and driving, and driving

 Well, John got lucky at the unclaimed baggage store and got another great suit for nothing.  He has a lot of suits and has been told that the last one that he can buy has to be a summer suit and he found a great tan and white striped suit that is perfect.  I found some great books and decided against a kindle 

 paperwhite since I still read mainly old school style.  We decided that we needed to make it all the way through Alabama, Georgia and a good way into Florida to set up a short drive to the ship tomorrow.  We got the car washed in Scottsboro because I was tired of having to worry about getting salt on

 myself or the luggage every time we got something out of the car, but then we hear this flapping, thumping sound and some of the seal strip along the driver’s door had been dislodged during the car wash.  I’m thinking that this was brilliant on my part, but John was able to snap it back into place and we  didn’t have any more trouble with it.  We made good time through Atlanta even though we were pushing 3:30pm and we thought it was going to be bad when we were jammed about 30 miles north of the city,

 but that turned out to only be a police chase that ended in arrests on the side of the road, so rubber necking.  We got lucky there and around the Florida state line, I started to hit a wall in this nice, leisurely drive idea.  I was tired, it was dark, and we couldn’t stop because we couldn’t leave this much room between us and Fort Lauderdale because we could miss the ship.  I started to get all Chihuahua and nervous because who knew what Orlando traffic would be like, what if we got a flat tire, what if, what if and couldn’t sleep very well in Ocala that night.  I did have to contend with an air conditioner that was very temperamental and we would have been better off opening a window because mid Florida was worried about the frost that night.  Yes, friends in Michigan, we had to turn on the air conditioner in the hotel room that night.  We had to get different clothes out of the car because it was getting up to the 60’s during the day and by the time we got to Fort Lauderdale, it was 78 degrees.  John was actually sweating lugging the luggage up to the ship.  We made it across Florida on the turnpike in good time and what a great road.  It’s worth the toll, that’s for sure.

We could see the boat from the place that we parked the car and even though John kept saying we “aren’t there yet”, I believed at this point that I could walk to the boat if need be before it left.  We were able to check in really quickly, no waiting in line, no sitting in the terminal, no nothing before they are giving us our room keys, but a different room than the one that we booked.  We figured that they could maybe give us a better room on accident and it was definitely an upgrade.  I write this from the balcony of my cruise ship on the 12 floor under the lido deck with a wonderful view off the port side.  I can’t think of a better cruise to have this upgrade on.  Not only do we have our private balcony to sit and have wine, scotch, enjoy the fabulous weather on this trip in bathrobes, but we will be able to have a space on the rail to go through the locks when you know that everyone will be crowded up against the rails on the promenade deck.  No one else will be able to push us out of the way or hone in on our space.  Woohooo as Bill Frayer would say.