Day 1 (February 12, 2016): Two Canucks in search of a beach!

It's been a rough haul for both of us since Christmas, with loads of work stress. So we decided to take advantage of the new Heritage Day long weekend in Nova Scotia and head south. 

We took off from Halifax at 8am today, on a packed flight bound for Orlando. 

Leaving the depth of winter behind, we arrived in Florida ahead of schedule, at 10:20am. That was even in spite of having to be de-iced -- note the green-goo-covered wing!

An easy flight, except that I spilled a full coffee all over myself. What a clutz!

    Downtown Orlando

The plan was never to stay in Orlando at all. We simply flew there, as the nonstop options out of Halifax were limited. Rather, it was Tampa Bay we had chosen to spend our weekend.  We picked up our Fox Rental Car -- a brand new Nissan Sentra -- and started the drive towards Clearwater. A car crash on I-4 put us in a 40-minute traffic jam just to the east of Tampa, but we eventually made it to our Holiday Inn by 2:30pm. 

Shortly after, we set off for the beach at Indian Rocks. The sand is nice, but there are lots of shells. It was wonderful just to be able to walk on a beach in February in 20C. By Florida standards, 20C is nothing great. But the State has had a considerable cold spell and today marked the turnaround. So we felt very lucky to have had such a warm day. 

After our beach excursion, we drove back to Clearwater. As we are staying near the St. Petersburg-Clearwater Airport, I did a run along the airport perimeter fence. And then we headed off to Applebee's for supper - it's our little

American tradition, to eat there when we visit the US. It did not disappoint!

Good night from Florida, where dozens of billboards tout lawyers eager to help you sue the pants off anyone who rear-ends your bumper or causes you to slip on a wet floor, etc. 

   Hey you! Wanna sue?! We'll show 

    you how.