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Boca Ciega Bay

This is a different year. My sore shoulder (getting better now), Bob's cracked ribs (ice storm a few weeks ago) and uncertain weather (storms across the country) made it easy for us to decide on a fly-cation this winter. The snowstorms until we left on Thursday were relentless. Gave the shoulder a good workout and Scott did the rest. On Wednesday, he plowed and shoveled for over an hour while we got ready for our trip.

Son Chris picked us up before 7:00 a.m. to take us to the airport. The streets of St. Paul (never good in the winter) were even worse than usual after the previous day's snow, so we were happy to get a ride to MSP, where cars were parked 3 lanes deep for passenger drop-off. The plane left a little late after de-icing but we still got into TPA at about 1:30. Car pick-up at Budget took a little time but we were well treated  by customer service. The lovely rep  upgraded us to a brand new Dodge Journey, all for $1493 (tax is half the total). It's tricky to rent a vehicle for more than 30 days but State Farm (our insurer), Hotwire and Budget figured out how to get the job done.

I like this inexpensive print on the wall

We checked into our condo at about 4:00 p.m. A little more red tape, due to management and staff changes -- former manager is now "away" for a while. Credit card would have cost nearly 3% of the total (a chunk of change), so I wrote a check. I rarely write a check so I had only three in the checkbook, but I managed and we finally got into our condo. Fortunately, we had stopped at the liquor store so we poured a well-deserved drink. I ordered a delicious seafood dinner from Skidder's and walked a couple of blocks to pick it up.

We've seen the maintenance guys for a few problems (AC, garbage disposal, Bob's side of the bed falling off the box spring), but the people in the office are very responsive to the slightest issue. We move up from 403 to our usual 608 next Friday.

The weather is consistently sunny and hot (80F).