SURPRISE! Hurricane Helene and the Aquarium!

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Tampa, Florida sounded like a great place for a vacation. 

We discovered that we had an $1100 voucher with Allegiant Air that had to be used up completely by October 4 so instead of throwing away this money that we had already spent the year previous, we randomly pick a destination.  We got tickets and a rental car with the money and found an Airbnb and off we went. 

The car rental agency surprisingly gave us a choice of 8 vehicles- we picked a Hyundai Tucson. We like it!

Our Airbnb was also a surprise! First of all they had not sent us the info to access the unit but after a few unanswered phone calls, they replied to an email message and the situation was resolved.  It was a bit stressful!  

The “cosy” 2 bedroom/2 bath was unexpectedly a two story townhouse!  14 steps up a rather steep staircase is not my idea of fun! The bedrooms and bathrooms are all upstairs! We keep telling ourselves it’s good exercise. 








We did a grocery run the first morning and spent $140.00. So far that’s been good for 3 breakfasts and 2 big dinners, lots of coffee and soda and water for 2 people … I think we shopped well because there is enough food left for another dinner, 3 lunches, mand 3 breakfasts. All of those meals in a restaurant would have been so much more than our initial investment of $140! A good surprise!

One more surprise came on our third day and it was something we should have anticipated…had we checked the weather forecast before we left.  It’s a HURRICANE and it’s headed this way. It won’t hit Tampa directly and certainly won’t affect our location too badly because are on the east side of Tampa far from the shore.There will be lots and lots of rain and an extremely high storm surge. We will see!

There was so much more hype than what was warranted for this storm!

The storm was very wide and fierce but it fortunately did not affect the Tampa area as much as they thought it would. The people that suffered a lot of damage, especially on the barrier islands, probably would beg to differ…

It’s been quiet and boring around here since most residents heeded the many warnings and shut down.

Today we ventured out and spent a few hours in the Florida Aquarium.  It’s a beautiful place!



















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