Fort Lauderdale, Florida

November 18th, 2015

_________________________________


Time to try and catch up again! We took the second part of our anniversary cruises to the Caribbean. We left our 5th wheel at Soledad Canyon Thousand Trails in Acton, California. We had Super Shuttle pick us up at the RV Park and take us to LAX. Amazingly the luggage I won on The Price is Right came the day after the show aired so we were able to use it on this trip. It is amazing stuff!

Our flight on Southwest was from LAX to FLL which is Fort Lauderdale Airport. There was a stop in Dallas to drop off and pick up, but we stayed on the plane. When we arrived in Fort Lauderdale we picked up our rental car. We arrived five days early so we could do some sight seeing. We have never been to Florida and wanted to look around before the cruise.

We got blessed on the rental car. Cars are expensive to rent in Florida. for five days you actually rent for a week. The cheapest rates for mid-size (when did Nissan Sentras become mid-size?) were about $350 per week including taxes.

We had rented off airport from Firefly which is owned by Hertz for $118.00 including tax! Great deal. Here's the problem. I started reading really bad reviews and was getting concerned that I made a mistake. Cheaper is not always the best value. They would NEVER answer their phone!

About a month before our trip I received an e-mail from the company I booked it through saying Firefly had decided to quit renting in Fort Lauderdale but Thrifty Rental was honoring the reservations. I e-mailed them and got a confirmation that Thrifty was not just honoring the reservation, but honoring the price even though it was onsite (airport). Onsite is usually much higher and taxes can be $60-70 bucks by themselves. I was assured in writing it would be!

We got to the airport and guess what? Thrifty did not want to honor it. After putting the confirmation and written agreement in their hand, they honored it, but with major attitude! After leaving the desk, everyone else was very nice and I got an almost new Sentra with only 8K miles on it.

We checked into our hotel and then went to dinner. I had read a review about a great sandwich shop called Laspada's. We got the Monster Sub and shared it. The reviews were correct and in fact when we got back from our road trip we came back for seconds!

Laspada's

The next day we did Lauderdale. We started at the Fun Center Segway's. Different from our Seattle Segway rides that was a tour of Seattle, this was a tour of the Hugh Taylor Birch State Park. Much of the tour was off-road. It turned out that it was just Patty and I and the tour guides on our tour!

Here we are under the large Banyan Trees.

Banyan Trees

We followed the trail. There were a lot of low tree limbs and spiders and webs. We were having to constantly duck under the limbs and webs.

Spiderman!

It had rained a lot before we arrived here. part of the trail had turned into a swamp. The guide was not sure if we should try and go through it. I said we were game! He said just follow my tracks, I in turn told Patty to follow mine. I went fast to keep my momentum up and made it through. Patty followed mine also but went to slow and high sided in my tracks. She started spinning her tires and her Segway slowly fell backwards landing her in the mud!

Segway Endo

The good news is because it was slow and muddy it didn't hurt her, the bad news is her clothes needed a good washing! LOL!

Segway Mudding

After a quick trip to Walmart for some new Capri's and T-shirt we went to the Strawgrass Recreational Area to ride an airboat.

Sawgrass Airboat

These are great for running over grasses that grow in the waters and marshes of Florida. The propulsion is from the giant air fan in the back of the boat. We were able to get the front row as we headed out to look for alligators.

Front Row

The captain found this alligator. It is the first in the wild alligator we have ever seen. He stood between us and the alligator, just in case! It was maybe 12-14 feet long.

Alligator

Our captain touched the alligator on it's snout and got it to open it's mouth. He would not let us take pictures of that because he said his bosses would not allow that! You can see how close to the boat he is here.

Big Alligator

After the boat ride we decided to head into Miami and go to "Little Havana". Calle Ocho or 8th Street is the main street in Little Havana. There are multiple large and colorful chickens up and down the street having to do with an original Little Havana resident.

Little Havana

In many TV shows and movies you see Cuban/American people playing Dominoes in a park. Well guess what? There really is a Dominoes park here and the locals really play here!

Domino Park

The park was jammed with locals playing Dominoes.

Playing Dominoes

After checking some shops we asked some people in very broken spanish where to get the best Cuban food. It was almost unanimous that El Cristo was the best. Without knowing what to get we thought we would give it a try. The waitress fortunately spoke great english and actually had a great time with us. I had the Gran Churrasco which was a beef dinner.and Patty had a chicken based dinner. It came with plantains (2 different kinds), and beans and rice. The soup was a split pea. It didn't come with it but the waitress kept bringing us stuff for free so we could try stuff.

El Cristo Dinner

When we were done, she brought Patty some Cuban Coffee. It comes in a small cup which according to Patty is good because it is so strong like a quadruple shot of espresso!

Cuban Coffee

The dinner was really good. We had a very full day! Tomorrow we head to Key West. We actually have Key West as the last port on our two week Caribbean Cruise but we want to drive the total of 113 miles of roadway and 42 overseas bridges the consist the Overseas Highway.

Overseas Highway

Although the Highway is 113 miles it is actually about 200 miles from Fort Lauderdale to Key West. We will drive straight to Key West in one day, spend the night and then take two days to come back spending the night about half way in Key Largo.

That's it for today,

Thanks for reading and God Bless you,

Brian and Patty