Seeing the Sights

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Day 2 & 3 Blog – Ft. Lauderdale



Wednesday and Thursday saw us exploring some of the history of this city and some of the natural sights offered in the Everglades National Park.



On Wednesday we took ourselves off on a 5.33 kilometer walk (Michael said it didn’t look far on the map (ha!), but I did make it. B.) into an area call Las Olas which is along the New River. This area is part of the historical center of the city.



When we started out the temperature and humidity were pleasant, but after the 5+ K walk we sure felt the effects of both the temp and humidity. We stopped for lunch at an Italian Restaurant and enjoyed an excellent lunch at a curbside table.



Sufficiently refreshed we ambled over to the Stranahan House for a tour of one of the oldest buildings in Fort Lauderdale. The House was built in 1901 and has successfully avoided being torn down or moved to make way for some pricey piece of development.



After the tour we decided that a walk back to the hotel was out of the question so we elected to take the Water Taxi. The course followed by the Taxi was much the same route followed by the Jungle Queen the day before but it was good to see some of the mega mansions and yachts again.



The day ended with a torrential rain storm that moved in from the north. Part of the same system that has been dumping heavy snows back home.



I had gone for a walk down to the harbor entrance and got caught in the downpour. Fortunately one of the neighboring hotels had beach cabanas so I sought shelter until the rain let up enough to scamper back to our hotel.



Thursday morning we were picked up by our good friends Lois & Brian, who were in the Ft. Lauderdale area on a driving vacation. We headed south and west to a location known as Shark Valley, which is part of the Everglades National Park.



At that location we took a two hour tram ride through a very small portion of the 1.2 million acre preserve and had an opportunity to see many different birds, alligators, fish, and one or two turtles. The tour was conducted by an experienced guide who provided a detailed commentary for the entire trip. This is certainly a tour that one could repeat, especially in a different season.



One of the interesting things we encountered was that even us “retired” folk have become reliant on the new electronic gadgets. B&L’s GPS unit decided to go completely dead on us so we had to rely on that good old fashioned navigation format – the printed map - to find the restaurant we wanted and our way back north to Ft. Lauderdale.



Reading maps at night in an unfamiliar location can lead to some interesting adventures especially when you exit the freeway and turn one or two streets before you should. Result you end up in some very interesting places. In our case we ended up in a highly secured area of the Port. Fortunately the security guards understood our dilemma, I don’t think we were the first visitors to have come their way. They took pity on us and one of their crew actually acted as an escort and led us through the Port back to the highway we were originally looking for and eventually we got back to the hotel.



Interestingly while we were waiting for the additional security officer to arrive with a truck the men at the gate questioned us if we had any concealed weapons in the car. One of the men clearly stated to his colleague “No they are Canadians – they won’t have any”. The same gentleman asked what we were up to for the rest of the week and when we informed him that we were catching a ship on Friday he asked which one. Turned out that he had just come returned recently from a Caribbean cruise on the Maasdam; he even had his most recent edition of the Mariner Magazine with him to read on his evening shift. Bonding in a security zone where we weren’t meant to be!

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Comments

[Gillian Wade]

Well, it\'s definitely Bon Voyage. We\'ll be watching you leave on Webcam. Have a fabulous time. Gill & Roger