We left early to drive to Pittsburgh and after picking up a quick lunch at Uncle Sam’s (my favorite cheesesteak place in the ‘burgh), we boarded a Delta flight for Ft. Lauderdale with a layover in Atlanta. Got pretty excited when we saw all the green landscape from the air as we got closer to Atlanta, where we had a two-hour layover. When we entered the terminal there…well…I somehow thought that the world’s busiest airport would be a little better equipped to handle the amount of travelers coming through during the dinner hour. After weaving our way through thousands of people in our terminal (I’m really not exaggerating), we tried the Budweiser restaurant on the top level…not a table in sight. Nor was there anywhere to eat in the food court (even all the standing spots were taken). We wound up getting a severely overpriced dinner across from our next gate…my bag of Lay’s potato chips cost me close to $2. I should probably explain that if you fly out of the Pittsburgh Airport often, or ever have a layover there, the place was built with an agreement that nothing at the “AirMall,” including food, would cost more than at any normal mall or eating establishment. I find myself longing for that agreement to be instated nationwide!
Anyway…our second flight was fabulous…huge plane with personal entertainment screens in the back of each seat, with DishTV! So you could actually watch live TV on the flight instead of a limited pre-recorded selection as I was used to. I was very impressed with Delta throughout our trip and would gladly travel with them again.
Once we arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, which had a lovely airport, we got to Avis where we had reserved a Chevy Cobalt (thinking about gas mileage here, not flair), the representative said they only had a PT Cruiser and a Mitsubishi Eclipse available…tough choice there! Once we loaded our stuff into the PT Cruiser…just kidding. Of course we took the Eclipse, for the same price as a Cobalt…what an awesome way to start the trip! But then…we drive through the dark to our hotel, the Sheraton Yankee Clipper, wondering just how gorgeous all this was going to be in the daylight, only to be told that…another room with a better view on the corner of the 8th floor opened up. For the same price. So…we wound up with a fabulous upgraded room and car. Maybe Sunday School and Earl are right, there is something to the reaping-what-you-sow/karma thing!
Once we had settled in, we gave my brother-in-law Ryan a call. He set up shop in Ft. Lauderdale doing custom painting. He worked for a while with the Orange County Chopper dealer down there, and he airbrushed the choppers that won both first and second place in a recent custom airbrushing contest! So if you live in Ft. Lauderdale and need some custom painting done, get in touch with him! He’s awesome! You can check out some of his stuff on his website.
Ryan used to work at the Seminole Hard Rock Cafe and Casino, so he took us there (this is around 11pm) to check it out. For those of you pop culture people, I believe this is the same hotel in the Anna Nicole Smith tragedy. Notwithstanding, the place is awesome. I quickly lost 10 bucks on the slots (Heather would make that back times three the next day), but apparently there’s no place to eat there after 11pm. I would have thought gamblers would want to eat 24/7!
One of the clubs:
Another:
And they had an awesome fountain, where they even projected iTunes-like silhouetted figures onto the spraying water.
We then wound up getting a sub and a beer at a Shell station near Ryan’s apartment, which was surprisingly good…and living in Pennsylvania, I love any state where you can purchase wine and beer anywhere. If you don’t know what I mean, consider yourself lucky!
Stay tuned for Florida: Day 1 tomorrow!
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