The day that we left was not a good day weather wise. It had been raining all morning, very windy and with worse weather following. We only had to drive to Tampa, so we didn't worry too much about it. I even decided to drive. What we hadn't anticipated was that the weather 30 minutes North of us was even worse.
The area where we were to turn off the interstate, actually has 5 exits that you can take. I needed to take the second exit. As I approached, you could see that traffic was at a stand still up ahead, which meant getting to the second exit, wasn't happening. So, I took the first exit knowing my GPS would get me where I needed to be.
As we turned off, the first thing we came across was a huge tree laying across the road. Then another one. As I started to wonder what the heck, I merged onto the main road and realized that something major had occurred. There were trees down everywhere, power was out, so there were no traffic lights and a small farmers market looked like it had been demolished on the side of the road.
I followed the directions from our GPS and headed back over the highway into Tampa. I made it about a quarter mile before I started seeing cars stopping and turning around. A tractor trailer had been blown over the overpass, so it was closed. We turned back around and headed another direction. This forced me to have to go through an intersection with 4 lanes of traffic each way, and no traffic signal. And even though people are supposed to treat that as a 4 way stop, no one did. I finally just told everyone to hang on, close your eyes and pray because I had to make a left turn through all of that.
Eventually we did make it to the ship. I was stressed and wanted nothing that to get on that boat and leave my worries behind. The ship left a few hours late due to weather, which worked out nicely since I was in constant communication with Kyle who was stuck at school because they had stopped the bus service due to the tornadoes. Poor kid sat at school for another 2 1/2 hours until my Mom picked him up.
We had a wonderful time, and Cozumel was absolutely beautiful. Here are a few pictures for you to have a look at!
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| Sunset from our balcony |
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| Kim and Bill |
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| Jeff first thing in the morning |
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| Our boat while docked in Cozumel. My camera lens was foggy because our room had been so cold and it was 90 outside. |
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| Jeff and I on the beach in Cozumel |
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| The beach. The color of the water was amazing! |
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| We visited this alligator area. The guys whistle and the gators swim over. It was insane. |
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| Towel art. Mr Elephant |
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| Towel Art |
We drove around for the day in this buggy. Kim and I held on for dear life!
