The Deliberate Detour Vault | Naples, Florida
Some memories are sweet. Some are spooky. And some are just too much fun to leave tucked away in the Vault.
When we lived in Naples, Florida, one of our favorite Halloween traditions was the annual Spooktacular on 5th, held along beautiful Fifth Avenue South.
Year after year, we’d get dressed up, head downtown, and join the festivities. There was something wonderfully fun about seeing Fifth Avenue transformed into a Halloween celebration, with creative costumes, plenty of characters, and just the right amount of spooky mischief.
And we certainly weren’t ones to miss an opportunity to dress the part!
One particular year, our little Halloween crew consisted of Tom, looking quite convincing as a Viking; Savannah, delightfully dreadful as a dead bride; and yours truly, dressed as a police officer.
A Viking, a dead bride, and a cop walk into a Halloween party…
Sounds like the beginning of a joke, doesn’t it?
Well, the joke was on us — because apparently, we made quite an impression!
Imagine our surprise when the city’s advertisement for the 2016 Spooktacular on 5th featured a photograph of us from the previous year’s celebration!
There we were, in all our costumed glory, helping promote one of our favorite annual traditions.
Our fifteen minutes of Halloween fame!
I suppose every Viking needs a little supervision, every dead bride deserves a night out, and every police officer knows when to let a little mischief slide.
Looking back, what makes this memory so special isn’t really the advertisement — although that was pretty darn cool.
It’s remembering the fun we had together, the silly costumes, and those wonderfully ordinary family traditions that somehow become extraordinary memories.
That’s the beauty of opening the Vault. Sometimes you uncover a beautiful destination. Sometimes a favorite restaurant. And sometimes you find a Viking, a dead bride, and a police officer smiling back at you from Halloween past.
Sweet, spooky, and absolutely unforgettable.
Happy Halloween from The Deliberate Detour Vault!
Because the best destinations are the ones we choose deliberately.
Travel discerningly. Love deeply. Live deliberately.
