Mar 25/26 - fleche 2018

Another Fleche is on the books.  We left Paul's at 7:30 and arrived in NSB a little after 7am the next morning.  Along the way we stopped at a few convenience stores, one Waffle House, one Denny's, The Catfish Place in St. Cloud ... yes ... we ate our way through 250 miles.

Expecting cold that never happened, headwinds that turned into tailwinds, it was a great ride.  Melanie and Wayne couldn't join us this year on their tandem but Hamid handled the swap nicely.  He flew to South Florida, drove to St. Petersburg with Shab; we had dinner at Paul's; John Ward Smith showed up before we started riding on Saturday a.m. and the team set out.  While we were riding, Shab visited with a cousin and then made her way to NSB, occupying a couch and meeting Jeffrey & Sara and Emma.  Zoe and Matthew were in bed by then but she saw them in the a.m.

The Wafflers (our Fleche team name) stopped at the house on the way to Jason's Restaurant on Canal Street.  Three other teams made for a good gang for breakfast. 

Back home, Paul and I cleaned up and I drove him to Daytona Beach airport and is Alamo rental.  Returning home, I went to Mass and did struggle to stay awake, especially since it was Palm Sunday, a long one.  Once home, I had a nap and then while Sandy was over at the SYC pool with Sara and the kids, too Cassie over to the sandbar.

Jeffrey, meantime, was at the airport trying unsuccessfully to get his bag.  It was supposed to make its way back to Orlando but didn't.  JetBlue and Spirit were supposed to be working together, bug weren't.  Jeffrey became the onsite supervisor / drill sergent and got things squared away.  Apparently the bag is supposed to be awaiting them at a hotel in Nassau tomorrow when their cruise stops there.  I'll believe it when I see it.

From afar, these people are acting like it's not their responsibility to get the bag on its way to the owner even though they are the ones who screwed up.  Spirit isn't doing it's job, had never opened up a claim on JetBlue who wasn't really involved in the snafu but that's the process by which an airline would get involved in the adhoc transportation of a bag from one place to another without a passenger. 

Either of us could volunteer to take on management but we've got other things to do with our lives.  I, for one, have too many rides coming up :).

Today the ship sails.  Originally I was supposed to drive them to Port Canaveral but parking is cheap so I believe that they are now taking care of that themselves. I'm open to other approaches; it's only about an hour away.

Onward !