Spring Break 2006 had arrived and Roxanne was going with her college mates to the Alabama Gulf Shores for their Spring Break trip. She had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, she was very excited about it because it was her very first Spring Break trip in her whole life ever, but on the other hand, she was also very nervous about it because she kept thinking she was too old for Spring Break trips, even though she was a college freshman, and she wouldn't be cool with her college mates, even with her best friends. I told her that she would be fine and she would have the time of her life there, not to mention her best friends haven't been on a college spring break trip either so it would be a new experience to them as much as it would be for her. And she also had a new boyfriend called Nathan, who was twenty years old and he was studying architecture and who was a drama studies student. He starred in the same college theater production of Spamalot with Roxanne and he played the roles of Sir Lancelot, one of the Sentries, one of the French Knights, the head Knight of Ni and Tim the Enchanter and that was how she met him. I only met him a few times, but he seemed nice enough and cared about Roxanne. But I didn't feel like letting my guard down on him because I didn't want her heart to be broken again like when Jeremy broke it.
I was with her and her friends on the day when the coach arrived at Spoonerville College to take them to the Alabama Gulf Shores. I was there to help her put her suitcase onto the coach and to wish her a good time. We hugged each other before she got onto the coach and sat next to Nathan. Then we waved to each other until the coach was out of my sight.
As for me, I was going to go on a vacation with my family for this Spring Break. I drove to Big Sky to meet up with them. There was a change of plans when I got there. We were meant to go to Detroit for this Spring Break vacation, but for reasons I can't remember, we couldn't go so they decided to go to the Alabama Gulf Shores, which was where Roxanne and her college mates were going to.
At first, I was very puzzled and unhappy because if I knew I was going to the Alabama Gulf Shores, I would have driven there and met my family there instead of going all the way to Big Sky and I would have let Roxanne know that I was going. As we drove to the city, I kept worrying if Roxanne would see me and it would be a surprise to her if she did. And she did.
After arriving at the hotel we were staying in for the vacation and checking in, my family and I went out for dinner at a restaurant that night and Roxanne spotted us. She was by herself because Nathan was busy watching a baseball game on TV in a bar with his friends and her best friends were chilling at the hotel everyone was staying at because they were tired from traveling and seeing the city. She was heading back to the hotel after she had dinner at another restaurant with Nathan and left him with his mates to watch the baseball game while getting very drunk when she spotted me and her family.
After Roxanne joined us at the table, I explained everything to her about how we were meant to go to Detroit and the reasons we couldn't go and how we came to Alabama Gulf Shores instead and how I only found about it today and then I apologized to her for surprising her, but she wasn't upset. In fact, she was delighted to see me and her family. She even told us that us coming to the city had made her first Spring Break trip feel even better. And we were feeling better for seeing her too.
Spending the rest of this Spring Break trip made it great for me, my family and Roxanne. For most of the trip, Roxanne would go and explore the Alabama Gulf Shores with either Nathan or her very best friends, but they were times like a few hours or maybe half a day or even a whole day when she would spend it with me and my family.
I remember one afternoon my family and I went to visit the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo. This was special for us because it was Hannah's very first time to a zoo. Roxanne was walking nearby and for some reason I can't remember she was by herself and we invited her to join us and she happily did. It was an amazing zoo and we all had a good time seeing many different animals and learning about them and their wildlife habitats and how to help those who were endangered or very close to extinction. Not only it was the first time Hannah had ever visited a zoo, but it was also Roxanne's first time as well. She never even visited the Spoonerville Zoo, because her overprotective father was worried about her getting attacked by the animals if they ever got out. Anyway, Roxanne told me that she enjoyed seeing this zoo and the real animals and learning about them and that she enjoyed seeing everything with me. She even joined us for another delicious dinner at another restaurant before we all went back to our own hotels. What an amazing day we all had.
One day, after my family and I spend most of the day visiting the Gulf State Park Fishing Pier and doing some fishing, but didn't capture anything (except the few things my dad caught which were a boot, a treasure chest full of seaweed instead of treasure and a giant blue whale – all three things with the Perfect Cast), we went to relax on Gulf Shores Public Beach and there was Roxanne and her friends chilling on the beach. Roxanne, wearing her blue bikini, saw us, came to greet us, sat down on our beach mat and we told each other what we had been up to. After I told her what my family and I had been up to, including what my dad caught while fishing, she told me that she and her friends had a lovely day in the city and did a lot of shopping and were now relaxing on the nice beach. Her boyfriend Nathan went with his friends to do something I can't remember. Before she had to go back to her hotel with her friends, she continued to spend time with me and my family, including building sandcastles with Hannah or having a paddle in the sea with me. Nothing could have made that day any better.
One day, Roxanne called me in my hotel room. Neither Nathan nor her friends wanted to do anything on that day because it was so damn hot and she wanted to ask me if I wanted to do anything with her because she didn't want to stay in the hotel all day, despite the great cool air conditioning. Then I found out about Waterville USA and, after I told Roxanne and my family about it, they all liked that idea and we went to it.
When we got there, we had a wonderful time. We did the water park first. As well as it was Hannah's first time she went to a water park, so it was for Roxanne's too. She was nervous about it because she never learned how to swim and she felt the only thing she could do there was show off her sexy orange bikini. But after I promised her that I would look after her and make sure she wouldn't drown, she decided to give everything a try with it and she enjoyed everything we did together, including trying out all the water slides, chilling on tubes on the Crystal Waters River and having fun in the North Shore Wave Pool. When my dad and Sylvia needed a break from looking after Hannah, Roxanne and I played with her at the Shrimp Boat Village and Wawa World.
Then we all tried the Amusement Park and we had fun at the Fun Depot, on the Waterville 500, on the Waterville Mini Golf, in the Topgolf Swing Suite and at the Splash N Strike Bowling alley. It was a great day for all of us.
On the days when it was just me and my family, we would go on incredible trips like spending a whole day of the Track Family Fun Park, do more mini golf, go on boat tours and do more water sports like paddleboarding, parasailing, jet-skiing and banana boating among them. Again, the more stuff I experienced with my family, the more I continued to bond with them. I especially enjoyed teaching Hannah how to practice mini golf (and she was very good for her age) and I bonded with her more and I did most of the water sports with Sylvia and I bonded with her more, even though I knew her since 1998. It was wonderful.
Then the day came when the Spring Break trip was over and we had to go back to home. I had to go back with my family to Big Sky so I could pick up my car, so I said goodbye to Roxanne before she headed back to Spoonerville College and told her I would see her on the day when the college resumed. Then I went to back to Big Sky with my family, collected my car, thanked my family for a lovely Spring Break trip and drove back to Spoonerville to get ready back to work.