Arrival in St. Pete Beach

TripPix.

We left Panama City Beach before 9:00 a.m. and were encouraged by the GPS prediction of a 6h22min trip to our destination. Turns out it's a slow ride on Hwy 231 and I10 to I75. Lots of trucks and plenty of traffic. Our rest stops used up about an hour so it seemed like a long day already by the time we approached Tampa.

View from our balcony. Unit 208, Sunrise Resort.

We were delayed by an accident on I275 at Hwy 4. All lanes were closed and traffic was diverted off the freeway, but we were on our own to figure out the next turn. The GPS took us around the block and back on I275 before the Howard Franklin Bridge. The rest was trouble free but we were both tired and the sun was beating down on us.

We arrived at the condo after 5, so our keys were in a lockbox. We read the instructions for gaining access to our apartment but neither of us could get the box open. Fortunately, a guy "with experience" came along and took charge of the situation. He soon determined that were entering the wrong combination of numbers, a variation of our AREA code, not our ZIP code. A few clicks later, we had keys and access to the condo.

A few hours later, we'd put away most of our stuff and were ready to enjoy our first evening.