From Lafayette over to Baton Rouge is the most interesting part of the trip. Although this part of Interstate 10 is quite old and not in the best shape, the scenery makes up for the hassle of so much truck traffic on such an old highway. Most of the distance takes you through the Atchafalaya swamp.

At the west end of the swamp, the highway elevates bo become a causeway, and you travel for ten miles or so until the highway descends temporarily to connect up with Louisiana 3177, a small state road that wanders through the basin, and leads to the tiny hamlet of Butte LaRose, about five miles south of the Interstate. One of these days, I'd like to get off there and see what it is like, although I can tell from the aerial view of the town that, while it must be very scenic, what with all the water around, it is quite in the middle of nowhere.

A bit further on, we pass an exit for what I always thought was a little town (and one with an interesting name), but which I later found out was actually nothing at all- not even the actual Whiskey Bay, which is way down by the Mississippi Delta southeast of New Orleans. It always struck me as the kind of place where Jimmy Buffet would live. After a while, the causeway comes to an end, and shortly after that, we head up over the Baton Rouge bridge over the Mississippi River. For a couple hundred miles after that, the highway is pretty non-descript. About the only interesting thing is the fact that we traverse the entire length of I-12- one of the few Interstate highways in this country (not counting spurs and loops) that I have driven end-to-end, and the ONLY one I have driven end-to-end in a single stretch. Not such an amazing feat when you consider that I-12 is less than 100 miles long.

There is a pretty neat tunnel and bridge over by Mobile, and some interesting scenery around Jacksonville, but the rest of the drive is just steering and stopping for gas occasionally (very occasionally, since I seem to be getting right around 40MPG in my Elantra). Fred took some other pictures of Tyger while we drove, and I have put thumbnails for five of the best of these below. Click on those thumbnails to view the full-size images:

By the middle of the next afternoon, we'd pulled into my parking space at Riverview Gardens.

At the Condo With Tyger

We have been here to Florida and the condo so often that there is little left for us to take pictures of. By now, you know what the condo and Riverview Gardens look like, you've seen us sitting at the dock drinking, and you have seen innumerable pictures of boats going up and down the river. Heck, you've walked with us on the beach more than once, and you've seen pictures of just about everyone we know here in Fort Lauderdale. But this trip, there is something new- our kitten Tyger. So the pictures we've taken around the condo are almost entirely focused on him and his antics.

So maybe the best thing to do is just to show you some of the best of the many, many pictures we took during our two weeks here. As always, click on the thumbnails to view the full size pictures. Begin with some pictures of Tyger in the condo:

Cats sleep a lot, but the funny thing is what they often look like when they do. Some cats curl up in the familiar pose. Others don't:

Did I mention that kittens sleep a lot, often in funny poses? See below:

Cat at Work Cats don't need to go find the nearest bathroom to wash up; they bring everything they need with them all the time, and can wash up anywhere.

Cat at Play You don't really need to go buy your kitten a lot of cat toys; after all, they always have at least one toy with them. It's their tail.

Click on the thumbnail images below to see some more pictures of Tyger around the condo:

Kittens Are Cute It doesn't much matter what kittens are doing; they are always photogenic. Here, Tyger is doing very little, but he's still awfully cute doing it.

Finally, here are a few more photos that I took, and so they are the first that show Fred (and our friend, Jack Fontaine); click on the thumbnails below to view:

The Fourth of July Fireworks

This is the first year that we have been in Fort Lauderdale on the 4th of July, and we planned to go watch a fireworks display somewhere in town. Ron and Jay didn't care to get out, so Fred and I walked over towards the beach and took up a position in the small park at the southwest end of the Las Olas bridge.

From there, we were able to get a great view of the fireworks display that was shot off from over on the beach a couple of blocks east. It was a good thing that we hadn't tried to drive over here; beginning a couple of blocks west of the bridge, the traffic just stopped, and people just got out of their cars in the middle of the street to watch the display. We stood or sat on the seawall by the Intracoastal Waterway and had a great view. I have put thumbnails for some of the pictures that Fred and I took of the display below; click on those thumbnails to have a look:

The Fireworks Display Here is a movie I made of part of the fireworks display. Though the pictures above didn't turn out that well, the movies do much better- especially at night.

The Finale Of course, the best and most explosive part of any fireworks display is the finale, and I captured the finale of this year's Fort Lauderdale display on film for you to watch.

The Riverview Gardens Ducks

It seems as if Riverview Gardens has some erstwhile mascots- a group of three or four ducks that are seen around the property occasionally. Fred and I have seen them before when we've been here, and they made another appearance during this vacation. Fred took a number of good pictures of me and them, and if you'll click on the thumbnail images below, you can have a look at them:

Nighttime at the Beach

One evening, we thought we would go over by the beach after returning from dinner out with Ron and Jay. We rarely go to the beach at nighttime, but it is a "happening" place most evenings. We parked at Sebastian Street and walked south to Las Olas.

We passed the brightly-lit and busy Beach Place (where Hooters is), and stopped occasionally along the beach wall to take some pictures. We ended up at the Las Olas intersection, where the city has put up an addition to the beach wall; it celebrates the city's centennial.

You can click on the thumbnails below to see some of the pictures we took:

Other Highlights of our Trip

Other than the events you've already seen, there wasn't much really new or unusual about our trip down here, but then that's about what we expect. We don't come down here to see the sights any longer; we've already seen and done just about everything there is to see and do within a hundred-mile radius around here, from Key West to Palm Beach to the western edges of civilization. But there were a couple of other occasions where Fred or I took some pictures.

Tyger Gets a Shower

One thing we did that we haven't done in years was to accept an invitation from Ron Drew to go down to Haulover Beach for a while. We drove down south of Fort Lauderdale and then over to A1A to park at the beach. We set up our chairs and towels at the beach and just sat in the cloudy sun and read or played backgammon for a couple of hours. We could have gone to a closer beach, but Haulover Beach is "clothing optional."

Of course we did some of our usual things, one of which is to walk from the condo to the Performing Arts Center along the Riverwalk, a route that you've seen numerous times in this album. One particular day, we stopped at the Briny Irish Pub for lunch.

I suppose the only other activity of note was to give Tyger his second shower; he got his first one in Dallas. Fred likes to do that to acclimatize the cats to water, so that later on, when they need a bath, it isn't much of a hassle to give them one. You can use this movie player to watch the process, and you can see a still picture of Fred and Tyger in mid-shower here.

The Trip Home

As usual, we took the same route home that we do coming down, heading first 300 miles up I-95 to Jacksonville. There, we take I-295 around the city on the southwest side, crossing the St. Johns River Bridge as we go. From Jacksonville, it is another 350 miles to the state line, and shortly after that we reach Mobile, Alabama, and the long causeway and tunnel that carry I-10 around downtown on the south side.

Then it is the familiar route along I-10, with an overnight in Lafayette, Louisiana, up I-49 to Shreveport, and then west on I-20 all the way into Dallas. As we were passing through downtown Dallas, Fred, as he often does, gets some pictures of the city, and you can see them if you click on the thumbnails at left.

Finally, as he did on the way down, Fred took a number of pictures of Tyger as we drove. I have selected the best of these to include here, and you can have a look at them by clicking on the thumbnails below:

This trip was another very pleasant one, but it is always good to get home.

You can use the links below to continue to the album page for different day.

	July 19-22, 2011: Visiting Frank and Joe and Ruckman Haus
	May 7-10, 2011: Guy's Birthday in San Antonio
	Return to Index for 2011