Visit to Tampa September 2012

In September, we visited my brother and his girlfriend Michelle in Tampa, Florida. It was the first time I’d seen my brother since my dad died in October 2009. It was also the first time meeting his live-in girlfriend, seeing his house, and visiting Florida. I was also 8 1/2 weeks pregnant and had bad morning sickness that could put a damper on the visit. I didn’t know what to expect.

I got a call at 4:45am the day were supposed to leave that our 9am flight was delayed until 2:30pm, which would land us in Tampa at 12:30am. Not ok. At 5am I was on the phone with the airline trying to get an earlier flight. They were able to get us on an 11am one that got us in at 10pm. Not perfect, but better. We arrived at the airport to find out 11am flight was delayed until 12:30, and then we didn’t take off until 1pm. We arrived in Tampa at 11pm. Fortunately, my brother is a night person and this wasn’t a problem.

The first morning there I woke up to a thunder and lightning storm. I hadn’t seen one like this in years, and I was watching out Clayton’s back window cheering it on. There was a thunderstorm every day that I was there, but it cleared up in the afternoon in time for us to go out in the sun.

We went to dinner at a wonderful Spanish restaurant that evening where each room was decorated differently. One room was a wine cellar, the other was an outside terrace, and another had a stage for shows. Over the next few days, Clayton showed me the university where he worked, we went to Lettuce Park to see the swamp and alligators, we walked along Bay Shores where dolphins swim (though the water was too murky to see anything that day), we went to the Tampa aquarium, and we went out to eat at a few more good places. The day we planned to go to the beach, it was stormy so we weren’t able to go, but that’s ok. There is always next time.

Michelle is a psychology major working on her master’s degree, and she likes art. We had a lot to talk about it, and she showed me how to play Settlers of Catan. They seem happy together, and I was glad my brother found a wonderful woman like her.

I enjoyed spending time with my brother, and I enjoyed seeing Tampa, an environment completely different from Seattle. It was flat, the oak trees were shorter, the sky looked bigger and bluer, and it was much more humid. The wildlife was abundant. I liked seeing big cranes and other large birds flying and walking around. Once, we had to stop because of a turtle in the roadway. The pond in the back of Clayton’s house had alligators in it. What a strange place! I don’t want to live there, but I have no problem visiting again. Next time, Disney World, Sea World, Wet’n’Wild, and all the other places I couldn’t go to this time because I was pregnant. Overall, we had a good trip, and my morning sickness didn’t interfere other than making me a picky eater.