July 29-30, 2006: Rudolf Lowenstein Visits Dallas
	July 1-10, 2006: Our Summer Trip to Glacier National Park
	Return to Index for 2006

It took a week or so after we returned from our spectacular Glacier NP trip for me to get back into my routines in Dallas, and then turn around and prepare for another week's excursion down to Fort Lauderdale. As usual, I have been timing these trips to coincide with the weekends that Fred spends with his mother in De Leon, Texas, and the 22nd and 23rd were his days to be down there, so my trip spanned that weekend.

Getting Settled

Also as usual, the flight down was uneventful, and when I arrived late Thursday night, I found the condo just as I had left it. Jack Fontaine does an excellent job of keeping an eye on it when I'm not there. I didn't do much on Friday except some grocery shopping and a short bike ride over to the beach, and then I met Ty and Scott out that evening.

Dinner with Ron Drew

I'd contacted Ron Drew before coming down, and we'd made a date for dinner at his house on Saturday. He and Leroy have a third person living in the house, now, and his name is John Molina. The last time Leroy had been gone for a while, Ron advertised for a roommate, since he hates to be all by himself, and Ron had already accepted John as that roommate when Leroy returned, so now the three of them share the sizeable house in northwest Fort Lauderdale.

On Saturday evening, I stopped and picked up a key lime pie for dessert and then arrived at Ron's house about six-thirty. John was already hard at work cooking dinner (as you'll see if you use the movie player at right), and had, apparently, been doing so since early in the morning! John seemed like a really interesting person with a responsible job training clients in the use of medical computer software. He'd left another relationship earlier in the summer and didn't want to buy or rent his own place, not being certain of his own future plans, so rooming with the guys was ideal for him.

Like Leroy, he apparently does quite a bit around the house, including most of the cooking, which Ron says is uniformly great. Certainly the pot roast and trimmings that he made for dinner deserved accolades.

A Bike Ride to Boca Raton

Sunday was a beautiful day, so I thought I'd get an early start for a change and ride my new bike along the ocean. As I (and Fred) have done so many times before, I took a route that follows A1A north along the ocean towards Boca Raton and the other cities further north. This wasn't going to be an all-day affair, though. Been there, done that, but just enough to get some sun and exercise.

If you've looked at much of the photo album that has preceeded this entry, you have already seen just where this route goes, but, if you haven't, here it is. I start from the condo (the red star on the map) and head over to the beach on Las Olas Boulevard:

On this particular Sunday morning, as I passed The Floridian restaurant (a place that's a five-minute walk from the condo, open 24 hours, and patronized by me at least once on every trip [and marked by the green star on the map]), I could see that the bikers were just finishing up their breakfast. Once you cross the Intracoastal Waterway and hit the beach, you are on Route A1A, and I almost always bike north as you can go a lot further and see a lot more. (Heading south would take you across the 17th Street Bridge and the Intracoastal, because Everglades Inlet isn't crossed by a bridge. So if you want to bike south towards Miami, you have to get on a non-bike-friendly highway and go five miles around the Everglades Harbor- past the airport and through Dania- before you can get back to the oceanside. It's a real hassle, and not for the faint-of-heart.

But north along A1A there are usually bike lanes, and you are usually right at oceanside, so it's really a great way to go. We know the route by heart and I, at least, have traveled it a great many times. Boca Raton is about 20 miles up the road, and the bridge that crosses the South Boca Raton Inlet is a good place to use as a goal- assuming you have three hours or so to spend biking. When I got to the bridge, I stopped at the small park just south of the inlet, and took a movie of the South Boca Raton Inlet. If you want the orientation, my pan covered southeast to northwest, between the arrows on the map. Use the player below to watch the movie:

Then it was a turnaround and back to the condo. This is always a fine ride, and I can do it almost with my eyes closed. It's familiar and it's pretty easy and it's a good way to get some sun and exercise.

Sunrise at the Beach

For some reason, I woke up particularly early on Tuesday and just couldn't get back to sleep, so I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to do something I'd never yet done- watch the sun come up over the ocean. So I checked the Internet for the time of the sunrise for that day, and headed off to the beach on my bike about 45 minutes ahead of time. I got there as the eastern sky was getting light, and took up a position on the seawall along A1A and waited, camera at the ready. As the sun came up, I took these three pictures:

I also took a movie of the sunrise over the ocean at Fort Lauderdale beach, and you can watch it with the player below:

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful, with just some bike rides and visits with Ron Drew and Ty and Scott. The only unusual thing was that, apparently, a sailboat owner had some trouble with his sailboat on Tuesday night, and had to tie up his boat to our docks until he could have it repaired. So on Wednesday, a very nice sailboat graced our docks.

On Friday afternoon, I left to return to Dallas to prepare for the visit of an Internet email pen pal from England.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	July 29-30, 2006: Rudolf Lowenstein Visits Dallas
	July 1-10, 2006: Our Summer Trip to Glacier National Park
	Return to Index for 2006