The fun and goofiness started right away when we had breakfast at the airport.
Tom was a bit selfish with the caffeine at first, but he ended up sharing later.
Erin wasn't too crazy about her "bacon ranch" coffee.
Erin just has to share a photo of her new Florida purse...she may even like it better than the first one that got soaked at the rehearsal dinner! (Thanks for trying, Manda!)
The first day was a lot of traveling. We were completely wiped out by the end of it. The flight went pretty well with only a little turbulence. We were pretty hungry by the end of it, though. They now charge $3 for snacks that used to be free, so we came prepared with leftover wedding trail mix and peanut butter cereal bars from the rehearsal dinner. Then they announced that there was a passenger with peanut allergies, so no one could open any peanut products on the plane...stupid allergies. Our snacks were not touched until we got into our rental car.
We got into Miami at about 3:00 pm Miami time (2:00 Minnesota time). We went to baggage claim and got our bags pretty quickly and then had to find our way to budget rental cars. We wandered out to the shuttle area and stood under a sign that seemed to indicate that it was the waiting area for rental car shuttles (the signs weren't extremely clear, but luckily we were in the right place). We stood there for at least 15 minutes watching shuttles go by for every other rental car company in the world except for budget (some multiple times). Finally, we saw one and flagged it down. The shuttle ride took about another 10 minutes or so (through a lot of one way roads and road construction) and then we got in the line for rentals, which went relatively quick. We were told to go to parking space #29 and that the keys were in the car, when we got there we were surprised to find a car that was a bit nicer than we were expecting:
A pretty, white, 2 door Mitsubishi Eclipse with a sunroof! This picture was taken at the Marriott in Key Largo, more on that story later....
Some fun features: the heated leather seats (which come in handy when Tom cranks the AC and Erin is freezing) and the stick shift that looks like a baseball (with a bit of Tom's hairy leg in the background).
So we got in the car at about 4:00 pm, started driving, and realized we had no map and no idea where we were going. We knew we needed to find US 1 and head south, but that's about it. So we drove around until we found a major road that headed south (luckily there was a compass in the car) so at least we knew we were going the right direction. Finally, after about 30 minutes, we happened upon US 1 and got on it and headed south, just in time for rush hour! It took us another hour and a half to get out of Miami and onto the bridges that head to the Keys.
What a wonderful sight...
Yeah, that's right, its 89 degrees, and we are heading South!
Finally, the ocean!!!
Another 25 minutes or so on the road and we were in Key Largo. We drove up to the Marriott (based on Tom's memory, because we didn't have any maps or information printed out). We parked at the pretty hotel, walked into the lobby and tried to check in...but they had no record of our reservation. We sat down at the computer in the lobby and Tom logged into his e-mail, only to discover we were staying at the RAMADA, not the Marriott....whoops. Where he came up with Marriott, we will never know...we aren't staying at a Marriott for any part of our trip. Oh well! Here are some pictures of the hotel that never was...
Okay, we have a few more quick stories that we want to post about, but we are going to start a new post, because it is getting annoying to drag the pictures to the bottom of the post (if anyone knows a better way of doing this, please let us know!).
~Tom and Erin
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