Okay, so I've been in Florida for a week now and figure it's about time I updated my blog. I arrived here last Friday morning and friend Jane has had me on a whirlwind tourist agenda ever since. We went to a beachfront concert in Pompano Beach that Friday night - a great "Southern Rock" group called Blue Fire (http://www.bluefireband.com/). They're phenomenal, especially the gal fiddler.
On Saturday, we went to Hillsboro Lighthouse with Jane's friend Louise. Jane and I climbed to the top and I - of course - spent some time chatting with the two fellas at top who were the guides for the day there. View was spectacular. . . . You only get a small idea of what the ocean looks like from ground-level, but from up in the lighthouse you really appreciate how clean and beautiful the ocean is here.
I've been getting up a bit early nearly every morning I've been here. Some mornings I've had breakfast on the balcony of the motel and watched and photographed the sunrise over the ocean. Jane has supplied me with some of her homemade yogurt and I've mixed-in strawberries, raspberries and bananas. It's great to sit out on the balcony and enjoy that for breakfast as I watch the sunrise.
We also went on an airboat thru the Everglades the other day. Alligators and turtles swam right up to the boat. They also had a small zoo of local wildlife at the place. It was fun. . . . I even got to hold a small cayman alligator in my hands. I said "I hope he's been fed today" before I realized he had some electrical tape around his nose.
We've gone out to lunch and dinner quite a few times. On Tuesday, Jane took me to a nice restaurant - The Sea Watch - for dinner for my birthday. She had Mahi-Mahi and I had broiled scallops. Melt-in-your-mouth tasty. The view of the ocean - as well as that of my nice hostess sitting across the table from me - was very enjoyable!
On Wednesday Jane and Louise and Louise's friend John and I went on a catamaran sunset sail into the ocean near Fort Lauderdale. Saw a lot of waterfront mansions and yachts. . . the young fella at the helm rattled off the names of a lot of famous folks who lived there. Best part of the sail was when we got out onto the ocean and under sail. The cat pitched, rolled and yawed like a slow roller coaster. It was funny, too, that we met a couple - one-year marrieds - from Germany and found that they had only the day before also taken an airboat ride and would be visiting Kennedy Space Center (like US) on the following day and that they'd also be flying up to New York to see the city. The young fellow told me that they'd be staying at The Edison Hotel in NYC and I told them that I had only just walked past that hotel last _week_ (cousin Patricia and I went to the city a week ago Wednesday to see a revival of the Broadway play "The Best Man," and The Edison Hotel is right around the corner from the theater).
Yesterday we took a road-trip and drove up to Kennedy Space Center. I was there _years_ ago and it has changed a lot since then. The Visitors' Center exhibits and movies were exciting, but the best part of the trip there _now_ was going out to the Space Shuttle Launch Pad and seeing it up-close. Tours of the Launch Pad have _never_ been given in the past and it was only one week ago that they began the program allowing visitors to take the bus out to the Pad. We also saw the last Space Shuttle - the Endeavour - in a hangar there and the huge Boeing 747 in another hangar. Today (September 14th) they are going to put that shuttle on top of the 747 and then this coming Monday they'll fly it off to Los Angeles, similar to the way they sent Discovery to Washington DC a couple of months ago. They said that the entire staff of the Space Center will line both sides of the road there on which the Shuttle will be brought to the hangar where the 747 is, to be piggybacked onto it. I think it is likely it will in the news over the course of the next few days.
So that's what I've been up to lately. There'll be more to come and I'll add more to the blog then.
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