Tampa Trip - Part 2

The rest of our trip to Tampa was pretty laid back, but I still have a few things left to tell you about. On Saturday, we slept in and were pretty lazy. The have a huge mall in Tampa (International Plaza), and we decided to venture out to the mall to find some lunch and to kill some time. When I say huge, I mean huge!!!! They had so many stores that we don't have here in Birmingham, so it was fun to just look around, even if I couldn't afford to look at the stuff! :) While we were there, we ran into my high school basketball coach who was also in town for the Auburn game. I haven't seen him in a few years, so it was nice to catch up and see how big his kids are getting. Made me feel old because I remember his kids as babies!!

After the mall, we took the shuttle bus back to the hotel. As we were pulling into the hotel, the driver told us that the Atlanta Falcons were actually staying at our hotel for their game against the Bucs on Sunday. There were so many autograph and photo hounds at the hotel when we arrived....I'm not a huge NFL fan, so I don't really "get it," but they love their teams! When we got back up to the room, we saw the buses coming in off the interstate and watched the team get off and head into the hotel. I will say though, it was kinda neat to be on the elevator with some of the guys at different points of the night. At some point on Saturday afternoon we went outside and took a walk down the pier behind the hotel. I got some great pictures at sunset.....


Falcons getting off the bus...


Sunset



Sunday we topped off the Tampa trip by going to the Bucs/Falcons game. It was pretty cold and the game was fairly boring, but we had a good time. We got there pretty early and took some pictures in from of the pirate ship. We also scoped out our favorite "Auburn Buc," Cadillac Williams. He played a great game, so it was fun to see he's doing well since his Auburn days.


In front of the pirate ship

Is that Jack Sparrow?

Cadillac

I can't wrap up our Tampa story without telling you about the great flight debacle. When we got back to the hotel after the game and dinner on Sunday, I was going to go ahead and check in and print our boarding passes for the flight on Monday. I realized then that I had not booked the 8AM flight I thought I had booked, but had instead booked the 8PM flight!!! To say I was distressed is an understatement. I had been looking forward to getting home around noon and enjoying a stress free afternoon before returning to work on Tuesday. All of the flights to Atlanta from Tampa were booked solid. In fact, one of the earlier flights had 54 people on standby! So, we spent the entire day in the Tampa airport. Clay and I made the best of it though....I read, he watched a movie on his iPhone, and we people watched. In fact, we are pretty sure we found my brother Ben's twin!! I swear he looked just like him!!!

Needless to say, we really enjoyed our trip! It was fun to spend time together without all the worries and stresses of life. Thanks Claybo for a wonderful trip!