After a night of tossing and turning in a bed I struggled to believe Nick and I had ever shared (it was the full sized bed that we originally had in our house…before we upgraded to a king), I was awake for good at 2:30, a full hour before my alarm was scheduled to go off. Gizmo seemed to know this, and climbed into bed with us at this point, where I’m pretty sure he was snoring before he had even fully laid down.
Eventually I got up and got dressed and then woke Nick up. He of course was dressed and ready in approximately 5 minutes, because bald men. We headed downstairs, where my FIL was awake and warned us that he’d woken up to the sounds of a group of coyotes out back. And then, while we exited the house, he proceeded to take Gizmo outside to distract him from us leaving. UHHHH.
Thankfully, no humans or small dogs were harmed by coyotes, and it was a quick ride over to Manchester Airport. We pulled into the parking garage about 4:10, but then had to wait for several minutes to get a ticket because the person in front of us was struggling with scanning something on their phone to get into the garage. Eventually they moved, and according to the parking ticket, we were officially in the garage at 4:14 am.
We found a parking spot just down the line from the pedestrian bridge to the terminal, and within minutes I was listening to that lovely sound of suitcase wheels spinning across airport floors and moving walkways as we made our way down to check in. Once at the Southwest area, we easily found a kiosk, and shortly after we had checked our bags and, with (printed because I don’t trust technology when it matters) boarding passes in hand, we were headed up the escalator to security.
Because it was vacation week, there was actually a security line, even in the pre-check lane, but, it moved quickly, and very soon, I had cleared security. In true Manchester form, Nick had a bit more difficulty , both at the metal detector (I think this time it was his belt), and with his carry-on bag (knowing Manchester, it was his bags of trail mix), but eventually he joined me, grumbling that we pay the “extortion fee to avoid this”, and we made the very short walk to the gate that is directly across from where security dumps you out into.
I grabbed seats by the window, and we settled in for a bit. At this hour, Manchester was still fairly quiet, but it was clear that most of our fellow travelers this morning fell into the “have never traveled in any capacity, let alone on an airplane” category. Holy cow.
I watched them do a light de-icing of the plane, thanks to the overnight frost, and then bought bottles of water from a guy at the Hudson News stand that had to have the least personality of anyone I’ve ever encountered. And then it was time to board our flight.
When I’d checked in at the 24 hour mark, we’d had boarding positions in the A group for our flight to Tampa, but in the B group for this flight. Because it was early in the morning and I wasn’t really thinking, I immediately took advantage of my credit card perks and upgraded our boarding positions for these flights. I get 4 free (reimbursed as a statement credit) upgraded boardings a year. We only have two more flights with Southwest during this particular card cycle. So hopefully the odds are in my favor. With the upgraded boarding, I think we were A13 and 14. So we were on the plane quickly, where Nick found seats reasonably close to the front of the plane.
The flight down to Baltimore was uneventful and arrived early (duh). I’ve never actually had a flight from Manchester to Baltimore take the full scheduled time, even when they’ve kept us on the runway in Manchester to space flights out due to ATC staffing. It’s just a super padded flight schedule. We saw the sun come up (ok, I did…you know that window seat is wasted on my snoring husband) from the sky, which I always enjoy. Although, it was a little emotional this time. One of the MANY things Grampa and I shared was an appreciation of sunrise.
We deplaned somewhere in the B terminal (actually…like two gates down from our next departure gate) and headed for the food court. With the early arrival we had like 2 ½ hours until boarding began for our next flight. It didn’t take long once reaching the food court to determine that the correct choice for breakfast was Chick-fil-A. Chicken minis for Nick, a chicken biscuit for me. And lemonade of course!
Breakfast was tasty, because Chick-fil-A somehow manages to have both good chicken and good biscuits. We sat in our spot at the food court for awhile after finishing eating before heading back to terminal B. We found our gate, and I very intentionally picked the most anti-social seats in the gate area. Those would be the line of 4 chairs that face the window, directly in front of the window, when most other seats face in.
Obviously, about as soon as Nick left the gate area for a bathroom visit, a dad with his tantruming toddler decided the seat on the end of the row of my anti-social seats was the perfect spot. Thankfully this dad was pretty socially aware and after a few minutes of not being able to calm his kid down, he disappeared. There’s a win. So I went back to enjoying my view of a lack of snow and a plane that didn’t need de-icing in peace.
Boarding started a little before 10. We were A 40 and 41 for this flight I think. Nick marched us back to the row behind the exit row, because I keep forgetting to give him the “that row actually has less leg room” lecture. I was kinda surprised he didn’t take any of the exit row seats that were still available. I’m wondering if he’s a little hesitant right now with it being an airplane in 2025. But anywho.
We settled in and…overall the flight was fine. But let me tell you, if we needed birth control, this flight was it. Also, we hit some wicked turbulence over northern FL. But overall…the flight was fine and we landed in Tampa a few minutes early.
Deplaning was quick enough and pretty soon we were enjoying the 70ish degree air that was sneaking around the jetbridge gaps. Hallelujah, it’s warmth!
We easily found the tram to the main terminal, and then the escalators down to baggage claim. Tampa’s baggage claim had really useful digital signage, complete with status updates on the luggage, so it wasn’t hard to figure out where we were going. Our bags actually emerged fairly soon after we reached baggage claim, and pretty soon we were heading up what felt like the world’s longest escalator to get on the train to the rental car center.
It was a 2 minute wait for the train where we were thankfully able to get seats. Nick initially thought I was being “extra” when I told him we should both sit for this ride, but as soon as the train started moving, he remembered this train from our 2021 trip. This train moves at a pretty good clip. There was a stop at the economy parking garage, and then, within 5 minutes of leaving the main terminal, we were getting off the train at the rental car center.
I’d done online check-in/skip the line, so all we had to do was find the right escalator for Alamo. We found it and headed down to Level 1. We briefly paused once at Alamo to be directed to the right lane, and then it was off to find the perfect SUV. Nick didn’t want any Chevy products, and then he decided we should have anything else that was easy to find in a parking lot so we settled on a vibrant blue Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross. We loaded up the luggage, surveyed the car for damage, and climbed inside, where we quickly discovered we had picked a vehicle with just 3 miles on it. That’s not a typo.
Soon enough we were on the road to Clearwater Beach. There was definitely more traffic than the last time we made this drive, but the trip was uneventful, minus the rental car trying to make me crash by warning me excessively loudly that it thought I was going to crash whenever I was in the general vicinity of an orange barrel in the road.
Once in Clearwater, we parked at our favorite parking garage from our previous trip here and made the short walk over to Frenchy’s Original. It was time for a late lunch!
Frenchy’s was sort of our metric when deciding whether it was still ok to visit Clearwater Beach after this fall’s hurricanes. They sustained SIGNIFICANT flooding in Helene…to the tune of like over 6 feet of flooding inside). When they recovered, we decided it was safe to keep our beach plans.
We grabbed seats on the covered kind of open-air patio. Since it was National Margarita Day, I got a margarita. Nick probably had a painkiller. We both had Cajun grouper sandwiches…the Super Grouper for him, the regular sized for me. Lunch was fantastic, as we had come to expect from our trip here 4 years ago. And that fresh 70 degree air was lovely too!
By the time we were done at Frenchy’s, it was a little after 3, so we got back in the car and drove over to the Hyatt. We unloaded the luggage, left the key with the valet dude in case the car needed to be moved before we parked it in the garage, and headed inside.
Check in was quick. Our room wasn’t ready yet, but she did the initial process and offered to store our luggage for us. That’s a yes. She also offered us free champagne, which Nick, who is not a lover of bubbly, turned down rapidly. HEY! So apparently this is a legitimate resort, not just a hotel at the beach. She handed us keys too so that we could access amenities. And then promised to text when the room was ready.
We parked the car in the garage (because who wants to trust valet with a rental when there’s a choice?), and then headed next door to Surf Style to see if there were any Clearwater souvenirs we wanted. There was nothing we absolutely had to have. Within about 10 minutes of wandering the absolutely massive store, I had gotten a text that our room was ready, so when we were done browsing, we headed back to the Hyatt lobby, where the same front desk girl coded the key cards she had given us, and then got a bellhop to retrieve our stored luggage. We were then directed to the South elevators to get to our room: 1139.
We quickly discovered that only one elevator in the south bank was working. After several minutes of waiting, Nick decided we should go try the north elevator bank. We found…only one elevator working here too. But, eventually, an elevator came along, and we were on our way, me hoping that when we reached the 11th floor, we’d actually be able to access our room. Thankfully, we were.
Our room was a partial water view room. It was huge, and had a pretty decent view. There were definitely some signs of use but it was very clean and pretty well appointed. And that bed was wicked comfy. And that slider door was impressive in its sound blocking abilities. Would I pay $700 to stay here? No. Was I very happy with the room for the cost of points and parking? Yes.
We enjoyed the view and relaxed for awhile. Then eventually we headed down to the beach. It was overcast enough that we weren’t really expecting to catch a sunset, but we couldn’t not go for a walk on the beach around sunset time when staying on the Gulf. I mean, come on.
In the end, we caught a decent enough sunset. We walked quite a bit and did a lot of picture taking. It was…chilly…for Florida, but nice compared to what we’ve experienced at home this winter. Nick was a bit cold though. All that weight loss.
Once I’d gotten my fill of picture taking, we headed back to the room. I showered in what turned out to be a fantastic shower and crashed pretty early. Nick, from the sounds of it, wasn’t far behind me.
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