July 3-7, 2018: The Fourth of July in San Antonio
	June 10-11, 2018: A Visit With My Sister in Elon, NC
	Return to the Index for 2018

If we'd followed the same schedule as in past years, we would have gone to Florida for our early summer trip sometime in May, but with my college reunion falling at the end of the first week of June, we decided that since we were already so far east we would go ahead and spend a little under two weeks in Fort Lauderdale at the tail end of our trip to the reunion and to see my sister.

Getting to Fort Lauderdale

We got up fairly early as we were going to make the trip down to Fort Lauderdale in one day; it would be about as far, if perhaps a few miles longer, as the first day's driving when we come from Dallas. There will be less traffic, though, once we get past the early morning rush hour around Raleigh.

This will be the second or third time that we have driven to Florida from Burlington. The route from Burlington is even easier than the route from Dallas, requiring only one turn city to city. We were away from Burlington, kittens in tow, by eight-thirty, heading east on I-40/I-85.

Just west of Raleigh, I-85 peels off towards Richmond; we just continued on I-40 angling southeast towards Wilmington. The trip on I-40 from Burlington to our only turn to the south on I-95 was only about fifty miles, so we were turning south around ten in the morning. From that intersection it is a 750-mile trip to the Broward Boulevard exit in Fort Lauderdale- an eleven-hour trip. But it's all on I-95, with no turns, bypasses, construction detours or anything. We decided to do our normal thing of waiting on dinner until we arrived so we could have a frozen drink and go to the Floridian for dinner.

We made good time and arrived in Fort Lauderdale about eight PM; got the kittens squared away for a while, had our celebratory frozen drink at the dock, and were heading down Las Olas to the Floridian about 9PM.

This will be a very short trip, and we will be concentrating on getting the kittens litterbox trained and onto solid food. We will do our normal activities with Ron and Jay, but there won't be any particular side trips and, consequently, many photographs. There will be some boat and cat pictures, but that's about it.

The Boats

As you are undoubted aware, if you have visited any page in this album describing one of our trips to Florida, the condo that we have has great views from its living room window. One view looks northwest at downtown Fort Lauderdale; we have been able, over the years, to watch many of the city's new buildings rise up- just by looking out our window.

But we also have another view- almost directly west- and the condo is situated such that this view looks directly up the New River and through the downtown "canyon" that has been developing over the last twenty years, as new highrises are being built on both sides of the river. Part of the interesting nature of this view is the fact that we look directly at one of the Water Taxi stops- and a busy one at that. The yellow Water Taxis are ubiquitous on the river, and it seems that never more than fifteen minutes passes (at least during "season" when one stops where we can see it.

Both from our window and from the dock down by the river, we can see the almost constant parade of boats, big and small, that go by all day long, and we are always taking pictures of them. Not nearly so many as we used to, but at least a few on each trip we make. Here are a few that we took on this trip:

The Cats

In the last five years or so, we have almost always had at least one cat with us on our trips down here. We do this not only because it is nice to have one around, but also because it lessens the task we leave for Lynne, our pet sitter. This is the second time that we have had two new kittens with us, the first time being when we had Bob and his sister (his sister went to Nancy) with us a couple of years ago.

Gracie and Cole

In the ten days we spent down here, the progress of the two kittens has been amazing. Just a couple of days after we arrived, they were eating their first solid food, and only a few days later they were pretty regularly using the small litterbox we made. By the time we left they were eating both wet and dry solid food, and they were litterbox trained.

And they were a joy to have around and watch. Here are three of the best of the many pictures we took; there will be more on the Pets Page for this year:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

On the 21st, we reluctantly packed up our stuff and the two kittens and headed off for home. During the winter, it usually gets pretty dark long before we get to Mobile, but in the summer, the sun is usually just setting as we arrive there. This is not so good sometimes because the road is going pretty much due west- right into that setting sun. But the views, if the weather is clear, are worth the trouble:

Sunset Near Mobile

We got home with no problem, and on the Pets Page you'll see pictures where we are introducing Cole and Gracie to Lucky, Zack, and Bob. Our next trip will be down to San Antonio for the Fourth of July, at which time we will be taking Gracie to Nancy.

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

	July 3-7, 2018: The Fourth of July in San Antonio
	June 10-11, 2018: A Visit With My Sister in Elon, NC
	Return to the Index for 2018