Having moved less than two weeks ago to a brand new state, this vacation crept up on us without any warning. Before I knew it, we were loading suitcases in the car early in the morning, looking at each other unsure of where the airport was. Fortunately, my husband had loaded the destination in his GPS the day before and within 10 minutes we were circling the parking ramp at the airport in Birmingham. Once we entered the airport, it was quite clear this was much smaller than General Mitchell which we are used to. There was almost no line for security and even though our gate was the furthest away, it was still quite a short walk (with a Starbucks next door!).
We took advantage of lower airfares by flying on Thanksgiving Day which would give us three days to enjoy Ft. Lauderdale before our cruise leaves on Sunday. An added bonus was that first class airfare was not much more, which we couldn't resist. We had never flown first class before.
Upon boarding, we were offered drinks and sat back in large seats with plenty of leg room. The first flight was only about 30 minutes so probably not really worth the first class experience, but we took full advantage of it on our second flight where I enjoyed complimentary champagne (which they refilled several times) and my husband watch a movie on a large screen.
We landed in Ft. Lauderdale around 1:00 p.m. and were at our hotel, the Sleep Inn & Suites Ft. Lauderdale International Airport, before 2:00 p.m. On the shuttle ride in, we drove by a pond with a ton of birds just a few blocks from our hotel so after settling in the hotel we decided to take a walk.
There wasn't a lot open on Thanksgiving so we ended up at a Walmart Neighborhood Market for food we could take back to the room and then enjoyed some time by the pool.
Our hotel was walking distance from the Hollywood Beach and the boardwalk so that is were we spent our day today.
The walk to and from the beach goes past West Lake Park where birds and lizards were plentiful.
We walked about seven miles today and the weather could not have been more beautiful!
We had lunch at The Taco Spot, a restaurant right on the boardwalk with tables outside where there was a gentle ocean breeze and the people watching was fun. I had the ceviche which was so good. My husband enjoyed his chicken tacos. And of course we had to get the chips, salsa, and guacamole!
Then we rented a couple of chairs and a cabana and enjoyed a few hours on the beach.
After six hours at the beach, we found dinner at Hunan Wok, a Chinese restaurant near the hotel and relaxed the rest of the evening.
Today's adventure took us to the Anne Kolbe Nature Center which is part of the West Lake Park, less than a mile down the road from our hotel. West Lake Park consists of estuaries (lakes that have access to the ocean and so are brackish). Mangroves (trees that live in water) dominate the scenery in this park. The Anne Kolbe Nature Center offers exhibits about the mangroves and ocean life, has several walking trails, an observation tower, and offers nature guided boat tours.
Before we even made it to the nature center, we stumbled across these adorable green lizards who had made this beautiful red plant their home.
We were two of six who took the 10:40 a.m. boat tour with Captain Ed. On the tour we saw red, white, and black mangroves, root crabs, mangrove tree crabs, white ibises, osprey, and a tern.
Root Crab (red creature on the root right near the water)
white ibis near the water line
tern (an ocean bird that made it's way into the estuaries)
mangrove tree crabs on the trunk of this tree
We then wandered the mud flat trail.
See the small lizard with the red head in the center of the photo
These next few photos and video are of a great egret, usually a bird easily spooked so we were amazed at how long we were able to watch him.
(Video taken by my husband)
The observation tower gave great views of the whole park, Ft. Lauderdale, and the ocean. If you looked carefully you could even see a couple of cruise ships parked at Port Everglades.
We also checked out the lake observation trail and the trail to the fishing pier.
At 2:00 p.m., they had a talk and feeding at their aquariums in the nature center so we stopped by to watch them feed fish native to the mangroves as well as some other fun saltwater fish like the Florida Spiny Lobster and star fish. As we headed out of the park, we took just a small part of the south trail which gave us views of the intracoastal waterway before heading back to the hotel.
Something doesn't look quite right in this picture...
I believe this is a juvenile white ibis.
Our late lunch/early dinner was delivery pizza from the Cyber Pizza Cafe which was pretty good. We spent some time in the evening relaxing by the side of the pool where I worked on my blog as my husband enjoyed youtube videos. It was a bit surreal to be sitting poolside in late November, under palm trees after sunset, wearing our light, summer clothes.
