Back Homeside

Flying Over the Mountains
January 15, 2008

We are back safe and sound no thanks to last night's weather from our winter vacation. I didn't say much about it because there were a lot of things going on and my recent health problems threatened to cancel the trip. We were scheduled to fly out January 15^th but only got the clear to travel for me with restrictions on the 11^th. So I best let you know what we've been doing for the last ten days.

We stayed at a motel with park and fly the night before our flight to Fort Lauderdale. The picture above was one of the very few I could take from the plane window because of cloud cover. It was warm but cloudy when we landed after an uneventful flight. Oh wait a minute, the real funny point was when this guy aka Mr. Important came into the bar where we were eating breakfast. It was a morning flight and since my husband insists on being at the airport three hours before boarding any source of amusement helped to pass the time. Now get this, Mr. Important came in with another guy who seemed quite normal and he very pleasantly listened to Mr. Important talk on his cell phone for the majority of the time they were in the bar. Mr. Important pulls out his cell phone immediately and proceeded to tell everyone within listening distance via his cell phone how security took away his $100 cologne, toothpaste, soap and deodorant. Why? Apparently Mr. Important can't follow airport security rules! Now this just struck my funny bone because the more this guy went on about it, the madder he got to the point he was going to go give security a piece of his mine. Ya right, that would help [get him tossed out of the airport]. I dang near snorted coffee out my nostrils at this one! Guess what [drum roll please] I can mimic him much to the amusement of fellow passengers which means I have a bit more talent than I thought. Anyway, we did see him board and were thankful he wasn't sitting behind us but the humour he left behind will be shared :)

Ok, so back to what I was talking about. We arrived in Fort Lauderdale then took a shuttle to pick up a sweet little red convertible then we headed to Key West. It was a pleasant drive despite what we had heard. This is the first trip that besides the night before flying wasn't a motel trip. We stayed at the historical Cypress House only a couple of blocks from Duval Street. Seriously this is a must stay at bread and breakfast, one I will be expanding upon. Talk about a beautiful area! We even rented a scooter to get around. Now Key West is laid back but it could seriously tire you out. We had a lot of fun there and are already planning our next visit. We learned about the Conch Republic, the endangered Key deer and the lovely Key West chickens. We enjoyed a Jimmy Buffet tour much embellished by our tour guides and enjoyed our share of rum. Then we were off to No Name Key where we visited with my husband's aunt and uncle. They cut us a coconut from their own trees along with some star fruit. I was down right determined to get that coconut home and through Canadian customs AND I did :)

From No Name Key we travelled back to Fort Lauderdale. There we rented a condo which really is a wonderful way to go. It was on the ocean so the view was quite lovely and we could see the inter-coastal view as well. It had laundry and cooking facilities so I took advantage of cooking breakfasts. If you want to read more about what we ate and cooked in Fort Lauderdale check out my cooking blog. We even had a one day in where we lounged in our pj's between the patio and tv in the name of football! Compared to Key West, Fort Lauderdale was really low keyed with little traveling and more homelike. I'll talk more here on this as I really enjoyed going the condo route.

We arrived at the airport for our 3 HR Tour . Hey, I still had a sense of humour and what the heck. Aside from a really nasty [few adjectives added here] waitress at Nathan's Famous at the airport. Now apparently Nathan's Famous does not take responsibility for there employees and their nastiness towards paying customers but you can try to contact them here. Not that that will do a lot of good but if I were you I would definitely boycott Nathan's for lack of service, poor quality and failure to respond to complaints. I will be blogging about this issue as it unfolds. But corporate office is already working on that one. Did you know, one negative comment on a blog can really have an huge impact? Blogs have a bit more influence that some think and one negative experience can really get the word out. In the meantime, be sure not to let Sonija serve you. Honestly, she really does not know what food service is all about. So good or bad you will hear me blog about it and really this girl is more than two thumbs down and needs to be fired for poor customer relations and a down right piss poor attitude.

Ok, so I've done my rant, that was the bad. We hooked up with a couple from Australia while waiting. They were really a fun couple waiting for their delayed plane as well. We will keep in touch. The plane was about an hour late boarding but it seemed to be a rather uneventful flight even though the stewardess said it was a rough landing. I was dressed in cold weather clothes because I am always cold but my husband was in his trademark shorts, sandals and Hawaiian shirt. He quickly had to change with the almost 2 inches of snow. Travel home was horrid! It took almost 4 hours to get home something that would normally take us about 2 hours. So there you have it in a nutshell. We had a lovely time and came home to very cold weather so stay tuned for what we did in between.

Reality hits and I'm off for tests tomorrow but in the meantime I'm relaxed and we have sun here today turning the lawn to a thousand diamonds. Life is good!