Ft. Lauderdale 2011

My friend Steve and I have a date each year.  We meet up in Southern Florida on a Friday night and we part ways on Sunday around noon.  The last few years we have met up in South Beach, but this year the cruise he was taking was leaving from Ft. Lauderdale, so we met up there.

His flight arrived at 7:30pm and I was right on time to pick him up.   Considering I had a 6 hour drive on a Friday I was pretty surprised I arrived in the nick of time!  Actually, I had hoped to arrive early enough to check into our room, but I had car issues.

My car was in the shop and was supposed to be ready for me to pick up on Friday morning, but new issues were discovered and it wouldn't be ready, so I drove the loaner car from the dealership.

It was dark when Steve and I arrived at the hotel, but in the daylight hours, this is what the Sea Club Resort looks like.  It's not the Hilton or the Marriot, that's for sure :)  But it was about 5 steps up from the Cavalier in South Beach!   We received free parking and dollar off coupons for breakfast and for drinks in the evening.  Internet actually worked from the room, which was so great because I got to share a bunch of things with Steve. 

The Deck Restaurant, which was part of the club, was pretty good.  We ate breakfast there each morning (11:00am is considered morning, right?)   Friday night we went to dinner and then came back to The Deck for drinks.  I had water, no lemon please.  I can't remember what Steve had, but we were able to use the drink coupons :)

Two of the three times we were at the restaurant we sat in the same table.  We had a real nice pool view, don't ya think?  I took this picture with my phone.

Steve was making plans for us for the next day, so I used that opportunity when he was preoccupied, to sneak up on him and take a quick pic.   What a sweet photo of him - I love it.

Steve and I went to the beach on Saturday.  He asked me if I could take a few photos of him for his facebook profile, so we brought along a few shirts and did a little mini photo shoot.  It was fun!   I'm really not used to people photos, so we were pretty awkward and I had trouble trying to figure out where to take the shots - but we got three nice shots I think. 

When we walked down closer to the water we saw all of these blue balloon-like things all on the high tide line.  It looked like they had slimy tentacles on the bottom of them, too.  I asked a few people if they knew what they were but no one knew.

I assumed that these little fellas were sea creatures and that if I touched one I'd be in a heap of trouble.  Turns out I was probably right.  These are Portuguese Man-of-War and according to Wikipedia, "Detached tentacles and dead specimens (including those that wash up on shore) can sting just as painfully as the live creature in the water, and may remain potent for hours or even days after the death of the creature or the detachment of the tentacle."

It looked really interesting to have a whole line of blue balloons laying on the beach, but according to some news reports, hundreds of people had been stung the past few days from the unusual influx of these creatures. 

I stayed clear from them and I remained unscathed. 

One more look at the beautiful blue water.  It was cold and rainy here in Jacksonville today, so even though I was just in this beautiful weather, it seems like so long ago!  I hardly left the house it was so icky out.

Boo Hoo, right?  haha

Hope you have a great day!  More sunshiney photos tomorrow.
Kristin