January 1, 2010, Day 190 – In Clearwater

WE’RE BACK !!!!!

Happy New Year to everyone. As the clock struck midnight, we found ourselves at the AirTran baggage claim carousel. However, watching your luggage drop from the baggage chute to the carousel was not quite like watching the glitzy ball drop in Times Square. However, we were pretty excited to be back in Florida and warmer temperatures. Our flight was delayed by over an hour but we had checked the schedule earlier and planned accordingly. Our daughter picked us up to take us to the airport and because we had extra time we went out for a New Year’s Eve meal. We enjoyed seeing family and friends during our holiday break, but found life on land a little disconcerting … shoveling snow, holiday traffic jams, and a bed that didn’t move at night left us a little out of whack. Seems we have become accustomed to the gentle sway of the boat and the sound of waves hitting against the hull.

We slept in late this morning; afterall we had stayed up well past 1:00. It was rainy and breezy, but in the 60’s. We had a wonderful breakfast of empanadas!!! YES, our supply has been restocked. Our friend Karen sent us back with 5 dozen of those tasty little creations that she makes. They were frozen in packs of 10 and we surrounded them with cold packs and put them in our check-in luggage so they would stay frozen in the cargo hold. They arrived in Clearwater still frozen hard.

We spent the day unpacking all our cold weather gear (well Linda did that) while Gerry downloaded/updated software for the new Garmin stuff he got for Christmas. Late in the afternoon we decided we were hungry and so walked to a local restaurant for dinner. It was a good thing we went early as the restaurants were already quite crowded. Lots of football fans in the area as Tampa Bay was the host of the Outback Bowl. The Auburn fans were definitely elated as they had won in overtime.

The weather today turned quite windy and chilly. Gerry even had to change from shorts back into long pants (but NO SNOW – so we were still happy). We plan on staying here at least until Tuesday. We’ve ordered a few things and they are being shipped to the marina here in Clearwater. Also Gerry has to get some paperwork organized and back to Maryland. Seems while we were home he accepted an offer for doing some “part-time” consulting. Maybe he can make enough to keep us in wine/rum money.

We watched a little football, but were too tired to stay awake for long, so we called it an early night.