Our early-morning flight turned into a mid-morning flight thanks to late arrival of the incoming aircraft and Air Traffic Control restrictions; unfortunately, we didn’t discover that we’d been delayed until after we had left our hotel and gotten through security, so we had plenty of time to have breakfast in SFO Terminal 3 before having second breakfast on the plane about 11am Pacific. :-) And we did get to enjoy the miniature Golden Gate Bridge they’ve added to the airport roadway~

We got to our Tampa hotel, the JW Marriott, about 7pm Eastern; it’s the University of Michigan football team’s headquarters hotel for the ReliaQuest Bowl, so there are a lot of big guys wearing Michigan gear here! Our room overlooks the water, and if you look very carefully, you can see a menorah atop one of the buildings across the water.

After dinner, we walked the Riverwalk, passing the Winter Festival and the University of Tampa (which Apple Photos identified as a convent in Moscow!).

Tomorrow, we board the American Glory for our cruise to Key West.

We have an early flight tomorrow from SFO, so we decided to spend the night at the Grand Hyatt and get up at a more civilized hour than we’d need to awaken tomorrow if we were at home.

We stopped on our way here to visit an old friend for dinner, Max’s ; they had a special Hanukkah menu and I had the brisket with latkes (no photo, sorry), while Diane chose the mini-Reuben sandwich (which was a much better choice); we split a chocolate-dipped macaroon, too.

We checked into the hotel and took the AirTrain to the terminal so we could walk off dinner and see a little of the airport’s art collection.

It was odd walking through the terminal unencumbered by luggage; it was also a very quiet time to be in the terminal, with many of the airline counters closed for the evening. We circumnavigated the pre-security corridors and returned to the hotel to rest before tomorrow’s adventure.