Travel Blog

On the first morning of the new decade Hania and I drove to lunch at Coconuts, our progress delayed by the raised bridge over the Intracoastal.

“Do you still feed the pelicans?” I asked the hostess as she led us to a table near the water. “We feed the fish,” she corrected me, “and the pelicans jump in.” A few sat on the dock below, while five of their buddies perched on the railing of a nearby yacht.

As I ate my jambalaya and Hania her delicious crab cake salad – you know the crab cakes are good when celiacs can eat them – people cruised up in their boats for lunch.

It was such a gorgeous day, especially after weeks of rain, that we drove up A1A – the beaches so crowded they made me think of Spring Break (now not then) – to Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, where we turned left on Commercial, and caught another bridge. We drove south on Bayshore Drive – past Cardinal Gibbons High School and the George English Tennis Center – and then through Victoria Park, parking eventually behind Ann’s Florist and Coffee Bar on Las Olas, where we had tea and a coconut macaroon.

Finished, we strolled the boulevard as far as the Stranahan House, where we hopped on a water taxi. It was a busy day on the river – pleasure boats, sightseeing boats, the outsized gondola, a garbage collecting boat, which all added to the big city feel the new riverfront towers and crowded sidewalks created. We idled waiting for the railroad bridge to open – thwarted even on water – sailed west as far as Esplanade Park, and then returned through a light chop.

Back in the car we drove to Taron River Brewing Co. – catching the 3^rd Avenue Bridge – and sat at a table set up on the sidewalk. “Fort Lauderdale would be a wonderful place,” I said to Hania between sips of my IPA, “if only more of our friends lived here.”

On the way home we drove down SW 10^th Terrace and took a picture of the peacock sitting on a fence.