We live two hours from the Seattle airport. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:00 am. With all the security measures they say you need to be at least an hour or so early for your flight. That means that MINIMUM we had to leave by was 3:00 am. Which of course means we had to get up by 2:30 am.
Clever me thought why not leave the night before and get a hotel with park and fly? I just happened to get an offer from Orbitz for % off a hotel in Seattle. That made it far cheaper to spend the night than to pay for parking. So I took the first one I found that offered park and fly.
I worked the day we were to leave. It was a long day that involved me accidentally putting the work cell phone in the outgoing mail which required I chase down the big mail truck headed to the Seattle sorting station. I caught up with it in Bellingham (thank goodness!) but that meant I didn't get back home until after 6:00.
When I got home I immediately joined Peter in taking care of animals, last minute packing, house cat-proofing (since we were leaving our three indoor cats with the keys to the castle...) and doing all the other things that needed to be done. We didn't pull out of the driveway until 10:00 - arriving at our hotel just after midnight. We figured by the time we got to our room and got to bed it would be 1:00 - and with a 4:15 wake up call we were looking forward to a full 3 hours of sleep! Oh but the desk clerk informed us that they no longer had park and fly services but they did recommend some nearby parking lots that offered shuttles to the airport. I was irritated to say the least. Now we would be paying for a 3 hour hotel stay PLUS parking. We would have stayed elsewhere or even stayed at home but it was too late to do anything about it. I have a bone to pick with Orbitz!
4:15 came way too early - and then began the scramble. We hadn't calculated the extra drive time into our schedule and missed the 4:40 shuttle at the parking lot and the 5:00 shuttle was slightly late. We arrived at the airport 35 minutes before our plane was scheduled to leave. We did the airport sprint. Peter, unfortunately, was selected by security to have his bags searched - he was bringing his doctor equipment (like stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, pulse oximeter..). The clock went tick tock. Once they decided he wasn't a national threat, we sprinted again. We made the plane by the hairs of our chinny-chin-chin.
An hour or so into our flight, the flight attendants began scrambling and messing with their emergency equipment. Someone on the plane was having a medical emergency. A seizure and anxiety attack. The call went out for medical professionals. A nurse answered the call, as did Peter. Between them, and since fortunately Peter had his medical bag with him, they got the poor woman resting comfortably and valuable information was able to be forwarded to paramedics on the ground. The nurse stayed with the ailing woman and Peter returned to his seat where he was offered a courtesy cocktail by the grateful flight attendants. It was 9:00 in the morning. Peter turned it down.
Originally we only had 35 minutes between planes, and of course our first one was slightly late. Plus we were in the back and by the time we got off the plane, we were down to 20 minutes. Off we went on the airport sprint again. It was the Houston airport and in Texas they make them big! Our gates were quite far apart. We were the last ones to board - but by gum we made it!
Fortunately on this flight there were no medical emergencies. We arrived in Florida now truly and completely ready for a vacation.
We had rented a beautiful little cottage in Indian Rocks Beach. We had a wrap-around deck facing the Gulf of Mexico and were just feet from the beach.
We were in Florida for 10 days. We napped a lot. We walked on the beach. We breakfasted on our deck enjoying this view:
We watched the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico ..
We swam in the ocean, fed alligators, went sight seeing, attended my nephews wedding..
We visited with brother and his wife and children. We ate well, we drank rum in exotic tropical drinks. I found a fossilized sharks tooth (three actually).
We visited 2 aunts and an uncle from my fathers side of the family, went snorkeling in a fresh water spring and put our toes in the Atlantic Ocean at Daytona
We played putt putt golf and went jet skiing where I dumped us both in the ocean when I took a turn too tight. I laughed until I nearly cried. Unfortunately, Peter lost his good (read expensive) sun glasses on the dunking.
Coming home was uneventful despite the very long day of travelling. When we got home we needed to tend to our animals and found they had been very VERY well fed by the babysitter who had the theory "well fed animals are happy animals". A theory I can't entirely argue with.. Our goats gained weight and look a bit like pigs.
It seems most of our animals were glad to see us come home. The goats and alpacas don't seem particularly happy since they've been put on a diet but I'm sure they'll be fine. Eventually.
It was a splendid visit. We were delighted to see you and glad you had a good time!
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