Florida Day 7: Tuesday, October 24, 2006

We began the day with breakfast at Starbucks (they have food too) and set out for Flamingo Gardens in Davie. Beautiful place. The weather was COLD... only 50s or 60s...I didn't think South Florida could get so cold! Anyway, it was the perfect day to visit a wildlife sanctuary. We saw flamingoes (real ones, not plastic ones...Baltimore humor), all kinds of birds of prey, herons, alligators, box turtles, sea turtles, and a bobcat, just to name a few.

Following that, we didn't want to go all the way back to Weston to have lunch, so we had a "lunch" of fruit smoothies before heading to the beach. Oh my word. Ever see "The Amazing Race"? That's what getting to the beach was like. We had to get on the interstate, get off at Rt. 1, and struggle to find parking while the Stratus dinged at us, demanding more gas. Boy that car guzzled gas! Finally we found parking which we paid through the nose for, and bounded a few steps to the beach.

In process on the beach was a sandstorm. The sand was very coarse, like in Ocean City...not like the fine, smooth sand of Wildwood. And this coarse sand was constantly whipping around us in the strong winds and hitting us in the face. We had to weigh down our towels to keep them from blowing away. And there was only one other family on the beach near us. It was because of the Fort Lauderdale boat show, I believe, that there was so little parking available. We lay out for a while, but the sand was killing us. We each went into the turquoise water, but after maybe 30 feet there's this huge DROP that I dared not fall into, so I didn't go in that far. We left after about an hour and a half, convinced that Fort Lauderdale is overrated and that we preferred the beaches of Wildwood.

Upon returning to the apartment in Weston, MFP once again had a huge headache, so he took some ibuprofen and slept, while I showered and then enjoyed the pool again for a while. After several hours, we showered again and then had dinner at the Palm Grill (mmm!) again. (It really is a good restaurant.) We went back to the apartment, did some packing, and watched Kathy Griffin's comedy special on Bravo.