After the prior days; New York trip, I was going on maybe four hours of sleep. After a cup of yogurt and a shower, I began driving to RDU with the smooth jazz channel playing on XM. I took a spot in the Central parking lot, well worth the extra money, especially when arriving so early. As expected, there was barely a security line.
Not so expected, I got a first class seat, 1A to Miami. I enjoyed my free screwdriver over that next hour. The flight to Tampa, not so plush. Middle seat. But it was only an hour long and we actually landed 30 minutes earlier than expected.
Now in the Tampa region, essentially, there is no public transportation. Maybe slightly more than Raleigh. I credit the Tampa Airport though; they have a well organized section for rideshares with clear directions and numbered doors, which makes finding the driver much easier. The Uber to St. Petersburg took about 25 minutes. I got dropped off at the Chihuly Museum. Actually they were still 10 minutes from opening, so I grabbed an iced chai across the street at Caribou. Now I'm not the biggest art guy in the world, But I certainly admire what Dale Chihuly has been able to accomplish with glass blowing. It wasn't the largest collection, though it was beautiful; I was gone in 45 minutes.
The plan was to eat at Engine No. 9, one of my favorite burger joints. But the truth is the police looked so dilapidated from the outside that I didn't even bother to stay period plus it opened at 11:30 and the game started at 1:00 p.m., there just really wasn't enough time.
So I began my 15 minute walk through a Florida drizzle over to Tropicana Field, maybe the most drab stadium in all of MLB. The game was Rays vs Blue Jays, so it was an AL East matchup. Now as I just alluded to, Tropicana Field gets a very negative reputation and it's not undeserved. The best words I would use to describe it are sterile and tacky. There's nothing really charming or inviting about it, it is just a lot of concrete. The oversized fake baseballs on the outside of the white concrete building don't exactly help.
For food, I started with the Chicken Parm sandwich. I was incredibly impressed by the bread, it was a toasted semolina loaf. The chicken was pretty crispy, that was actually better than what I had at New York the prior day. But I still have to give Citi Field the edge with that vodka sauce.
About an hour later, I tried a Cubano sandwich. And it was served Tampa style with Genoa salami added to the usual roast pork, ham, Swiss cheese, pickle slices, and mustard. It was very good, though I'm not sure if I prefer that one or the Miami style more. I would say the Tampa sandwich is a little bit saltier with the addition of the salami, but at least there's more meat. Maybe the weird part is I drank a bottled protein milkshake with it. I mean it was the same price as a soda or a water, so why not?
As for the game, Toronto won five to one over Tampa Bay. I would estimate there were 13,000 fans there and at least a third of them were Toronto fans. I guess there's a reason they close off the upper deck for most Rays games.
About halfway through the game, I looked at the possibility of an earlier flight, but nothing seemed all that open so I decided to just stick it out and go for the later flights. I got an Uber to the airport, as the driver fought through rush hour traffic.
It took almost no time to get to my gate, the Tampa Airport actually has a separate section for people who are just carrying on bags as opposed to people who are checking in luggage. So I got right on the train from the main terminal to my actual terminal and then went through security. Oh yes about security. Even though I had no metal and nothing in my pockets I still got a full pat down. And when I say a full pat down, I mean a full pat down. And not from the hands I would have preferred either.
One glass of red wine... for 17 bucks. I tried getting on the 5:30 plane, but it was full. So I had to wait till the 7:40, except that got delayed a full hour and so it was an absolute race to make my connection from Miami to Raleigh.
Except we got delayed again. While the plane was pushing off, we stopped after about three feet. There was an influx of planed landing into Tampa Bay. Apparently a small weather system caused numerous delays and even some cancellations. So we were held up another 30 minutes. And at this point I knew the only chance I had to make the connection to Raleigh was if my connecting flight was also delayed. I refreshed the American Airlines app every five minutes hoping to see the words "On Time: replaced by "Delayed." But it never happened. We landed in Miami about 20 minutes after my plane had already departed from the gate. So that means I had 10 hours to spend in the Miami airport.
And there are no beds are comfortable arrangements to speak ok. It's find a corner, preferrably with a charging outlet, cover your eyes to shield the overly bright lights (I pulled my Jets cap down), and pray it doesn't get too loud. I would up getting under a table at Gate D9 with a reachable outlet. I got on my left side with an extra shirt underneath my hip and low back, and turned on some Keith Morrison narrated episodes of Dateline. Helped me get some decent sleep. And I was certainly in and out of consciousness between maybe 11:30 pm and 4 am. But it did well enough.
I got a bagel sandwich at Einstein, I hadn't eaten anything since about 12:30 the prior day at the ballpark. And the flight was pretty easy; I knew there were about 40 seats on the nonstop. I wouldn't have minded another first class seat because God knows I could have used another cocktail. But that's ok. But we left at 8:15 am, so it was right at 10 hours in that airport. And again, six flights in 48 hours, that takes a toll!
Good to be back home.
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