Day 65: Family Time in St. Pete
Last night we decided that we would leave the area a day early to head north and get ahead of the weather. We were bummed as we have been looking forward to getting to see Rob’s two cousins and uncle since we knew we were heading to Florida. Fortunately, his cousin Kristina and her amazing kids were still able to meet up with us for a bit. She lives in St. Petersburg so we packed up the RV and headed her way since it was the direction we needed to go anyway.
Before leaving Siesta Key we needed to do a quick visit to the famous beach here. Would you believe with all these pictures we were there for less than 10 minutes? Cooper enjoyed running in the “squeaky sand,” Nicholas chased the birds, we took some pictures, noted how huge the white sandy beach was here, and then headed out again. We really wished we could have spent more time.
We piled back in the RV, and Rob drove us to St. Petersburg to meet up with Kristina. She later told us the Skyway bridge closes when there are high winds, so we are glad we made it over before that. We walked out to the end of the new pier in some very crazy windy conditions. Kristina’s kids are very similar in age difference to ours, and it was fun to remember back when the boys were 1.5 & 3.5 while hanging out with her adorable littles.
When walking back to the RV there were snow cones and ice cream stands the boys felt they HAD to have. The lines were long and we were at the limit of the 2-hour parking, so we offered them ice cream after lunch back at the RV. Embarrassingly, Rob and I have already polished off 3.5 tubs of Blue Bell Cookie Two Step (cookie dough and cookies ‘n’ cream combined together) all by ourselves. Today was the first day we shared some with the boys; before today we have only eaten it at night after they go to bed.
While wrapping up lunch I saw some lights when glancing out the back window. Wouldn’t you know it the traffic enforcers were parked behind us. I went out to let them know we were inside, but apparently that doesn’t matter, two hours was two hours and our time was up. Luckily, he hadn’t already written us a ticket and he gave us the extra ten minutes we needed to finish up lunch and get moving again. We headed north not sure exactly where we would end up since we didn’t have a spot booked for the night.
We ended up staying the night in a rest stop along the freeway, a first for us. We had read to not park in the semi truck spots, so we opted for a little ways away from the main bathrooms and in the RV parking row. It was not the best night of rest, since it was a bit noisy due to all the truck and car traffic.
