Tampa 2021: Diary – Day 7

We got up when the alarms went off eager to start the day and get to the tournament. We got dressed, gathered our belongings, and checked out. Since it was a free night certificate we didn’t owe any balance. A zero balance is a beautiful sight!

Tournament Day

Tomatico wanted Panera Bread for breakfast and I found one in Google Maps that was on the way. Unfortunately when we got to it, we found it was located inside a hospital. If it was even open, it was unclear if we could enter the hospital and I’m pretty sure we didn’t want to do that during a pandemic if we didn’t have to. We decided to just keep going and find something else on the way. There weren’t any other Panera Bread locations but we found a Dunkin, because there’s always a Dunkin close by in the Northeast!

We arrived at the gym where the tournament was held and got signed in and ready for his first match. It was pretty exciting! Over the course of the day he had four matches. While he lost his first match, he won the rest of them and won the consolation bracket. Not bad for his first tournament! The person he lost to won the whole tournament easily so at least he lost to the winner! It was a great experience overall.

Back to NYC

After his last match we drove into NYC to meet up with my wife and her brother so we could drive home. We got the address and started driving through the afternoon traffic. About halfway there Tomatico got a text from his uncle that they were in a different place so he updated the address in my phone for me.

Unfortunately, when we got to that address it wasn’t the right place. It was the right road and number in Queens, but the zip code was wrong and the real destination was about 15 minutes away through traffic. Ugh.

We finally made it to the correct place and met up with the rest of the family. We headed to a local diner for something to eat and to celebrate Tomatico’s first tournament before heading to my brother in law’s apartment to pick up the rest of the luggage. It was slow going with traffic.

The drive home was relatively uneventful with minimal traffic interruptions once we got out of the city. We were all happy to be home, even though it was late. We had some soccer games the next day, but otherwise had the next day recover before heading back to work and school!