me at this hour. I got to Upland and the whole crew was up waiting for me. I was so happy to see Ella!!

Playing ball with Ella

There is no rest for the weary so I was up bright and early on Saturday to head to the Taylor graduation with Mom. I was most interested in seeing the Secret Service protection at a place like Taylor. It was pretty fascinating to see just how much went into securing a location for a sitting Vice President. I did not realize until we arrived that many students and some faculty members at Taylor (a Christian, super conservative institution) were not pleased with VP Pence being the commencement speaker. They had little stickers on the graduation robes and even staged a walk-out before he took the stage. It was nowhere near as dramatic as it was at Notre Dame's graduation when he spoke last year, but it was still certainly noticeable and a little surprising. 

VP Pence

We didn't get close seats

I was interested to hear if he'd slip any campaigning into his speech and he did a pretty good job of steering clear of that. That's important because exempt organizations like Taylor cannot be seen as politically affiliated or they could lose their exempt status. This kind of thing is very important to tax nerds like me. We ended up leaving after the VP spoke because Taylor graduation is not quick. Also, bleachers are not comfortable! We went to lunch at the new Mexican restaurant in downtown Marion, Los Amores, which was quite excellent and very fairly priced. I fear they'll struggle due to the obscure location, but wish them the best as they were super friendly. No trip to this side of town is complete without a malt at Myers Drive-In (the world's best). Yes, all I did was eat the entire trip.

We went back to Upland to catch a nap since we'd all been up late and had early mornings. Then it was time for dinner! See? We ate. A lot!

Homemade fried chicken, mashed potatoes and
Darci bread with fresh lemonade? YES, please!

It was nice to get to hang out with Mom and Guy and especially Ella! They had a little birthday dinner for me on Sunday and my brother even came into town to join us. That was super sweet! Otherwise things were pretty quiet. The pace of life in Upland is even slower than it is in Naples somehow.

Monday morning I headed back to the airport to grab my flight back to Florida.

Letting Ella show me her handshaking trick!

Luckily, there were no delays with this flight and no weirdos sitting next to me. It was an almost enjoyable Allegiant flight. Shocking! Jackson had a work call to present on when I was due to arrive so he drove up to Punta Gorda (about an hour from our place in Naples) early and presented from the parking lot (God bless technology) so that he could pick me up. Our crazy schedules of travel worked pretty well considering how many variable we had.

MacKenzie smelled the Upland schnauzers!

I woke up in Upland not feeling the best so when I got back to Naples I showered and headed right for an early bedtime hoping that I wasn't coming down with anything as we head for Orlando on Wednesday afternoon to catch our flights to Europe.