24 Sep 2022 - Saturday
Packing Success!
The packing is complete. We've got all our stuff into the cases, under weight 26.3/27.3/31.2/26.5 (not too hard as we have 4 x 32kg) but more importantly the capacity was OK too - all cases closed without needing to be sat on. That's a win in my book !
I went down to the car to clear things out. Below (once it's uploaded, is the car we've been using for this holiday. A bit big for our needs, so we'd likely get someing smaller next time. Still it was good to drive and got us about in one piece. Also it's been pretty good on fuel, I don't think I'll need to fill it up at all before we return it. The fuel gauge is showing 110 miles to empty and Tampa is 50 miles away.
Storm Update
Tropical Storm Ian, as it's now officially called, is still wandering along in the Carribean Sea, but as you can see, the latest projections are showing Florida in its path - the forecast was to be crossing sometime next Wednesday. It's not a hurricane yet, that may happen before it crosses Cuba, but it's one to keep an eye on.
Heading off
We're now all packed up and ready to go. The chairs we bought from Wal-Mart at the start of the holiday we'll leave behind in the apartment for someone else to use. They are too large and heavy to take with us. It's now 09:20, so time to make a last sweep of the place and head back to the Rental Place to return the keys.
We're looking to head north, towards Tampa and to drove to a botanical gardens to spend a hour or two before returning to the airport. The flight isn't until early evening, so as we've checked in already, we have a few hours to kill. We should have access to the lounge in Tampa airport too, so that will help.
Sunken Garden
We dropped the keys off and drove North over the Skyway Bridge. Then left the interstate to enter St Petersburg. There we stopped off at a botanical garden called the Sunken Garden. This is a botanical garden which was created in 1903 and has been open to the public since 1936. It was full of tropical based trees and shrubs. It was quite the forest in the central areas, many more palm trees squashed together than I've ever seen before - usually they are planted in neat rows. The best part was that the trees all offered shade, so although we were in there for about a hour, we didn't emerge too hot.
Not far from the gardens was a Starbucks so we had something to drink in there and then made the final short trip to Tampa. The car got there with 27 miles left in the petrol tank, so no worries there!
Tampa airport has a small train system to move you from the car rental area to the main terminal, so we wheeled our cases onto the train and rode over to the main terminal.
We arrived before the BA staff were manning the desks, so we had maybe 15 minutes to wait until they opened. On check in I was told that one of the cases was overweight (by about 2 kg) so I must have weighed them incorrectly in the apartment (either that or our scales device is inaccurate) but fortunately, the case was allowed through unchanged. The other 3 were all OK.
Security was fairly painless - we weren't stopped for any baggage check for once - then we looked for the Americal Airlines lounge. This was the lounge we could use (the BA one had closed due to covid a year or so back), but although we found the door, there was no one there to let us in. We sat there (with another passenger) for a while waiting, until someone else walked up and straight into a sliding door which opened for them. We all followed and were soon in the AA lounge. Itwas quiet to start with, but there are more arriving now. Food is basic, the bar costs money, so we'll just make use of the seating, wifi and power until our flight is called (gates will open around 18:10 so we're told).
We were about on time, leaving Tampa at 19:01.
Final Florida Sunset