What a first day we had.
We were to leave Bloomington for Fort Lauderdale via Atlanta and be on
the beach by 1pm. Well that great plan didn’t
work out because after we left Bloomington a huge storm hit Atlanta, and everything
came to a stop there and we proceeded to circle north of Atlanta out of the
storms way. That lasted for about a ½ hour
when Delta made the decision that the storm wasn’t going to stop anytime soon
so our plane was diverted to Chattanooga, TN!!
When we landed in Chattanooga, the first gate agent we saw
when we came off the plane said she had no idea what was going on and didn’t
know the plans. Then after about ½ hour
the crew left as they had been up for their maximum flight time. Finally, after about an hour we found out
that the plane that we were on would leave for Atlanta at 9:00pm which would
put us in Atlanta to late to get the last plane to Fort Lauderdale.
To make very long story short, after being booked on 4
flights that were all cancelled, we finally made it out of Chattanooga at 6:00pm. Then we had to wait for the first available
flight to Fort Lauderdale which was at 11:00pm.
That flight was delayed as the crew was late getting in from another
city.
We finally make it to Fort Lauderdale at 1:00am, retrieved
our bags and went to the rental car company.
There we found out that they had run out of cars and the
only cars that were left were all mini-vans and we could have our pick of any
of them.
We picked out a brand new (2,000 miles) Chrysler, complete
with nav, a back-up camera, leather and all of the goodies and made it to the hotel
quickly, as it is only 15 minutes from the airport.
We checked in, went up to our room - it was a very nice 1-bedroom room, complete with a kitchen and we were in bed by 3:00am
and asleep by 3:05am!!!
Our room at the Marriott Beach Place - Fort Lauderdale
Ed was up first and went out in the immediate area and
bought Cheerios and milk as this is a vacation resort Marriott and does not
have a restaurant. We finally left the
room close to noon and headed for Haulover Beach, our favorite beach in the Ft.
Lauderdale/Miami area.
It was with great sadness that we learned this morning that
Father Greg lost his battle with cancer and died at 2:35am today. So sad and he fought an long battle with
brain cancer, and we will very much miss him.
We first stpped at one of the top Deli’s in the area and
had a great Pastrami sandwich. Then it
was off to the beach for a couple of hours of sun. 78 degrees and hardly a cloud in the sky – a perfect
first day in the sun!!
 |
| Lunch |
We drove back to the hotel, cleaned up and went north 6
miles to a wonderful restaurant where we shared a salmon dinner that was very,
very good.
Back to the hotel and we are ready for bed.
Tomorrow will be about the same, just a different couple of restaurants.
Night from Fort Lauderdale!!
