Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Finally in Florida!

We made it to Florida! Whew, what a long trip. But, I'll get to that in a minute - first, a quick recap of Eric's day trip to New York!

He got up at 5:30 a.m. or so to catch the 6:45 a.m. bus. He also had to drop off our borrowed air mattress at our friends' apartment in Chinatown before the bus left, which means I also got up at 5:30a.m. until he left, then went back to sleep on the floor. Surprisingly, I actually slept better/longer on the floor than I had in my own bed or on the air mattress in weeks. I guess I was just that tired.

Eric got to NY around 11:30 and went to our apartment to check in and get our keys. Apparently there had been some confusion over the start date of our lease. They thought our lease was starting on Tuesday 8/12, but we thought (correctly) that it was starting on Monday 8/11. So, the apartment wasn't ready when Eric got there, but they let him in just to see it quickly. He said it looks very small, so we'll see if our big sleeper sofa will fit! Below are a few quick pics he managed to take before leaving the workers to finish cleaning up for us.

The living room

The front door and "extra large" foyer. We're planning to put a desk there, to make this area into a little work station.

The bedroom

About half of the bathroom

After checking in to the apartment, Eric met up with Jose to give him our keys, then caught the 4:15p.m. bus back to DC. He got to DC around 9:00pm. We decided to sleep a bit and leave for Florida either in the middle of the night or early morning, but with only the floor to sleep on, neither of us could get to sleep. So, we decided to just go. We took care of some last minute details, then loaded up the car, handed in our keys, and we were off at midnight.

We drove until about 5:30a.m., before both of us starting feeling so tired that we weren't sure we could continue on. So, we pulled off somewhere in North Carolina and checked into a $25 hotel. THAT was an experience. It was definitely worth $25 (although, it did have free wireless internet. Amazing. The towels haven't been changed since the 70s, but there was internet. Go figure). So, it wasn't luxurious, but it had a bed, and that was all we were looking for.

We slept until about 10:00, and were back on the road by about 10:30. As soon as we hit Georgia, it started to rain, and rained for most of Georgia and some of Florida. For a while, the rain got pretty intense and visibility was about zero. We pulled off at a rest stop to get out of it for a bit, then continued on.

We hit Gainesville, FL at around 6:00p.m. so we stopped there for dinner at my old workplace, Calico Jack's Oyster Bar. That was kind of fun. We also walked around the UF campus a bit. Then it was back in the car to finish the trip. We finally got in to St. Petersburg around 9:30p.m. What a trip!

We spent today napping, taking care of loose moving-related ends, and watching the Olympics. Then tonight we had dinner with Eric's family, including his aunt, uncle and cousin, which was great. It's great to be back home with everyone.

Tomorrow is the day our stuff will be arriving in NY! So I'll be eager to hear how that goes. Stay tuned for more updates!

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