Touchdown Tampa

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Well I made it to Tampa. The flights were fine. I guess a lot has changed since my old flying days. There was no in-flight movie and they don't serve in-flight meals anymore. If you want to eat you have to buy it. At least that was the case on my Delta flight chartered by Northwest Airlines. Good thing I had my squishy pillow. I managed to sleep the first hour and a half but the last 3 hrs was twiddling my thumbs, I think I was a bit too anxious.

I landed at 5:25am EST. The flight from LAX to Tampa took 4 hrs and 22 mins, which was a lot less than I thought it was going to be which was good. In all the flight was pretty quick. I just have to say that the Tampa airport is the cleanest, prettiest and easiest airport that I have been in and I have been in a few. I expected it to be a little more busier than it was being an international airport and all but to my surprise it was quite dead.

I got my luggage and headed to the shuttle bus to catch a ride to the Alamo rental counter. Everyone says good morning here and they are all very pleasant. The lady at the car rental counter gave me very easy directions to my hotel which just happens to be right around the corner from the airport and very easy to get to. It is 7am now and I was hoping the hotel was not booked so that I might get an early checkin, I could use a couple of hours of shut eye to stop the burning in my retinas. No such luck, they were booked solid turning away guests last night. The front desk clerk checked me in and took my number and said they would call me as soon as they had a room clean for me, which he thought my be eleven or so.

I am a little hesitant about driving around just yet as it is still dark here. So here I sit in the hotel lobby waiting for inspiration or my second wind. Sooner or later I am going to have to eat though.

First impressions are great...the people have been extremely helpful and nice, the weather is unbelievable, 68 degrees when we landed and they expect it to be 80 today. I can totally get used to this. No pictures just yet, like I said its still dark. The sky is starting to lighten up but there is cloud coverage. I am hopefully off to Siesta Key beach today to check out the baby powder sand! I will get lots of pics there!

Love you all!