Day #76 – Snowbirds head South

Pittsburgh, PA – Sarasota, FL

I am not typically a morning person, and frown heavily at the notion of getting up before the sun. I especially dislike the idea of getting out of a warm bed. This morning I woke early with the aid of Debbie and Linda. It was eight degrees and dark outside. Normally I would just ignore the noises in the house and burrow down to the warmest spot in the bed. But today was different. Today Suzie and I are on a plane back to Florida, and warmer temperatures are in my very near future, so I am unusually bright eyed. We ate breakfast, and said our goodbyes to Linda, who was going to try to get to work this morning.

Debbie drove us to the airport. It was eight degrees outside and my teeth were chattering. I don’t remember it ever being this cold in Pittsburgh. The roads in general are horrible; many municipalities are in a state of emergency -- without power or cleared streets, but luckily we are on major routes all the way to the airport. The roads were surprisingly drivable, and the airport is still open.

We arrive without incident and say our goodbyes to Debbie. We had quite a bit of time to kill, before our flight was scheduled to take off, so we snagged some WiFi at the McDonalds to kill time. The airplane was scheduled to leave at 10:22. At 10:15 Suzie woke me up from the computer and we ran to our gate. They were just selling our seats when we arrived. Luckily we were able to claim them and board the already crowded plane.

We had a brief stopover in Atlanta where we changed planes. This time we were not taking any chances and waited at the gate for our flight. The flight arrived late, but otherwise without incident. It was raining when we landed in Sarasota. But it was NOT snowing, so we were thrilled. It was only 52 degrees, which is unusually cold for this time of year, but to us it was warm and tropical.

We were greeted at the baggage claim by Kevin, our truck salesman. He drove us back to the dealership to get our new ride. Talk about customer service! Thanks Kevin!

Next, we headed over to Sue and Mary’s house to deliver still frozen, kielbasa that we had in our luggage. Sue and Mary are former Pittsburghers and sometimes crave the local flavors. They were pleasantly surprised, and we all went out to dinner to chat. I had a very difficult time parking the new truck. It rides so much higher than my little Colorado. The new one is just too wide and I can’t tell where any of the edges are. I could not drive it forward into a parking space, no matter how I tried! Finally I found a space that I could back into which was far away from other cars. I think it will take a lot of time and a lot of practice before I can just pull this monster into a parking space!