Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2007. Ironically I have few photos of the three of us together, which is why this one is one of my favorites. 

Quote of the day: Christmas, my child, is love in action. ~ Dale Evans Rogers

As I do often when I am away, I go to Dogtopia's webcam to check in on Sunny. Today Sunny was sitting in the middle of the circle of cots. If you can see it, he is staring toward the door. Sunny doesn't do well quarantined in one room, and I can see he is eagerly awaiting the door to open so he can come home. 

When I opened the curtains of our hotel room today, this is what I saw..... the 17th Street drawbridge up! This was a sight Mattie loved!! In fact, over the years we walked with Mattie to a drawbridge (on the half an hour) just so he could observe the mechanics in person. 

We had practically two weeks of beautiful sunshine. This was our first gray and rainy day! Regardless of the weather, cruise ships were in port, and we could see them from our window. 

Since Sunday, I have been observing this house opposite the hotel. The house is being renovated and today of all days, they decided to work on the roof. Not the best timing, as it soon began to pour!

I am telling you the rain looked like mini snowballs, it was that big!

My parents flew out of Miami and we flew out of Fort Lauderdale. Unfortunately their airport was a zoo today and they gave my parents a very hard time. Only my dad had a seat assignment, despite the fact that these tickets were booked months ago. In addition, flights were overbooked. We had the same overbooked problem, but fortunately had seat assignments. 

We sat on the plane for an hour today in Fort Lauderdale. Which was a problem, because thanks to American Airlines, we had a layover in Charlotte, NC. A second flight that was timed very close to when we would be landing. Despite the fact that we paid for a direct flight, the Airline's cancelled all direct flights between DC and Fort Lauderdale over the holidays. Not very considerate. 

The take off from Fort Lauderdale is quite spectacular, and it is amazing that we have seen this particular site from both a plane and a ship. All the cruise ships leave the harbor following the same course as seen here. 

In fact, when on a cruise ship, the last few white condos on the corner of the beach (as you can see from this photo), make send offs very special for passengers. The condo owners come out on their balconies, they wave, blow horns, and several have cow bells, and RING THEM! 

However, in this photo, I can also see the Marriott Harbor Beach where we stayed for a few days. The hotel is the next big white set of buildings down the beach from the condos on the corner. 

As we were landing in Charlotte, NC tonight, this is what we saw! The sun setting. Literally we landed in Charlotte and had less than 20 minutes to go from terminal B to terminal D to catch our flight to Washington, DC. Fortunately we made it and are now back home and doing chores. 

Of course it is a total shock to the system to have gone from 80 degrees to 26 tonight! Not sure why anyone loves winter, and coming back from Florida's glorious weather, it makes you wonder why any of us put up with this!