What I learned on my summer vacation.

Just got back late last night from our summer vacation in Florida. Yes, I know ---‘Florida in the summer?' you must be thinking. Part vacation, part family visit. We also go there during the winter months, too. But it is very hot all the time, although everything
in -doors is so air-conditioned that you can hang frozen beef.

So, I learned the following on my summer vacation:

• Don’t try to get a hotel in the middle of the summer anywhere near Atlantic City without a reservation. Everything was more than sold out. Hotel after hotel had lines of people waiting to be told the same thing: No Vacancy. Note to hotels on Black Horse Pike: Invest in a sign that can be lit up to read “No Vacancy”.

• Florida has outstanding services for senior citizens. Businesses really seem to need to learn how to cater to that demographic, or they simply cannot survive economically. New Jersey communities can learn from their lesson.

• The fresh water conservation issues in New Jersey dwarf ours. They have to pull water out of the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee, the freshwater lake in the center of Florida. It is the second-largest freshwater lake wholly within the continental United States, second only to Lake Michigan.

• Our property tax issues dwarf their property tax issues. But their school system ranks somewhere between 39 and 47 in the nation, depending on which list you use. Ours are ranked somewhere around 4th or so.

• Florida newspapers really do not care much about what happens to the New York Yankees, or the fact that they are now five games back, or that they have a better record than the Mets. However, perfectly good Yankee and Met fans from New York moved to Florida and now root for the "Florida Marlins", a team named for a fish. Hard to wrap my brain around that.

• It is very easy to find your way around south east Florida. East is to the beach. West is not. Guess it’s the same in New Jersey, though, now that I think of it.

• They have tolls in Florida, too.

• Disney World is larger than Great Adventure.

• New Jersey bagels are better than Florida bagels. We have better pizza, too.
  

• But their beaches are free. Our's should be, too.