The Americas...North & South

Greater Fort Lauderdale boasts 37 km of “blue wave” awarded beaches, which means they have been deemed to be clean, managed responsibly and have a focus on protection of the environment. Since I don’t have the patience anymore to be a sun worshipper, I chose to do a 7 km walk along the promenade. It is a very clean beach with fine white sand. There were the usual homeless people but mostly locals and tourists enjoying the sunshine and a warm 25 degrees. The lifeguard stations were flying the purple flag to indicate the presence of jellyfish or man-o-war in the ocean so very few people, likely northerners, were in the water. We are located in the Northern part of Fort Lauderdale so the beach is much quieter, compared to the Las Olas area with all the open-air bars and restaurants. After lunch JS joined me on the short walk to Publix. It’s also a nice walk as we have to go over the Intracoastal Waterway. There is a forecasted windchill near -40 C in Winnipeg tonight so I’m grateful to be here!En savoir plus

It was time to head North, although today we were only going as far as Orlando. Our flight didn’t leave until 11:25 am tomorrow but since it’s a 4 hour drive (which includes several pit-stops for JS) on the Florida Turnpike we knew we had to play it safe and get to a hotel near the airport today. It rained heavily for the first 2 hours but that didn’t slow the speed of the other drivers. It’s no wonder that there are so many fatal accidents reported on the nightly news, along with the shootings, armed robberies, car jackings and other illegal happenings. Although in recent times, Winnipeg is no utopia either.En savoir plus