Today is the first day of our vacation, which has seemed slow to arrive. We will be driving down to Port St. Lucie, Florida today, the first leg of the journey to the cruise port in Ft. Lauderdale. Stephanie and I have stayed overnight here before on our way to previous cruises. It is about an eight hour drive from home, and leaves us with a little over ninety minutes drive to Ft. Lauderdale. The hotels are reasonable here since we are not yet in the favorite Florida vacation destinations. In addition, there are some nice restaurants in the area, and several stores if we discovered we have left anything at home we needed for the cruise.
Beth and Ryan arrived at our house about 8:45 AM, and we loaded up their luggage into our Expedition, and left right on time at 9:00 AM.
Overall, the traffic was quite good, with only some heavier traffic in and around the larger cities on the route down I-95. We stopped for gas and lunch at the Pilot Travel Plaza on Exit 1 in Georgia, which was where we always used to stop on many past journeys between South Carolina and Florida. The gas prices are always less in Georgia than Florida due to the differences in taxes.
There was a Wendy’s at the travel plaza so we combined the stop for our bodily refueling as well as vehicle refueling.
The weather was good for the entire day, and we made it to Port St. Lucie at about 5:00 PM. We checked into our double queen room at the Hampton Inn and Suites, and after taking up our luggage, we all had a glass of wine in the room to celebrate our arrival and to relax a little before heading out to dinner.
We decided to eat at the Chile’s about a mile away from the hotel, having eaten there on previous stays in Port St. Lucie. The restaurant was really crowded, which was not surprising since it was about 6:00 PM on a Friday. However, after a short wait, we were able to get a table in the bar area.
The dinner was good, but we all ate too many of the chips and salsa before our actual dinners arrived, so we struggled to finish all of our main courses, especially with a side or two of 2 for 1 draft beers.
We did not stay out long, it had been a tiring day of driving and early wake up times this morning for the final preparations for our trip. We headed back to the room to relax and finish off the wine from earlier. By 10:00 PM, we were all getting sleepy, so we turned in for the night. We set the wake up call for 7:00 AM tomorrow so that we can eat the hotel’s buffet breakfast and be ready to leave around 9:00 AM for the final leg of the drive to Ft. Lauderdale.