Day 1 Florida Winter Vacation 2010

We are heading south today for a 1 week vacation in Florida.  This will be our second visit to the State of Florida.  Our first visit was in December 2007, we drove from Ontario to Orlando that year.  This year we are going to fly to Miami and pick up a rental car and drive to our hotel in Florida City.  Our plan is to do day trips and to just relax and soak up some warmth and sunshine.

The day started early, awake at 7am and on the road to the Airport by 9am.  We got our car parked at the airport and then checked in with American Airlines, went through the customs and security checks with no problems.  Well not quite, Karen had a pair of nail clippers in the bottom of her purse which they confiscated.. 
Karen snapped some photos of planes on the runways and in the air.



This is our plane as it comes into the boarding gate.  If I remember correctly, it is a Boeing 737



The flight was fine, a small bit of turbulence, but other than that, we had a small meal, a drink and read our books.  I got a Kindle for Christmas so I am enjoying reading Decision Points by George W Bush.

Once we arrived at Miami, it was quite a walk and a short shuttle train ride to get to the baggage claim area.  Not exactly convenient, but our suitcases came out and then it was off to find the Hertz Car Rental counter.

That wasn’t easy either, as we had to board a shuttle bus with all our luggage and that took us to the rental car building.  The line up at the Hertz counter was ridiculous… it took almost an hour to work our way to the front of the line.  I don’t know what the problem was, the people behind the counter were obviously over worked and no one was happy with them.

We were told that the car we had reserved was not available.  Of course I wanted to know what was the point of making the reservation if they were not prepared to honour it.  I thought of the Jerry Seinfeld episode as he tore a strip off the rental agent, but I remained fairly calm.

As compensation for not having the car we ordered, they did upgrade us to this…..  a 2010 Ford Mustang… too bad it wasn’t yellow… Karen’s favourite colour…  Someday she wants to own a yellow Mustang.  We did see some yellow Corvettes as we drove out of the rental facility.  Maybe we should have held out for one of those.



My friend Randy will be impressed when he learns that I am driving a Mustang. 

So using my trusty GPS we found our way out of the airport area and onto the highway that took us to our hotel in Florida City.  We have a nice room booked for the next week.

Tomorrow the plan is to relax, unwind and unpack.

To see the photos from today, please click on this link to my FLICKR site.