Winter Trip to St. Pete Beach

When we left home the temperatures were in the single digits and falling fast.  Schools throughout the area were closed due to extreme cold, icy roads or power outages.  The forecast for the evening is for the coldest night in several years, as low as six below zero (-6 F) which seems pretty cold to me.  We knew when the cold front (being called a “polar vortex”) came through last night when we had a blowing rain and a rapid drop in temperature around 10:30 as we were preparing for bed.

There was a light coating of snow this morning but the rain made a coating of ice underneath.  The extreme cold made the salt ineffective on the roads.  Main roads were fine since the sun came out but the air temperatures remained in single digits and the wind was brutal. 

To prepare for our departure, we set the furnace to keep the house at 60 degrees in our absence.  We also turned the water heaters off then turned the water main off and drained the pipes, especially the lines to the washing machine on the second floor.  Those water lines are more exposed to the cold and we didn’t want to come home to a mess this weekend.  It just seemed like a good idea to drain the pipes as a preventative measure.

We were uncertain about our flight with the cold and wind but everything went just fine.  We departed HTS on schedule but heavy headwind made the flight take about 10 minutes longer than scheduled.  We had only one screaming baby on the flight, about five rows in front of us but we managed to sleep off and on through much of the flight.  Allegiant is certainly no frills but at a little over $50 each way for our seats we are happy with the flight.  The seats were roomy and comfortable. I guess it shouldn't have surprised us that there was a large percentage of the passengers who were elderly.  Our supposition is that they are snowbirds who came north to visit relatives for the holidays and are returning back to their winter nests.  As we sat in the Huntington Tri-State Airport, we watched the expressions on the faces of people as they deplaned on their return to Huntington.  When they left PIE on Monday morning the temperature was in the low 80s.  Wind and 11 degree temperatures met them on the tarmac at Tri-State.  Many of them were better dressed for Florida than the Ohio Valley so they walked briskly to the terminal.

It didn’t take long to get the rental car from Enterprise.  They upgraded our car which isn’t a big deal to us.  They gave us an ugly black Impala.  We would have been far happier with a little Corolla or something but this car is fine.  Although it has less than 9000 miles on it, the car seems worn and has a sloppy ride.

The drive from the airport was only 15 miles but we enjoyed the scenery and warmer weather.  People here aren’t happy with the “cold snap” here but we think the temperatures in the 50s and 60s are fine.  Before checking in at the Bayview Plaza Waterfront Resort, we drove along Gulf Boulevard which goes through a lot of the little beach communities between Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.  It was a pretty drive.  We checked in at the Bayview around 6:30.  The girl at the registration desk needed our license number from the rental car and apologized that I had to “go out into the cold” to get the number.  We just laughed.

For dinner, we walked to a nearby place called Mad Fish.  It didn’t look like much since it is in an old diner type building.  However, the food was excellent.  Mary had Grouper Tzatziki which had feta cheese, broiled shrimp and a veggie mix.  I had Mahi Oscar which was a broiled Mahi steak with lump crab and asparagus.  We both had a nice salad of mixed greens with craisens and green goddess dressing as well as a side of garlic mashed redskin potatoes.  They gave us complementary key lime pie for dessert which was very good.

On the walk back the the room we stopped at Publix to do some shopping.  We got some navel oranges, local bread, cereal, yogurt and some berries.  Our room has a full sized refrigerator, a two burner stove, toaster, microwave and coffee maker as well as a sink.  It is really pretty nice and a bargain since it is so near many of the attractions that we plan to visit.

Since tomorrow will still be cool and windy, we plan to do some sightseeing that is in Tampa and keep some of the more outdoor things for later in the week when the temperatures are back in the 70s here.

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