Monday, January 3, 2022: Hanging Loose in Fort Lauderdale

 Monday, January 3, 2022; Hanging loose in Fort Lauderdale

We were relieved to be able to locate all our kids in their respective households on Find Friends first thing in the morning.  It was quite the challenge to get everyone home with weather and covid related airline staffing shortages.  Ben returned the rental minivan and took a Lyft back to the hotel.  The Enterprise agency in Hollywood was outside the airport surcharge zone.  The Lyft ride was about $20 including a generous tip.  The driver was very articulate and didn’t come across as your typical Uber/Lyft low skilled driver.  Turns out he was in management at a company that does corporate training up until just a couple months ago when Covid caused widespread lay-offs.  So rather than sitting around the house collecting unemployment, he hit the road with his Hyundai Genesis to keep a revenue stream going.  

We had planned on spending a relaxed day at the hotel, resort style.  Janet headed down to the pool but a cold front had moved in, dropping the temperatures and filling the sky with dark grey clouds.  She found a nice lounger by the pool but soon found herself getting sprinkled on.  We had our leftovers for lunch in the hotel room with the balcony door open while Ben worked with Princess EZ-Air to get a refund on Price’s flight which got canceled.  That took over 2 hours on the phone to get to the point where a customer relations agent said she finally had all the information she needed to get another department to confirm the flight cancelation before they could issue a refund, but that she would email me the confirmation within 3-5 days.  I hope things go smoother next year when we have an Easter Island and Antarctica cruise on Viking Expeditions planned for next Christmas.  

The rain played itself out, but it remained overcast and cooler.  Ben went for a walk to explore the area and crossed a large draw bridge which opened up for some very tall sail boats on his return trip. 

Janet relaxed at the pool.  This hotel has a manager’s reception every evening from 5pm to 6:30pm where they give each adult guest two drink tickets per night.  We somehow ended up with 12 tickets, so we dutifully showed up each evening at 5pm for happy hour consisting of some veggie sticks, ranch dressing, and 3 cocktails each.  It seems we’ve been forced to consume more alchohol during this trip than we have our entire prior lives.  

We repacked our suitcases and then walked to a nearby Duffy’s sports grill which was just a block away.  The place had giant flat screen TV’s everywhere streaming all kinds of sports (football, hockey, NASCAR, American Gladiators, etc) and was decorated with sports jerseys and helmets.  It was actually a very interesting place, although not a place to go for an intimate dinner for two.  The prices were pretty fair and the food was quite good.  Janet had a cheese burger with a patty that looked like it was hand pressed and contained about a half pound of beef made to order medium well, while Ben had a Reuben with a half pound of pastrami.  The fries were excellent, and the pickles were crisp deli styled.  We will probably be back the next time we take a cruise out of Fort Lauderdale.  

The hotel has replaced cruise bound folk with a large group of Xavier College swimmers who are doing their winter training camp at a nearby pool.  Kind of nostalgic seeing all those swimmers toting their gear and looking unbearably healthy around the pool.  

The news is reporting another 2000 flights were canceled this past weekend. I guess we were fortunate to get all our kids back home.  We are now checked into our flights for tomorrow am and so far, they haven’t been canceled.  We’ll check again in the am.