Just completed another crazy weekend celebrating another wedding but this time in Jacksonville! Somehow I also managed to go to Amelia Island and St. Augustine all within just a weekend. Taking a step back, Beth and I had back to back weddings planned, the first in San Diego and now this one in Jacksonville. Beth was lucky enough to have the whole week off, one of the perks of being a teacher, so she just flew directly from San Diego to Jacksonville. I flew straight into Jacksonville on the Friday before the wedding.

Getting flights there was a little tricky. I couldn’t find optimal flight times for my schedule and the price was little higher than I wanted, but I eventually booked a US Airways flight through Charlotte. What was kind of cool was that the flight was the final day of US Airways. Pretty fitting as the first time I earned airline status was on US Airways just a couple of years ago. Somehow I ended up getting one of my favorite seats too, 10A on both segments on an Airbus A319. It’s an exit row with no one in front of you… Really lucky that I got it as I have no status with them right now. Anyway the flights went fine despite having only a 42 minute connection in Charlotte.

Inbound

For this year’s Memorial Weekend I ventured down to Clearwater Beach, Florida to enjoy the beautiful beach with my girlfriend and a couple of friends. Our Southwest direct flight from Indianapolis to Tampa Bay left early Saturday morning. Now I am not big on spending money so I used my Southwest points to fly three of us and only paid $33.60. The best part is I just earned my Southwest Companion pass so my girlfriend flies free when I fly whether I pay cash or with points. I earned most of my points through my Southwest Credit card. The flight itself went without any problems and we landed at 8:30 AM at Tampa Bay International Airport and that is where I made a rare travel blunder….

After taking Uber all the way from Tampa Bay to our hotel in Clearwater Beach I realized I had left my bag on the curb… So I took the same Uber driver all the way back to the airport and the bag was already gone but my water bottle was still sitting there. I contacted lost and found, talked with all the airline baggage attendants, and even talked with traffic officers and the bag was gone. Luckily it was one of my smaller bags and I didn’t have any of my valuables in it. I didn’t have to take an Uber back as my friend was driving in at the same time so that was fortunate as well. On the way back we stopped by a grocery store to pick clothes for myself, lunch, drinks, and food for the weekend. Despite landing at 8:30 AM I didn’t really get to Clearwater Beach until noon but my girlfriend was able to enjoy the hotel.