I’m at an age when I speak of long-term friendships in terms of decades rather than years. MiLea and I have been friends for two decades. An obstinate relic, she refuses to engage in most social media; I’d have more luck loosing Excalibur than getting her to join Facebook. I either have to pick up the phone, despite the fact it’s 2017, or see her in person if I want to keep in touch. Over time, we’ve reached a sort of gentleman’s agreement – she visits me in Orlando, then I visit her in Houston. We meet in Kentucky on even years when I’m home for Christmas.
MILEA IN ORLANDO – Generally, when tourists come to Orlando, they visit nearby beaches or theme parks. They snap photos of retention pond alligators and wear overpriced ponchos to weather the afternoon thunderstorms. Locals endure the engorged, sunburned armada because of the tourism dollars they hemorrhage, but we avoid firsthand contact at all costs. Don’t tap on the glass. Don’t feed the animals. Over the years, it has been interesting to watch my repeat visitors gradually tire of the manufactured fun and embrace the less obvious, oddball charm of everyday life in central Florida.
MiLea visited us in February. We spent a day at Epcot with some of her fellow Houstonians who were in town for a Disney half marathon, but the rest of her stay was pure Florida gold. I’m a 
sucker for old-school Florida attractions, so I asked (Read: forced.) her to visit the Citrus Tower in Lake County with me. The 226-foot-tall Citrus Tower opened in July 1965, and at the time, it was the highest observation point in Florida. Now this little gem is overshadowed by more mainstream attractions, but I find the 
hand-painted door murals and outdated signs indescribably endearing. For six dollars, you can ride an aging elevator up to a square observation floor characterized by its band of windows. On a clear day, the panoramic view covers a radius of 35 miles, and eight counties are visible. We compared the faded historical aerials on the walls to the current vista and tried to find familiar landmarks in the distance. We dropped coins down the coin chute and listened to them fall. It was another edition of garden-variety tomfoolery for like-minded souls.
I work near quaint downtown Sanford. It’s like a much smaller version of Winter Park’s Park Avenue but with actual parking. Recently, a handful of stellar bars and restaurants have popped up alongside the established mainstays thanks to a few scattered pockets of gentrification. MiLea was looking for art for her home, so we decided to take her here for shopping, dinner, and drinks. I had a memorable tiramisu nitro beer, and she got something odd and colorful for her walls. My favorite memory from her visit was that night after we got home. She’d brought a bunch of desserts at Se7en Bites that afternoon, and the three of us sat around the dining room table hunkered over the broken-down box and ate straight off the cardboard while we talked. MiLea and I have never been those friends who have everything in common. We don’t dress alike. Our politics are different. She’s an engineer, and I can barely synch my bluetooth devices. One of us knows things about contemporary music. I gravitate towards earth tones; she embraces color. Our differences never mattered. I’ve always appreciated her different point of view, and we have a great time when we’re together.
At some point that night, full of beer and junk food, Matt and I decided we would go to Houston in the summer for a pool party. My college friend, Keith, also lives in Houston with his wife and kids. MiLea’s two nieces always visit for a few weeks during their summer break. Those adorable girls occupy the slight curvilinear ellipse in the Venn Diagram of both people I can stand and people who are between the ages of 11 and 25. We thought it would be fun to get the lot of us together. A few months later, we booked a long weekend trip to Houston.
JULIA IN HOUSTON – I don’t fully understand it, but somehow a love of flying crafts is hardwired into Matt’s DNA. I often wonder if he married me because I’m such a space cadet. I’ve been to flight museums and space centers from Seattle to Port Canaveral with this man, so the one Houston tourist attraction we had to fit in was the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. MiLea’s eldest niece, Khaley, went with us. Full disclosure, I wasn’t sure how a teenager was going to handle the slow, methodical way Matt was sure to work through each and every exhibit, but she appeared completely unfazed. The Johnson Space Center was blessedly small compared to some of the other facilities we’ve visited.
First, we took a tram tour. The first stop was the historic Mission Control Center. We sat in the control room viewing area from which all manner of celebrities and politicians watched nine Gemini and all Apollo missions. Mission control was much smaller than I thought it would be. A scale replica of the room had to be created for the Apollo 13 movie because, while the crew was given permission to film on-site, the small room had too many narrow spaces that could not accommodate filming equipment. The second tram stop was the Saturn V rocket and Rocket Park. We walked the length of Saturn V rocket which was broken down into stages so you could see some of the rocket’s inner workings. Plus, a/c. Back at the Visitor’s Center, we bought the photograph they took of us before we went on the tram tour. As an added bonus, they gave us the opportunity to take one free photo in a 360-degree photo booth which made the cost of the photo totally worth it, in my opinion. This photo booth is similar to what they used to shoot the memorable bullet-dodging scenes in the The Matrix, but this booth had fewer cameras.
Next, we walked around the main building and viewed the exhibits. One awesome, unexpected find was a fully-restored Galileo shuttlecraft prop from the original Star Trek series. We toured the Astronaut, Starship, and International Space Station Galleries, and the Lunar Samples Vault. Our final stop was Independence Plaza. We viewed the exhibits contained within the Independence shuttle replica and its aircraft carrier. Of course, I bought a t-shirt. And a hoodie. And a refrigerator magnet. And astronaut ice cream. I can’t believe Matt didn’t buy everything with the word “Johnson” on it. I guess when you have a common last name you’re unaffected when you see it on a coffee mug.
Apart from the Space Center, our long weekend was spent doing low-key, Texas stuff. On Friday, I found out the girls had been there for more than one day and had not gotten kolaches, which is unacceptable, MiLea, unacceptable, so our very first order of business was a stop at My Mornings Kolaches. In Hawaii, you step off a plane, and they hand you a lei. In Texas, they should hand you a kolache. Kolaches are amazing. Eat kolaches. Matt and I also visited Spec’s, a Texas-based wine and liquor store chain with a disproportionately large tequila selection, for pool party beverages, and Saturday morning, MiLea and I went to H-E-B for pool party food. Pro tip, the store name is pronounced letter-by-letter and not Heb as in Jeb.
Saturday afternoon MiLea invited a bunch of her friends and coworkers over for a pool party. MiLea’s mom taught us how to make egg rolls, and they were delicious despite my help. Matt and I live in Florida so obviously we are vampyric by nature, but we made a rare pilgrimage into the sun to catch up with Keith and his family, drink booze, and squirt water guns at strangers’ kids. I’ve known Keith since high school. It’s fun and weird for me to see him grown up. We spent time talking about random nerd crap, and it felt just like it did when we were in college. Then, one of his kids called him “dad,” and suddenly I remembered we’re pushing forty. Fast forward to the present! Dad! I’ll never get used to it. In many ways MiLea has also grown up on me. She and Matt talk about bids, contracts, and complicated management issues. She delivers corporate presentations and travels on business. Happily, I still get flickers of her teenage self. That night after everyone had gone home and our little group was left drying on wooden pool furniture in the dark, I saw her through the low-lit kitchen window, discriminately picking through leftover BBQ and doing the same wavy hand dance she’s been doing since we were teenagers to whatever pop song was playing on the radio. The more things change…
Sunday was Matt’s birthday. We ate at Torchy’s Tacos for lunch. I’ll be damned if I could turn down delicious tacos despite a slight case of day-after-tequila stomach. It’s a fun and funky restaurant that started in Austin, TX, and the tacos are damned good, as advertised. Then, Khaley, MiLea, and I let Matt slaughter us at two games of Top Golf. Seriously, the man hates moving and hasn’t picked up a golf club in seven years. How was he so GOOD? The best parts of the day were Sub Zero Nitrogen Ice Cream and Buc’cees. Matt suggested we get ice cream at Sub Zero for his birthday dessert, and this pick had major nerd appeal. You select your liquid base and toppings, and the employees freeze it right in front of you using liquid nitrogen as a coolant. The girls were not too impressed, but Matt, MiLea, and I were all taking pictures and video. The future is now, people!
We also stopped at Buc’ees, a chain of Texas convenience stores chocked full of Buc’ees brand foodstuffs and merch. I’d never heard of this store before, but I soon found out it evokes loving exhalations from anyone who has ever visited one, locals and tourists alike. Of course I bought a bag of Buc’ees brand Beaver Nuggets without even knowing specifically what they were. Who could pass those up?
Houston is hot in the summer. So is Orlando. Hubs and I didn’t go to Houston for the opportunity to bake in a different oven, obviously. We went to see our darling friends, the best tourist attractions of all. It was tough to leave Sunday night. Heart, heart, heart. Tag, you’re it, MiLea!