January 26, 2020: Dinner With Prudence in Fort Worth
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We left Dallas a couple days after Christmas to spend New Year's and the first half of January down at the condo in Fort Lauderdale. As these trips to Florida have become so commonplace, we tend to take fewer and fewer pictures, and so there is less and less need to divide up the drip day by day. Rather, I'll continue doing what I've done for the last few years- just divide the photo album page by topic, pretty much regardless of when the picture was taken.

Getting to Fort Lauderdale

If you've been through more than a year or two of this photo album, you are undoubtedly familiar with our route to Florida. Years ago we used to fly, but that has gotten to be such a hassle (and a good deal more expensive) that now we drive. This allows us to take all kinds of things with us- including, on this trip, our two youngest cats, Bob and Cole. Both of them are good travelers, and we thought they should keep each other company.

The trip is routine; we stop at the same places to eat and to stay- almost without exception. And it's an easy route, too. Getting out of Dallas is easy if a bit congested, sometimes. We usually leave about nine-thirty, and by ten or so are on I-20 heading east towards Shreveport. We usually turn southeast on I-49 about one in the afternoon, reaching Lafayette and I-10 east along about three-thirty. Baton Rouge can be very slow if we don't get through there by four-fifteen or so, and then it is another 90 minutes to get across Louisiana to the Mississippi border.

Mississippi and Alabama are an hour each, so we are heading east from Mobile about six-thirty or seven. This puts us north of Pensacola right about dinnertime about eight. After dinner, we have now developed the habit of staying near Pensacola so we don't have to do a lot of driving at night. We have two hotels here to choose from; this time we've chosen the Red Roof in right near where we have dinner.

We usually get away from the hotel in Pensacola about nine or so for the 350-mile drive to Jacksonville, which we usually reach about one in the afternoon. Then we take I-295 around Jacksonville to the south, going through Orange Park. This 14-mile stretch is kind of neat, mostly because of the long bridge that crosses the St. Johns River as it opens out into a large lake southwest of the city. (It narrows as it approaches and flows around downtown Jacksonville to eventually empty into the Atlantic.)

I-295 connects up with I-95 south of the city and we simply take that south for another kind of boring 300 miles down to Fort Lauderdale. This is another boring part of the drive, but it gets us to the condo around 5PM, depending on traffic in Fort Lauderdale on I-95 (which can be horrendous).

The Floridian Restaurant

We unloaded everything at the condo, got Bob and Cole situated (and fed) and the laptops all set up, and then retired to the dock for a celebratory frozen drink. Then, as is our custom, we headed down to the Floridian Restaurant for dinner. I wish we had transporter technology, but the drive is not a hard one- although sections of it can be boring.

Bob and Cole are young enough that they are still good travelers. Bob, for example, will come out of his carrier every hour or so and walk around the car and sit up front for a while. But then he goes right back in and curls up. Cole stays out of his own carrier more; he usually curls up behind my seat where I usually make a flat space on top of my computer and duffel for him. I like it when they come up front, and it is especially nice when they will stay in one lap or the other for a while. As the driver, I'm OK with that; I just try to ignore them and concentrate on the road.

We have been here to Florida so many times that we have pretty much photographed everything worthwhile anywhere nearby. The pictures we take now are just candid shots around the condo, at the dock or perhaps at an Art Fair or other event that occurs while we are here. So I've begun the practice of just grouping the pictures for these Florida trips by topic.

The Fort Lauderdale Art Fair

Sometimes, our visits here correspond with the Las Olas Art Fair, an event held three times a year (January, March and October) where Las Olas is blocked off and a whole bunch of art vendors set up booths along both sides of the street. It extends from the intersection by The Cheesecake Factory (located above the Kinney Tunnel that takes US 1 underneath the New River) right at downtown Fort Lauderdale four blocks east to the Colee Hammock canal that goes under Las Olas.

This time, the fair was held on the weekend of the 5th and 6th, and we went to walk along the fair on Saturday. It is always interesting to see the wide variety of arts and crafts offered, and perhaps every other fair we end up buying something for ourselves or for a gift.

Usually, we find our friend, Doug Fountain, with a booth set up somewhere in the fair; he does works that incorporate things like large feathers, masks, and Native American themes. But this time we did not find him as we walked through the fair.

The Art Fair has been going on, three times a year, for thirty-five years, so I assume that the artists sell enough, or make enough contacts at the event to make it worthwhile financially, considering that they have to pay the operator of the Fair their share of all the expense of putting it on.

The Art fair usually takes up three blocks of Las Olas, which, for those three blocks, has a narrow median with trees. The promoter sets up covered booths in two rows on the north and south of the median, and taking up most of the street on either side. The way the booths are set up, there's space for people to walk past the booths that's about eight feet wide (so it can get crowded). Some of the artists stay in their booths, while others will sit up on the sidewalk opposite their booth. I thought the artist at left was interesting, as her attire looked like one of her artworks.

The various businesses that line Las Olas (the Rodeo Drive or Fifth Avenue of Fort Lauderdale) also benefit from the steady stream of potential customers walking along the Fair route. As usual, all the restaurants and stores seemed busy, even though it was just a trifle chilly (for Florida) both afternoons when we were there. We walked the entire length of the Art Fair on this chilly but sun-lit afternoon. Today wasn't particularly crowded; moving along can be slow when it is. The three interesections involved in the fair route offer a chance to bypass the particularly slow walkers, if you want, and they are also the locations usually given over to the larger sculptures and all of the commercial booths (insurance companies, car dealers, the local newspapers and a couple of radio stations). There are usually also at least two or three musicians performing and selling their CDs.

Our usual habit is to begin at the 9th/Las Olas intersection, turn right, go down to the end of the fair, cross to the north side of the double line of booths and head west to the opposite end of the fair. The western end of the fair is at the Kinney Tunnel, where US 1 goes under the New River. Then we come back to the southern side of the fair and return to our starting point.

Click on the Image Above to View the Slideshow

We took a number of pictures at the Art Fair today, and I've put these colorful pictures in a slideshow. I like colorful artwork, and often wish I had the money, the wall space, and the kind of modern house that would show them off to good advantage. So you will see quite a few shots of the various booths and artists.

The fair is also a good opportunity for people-watching and for taking general pictures of the portion of Las Olas that is given over to the fair. So you will see lots of those pictures, too. If this is the first time you've encountered one of my photo album slide shows, they are easy to navigate. Just click on the image at right and I will open the slideshow in a new window. To go from picture to picture, just click on the little arrows in the lower corners of each one. You can see where you are in the show by referring to the sequence numbers in the upper right. When you are done with the slideshow, just close the window.

Of course, what the many vendors are hoping for are sales, and while we hardly ever see lots of people carring away lots of merchandise, we assume that most people conclude their transactions like we do- buying things and then coming back at the very end of the day to pick them up. By far the most common offering at the Art Fair are paintings, which I guess is what most people would immediately think of when the term "art" is used. Some of the paintings are pretty traditional, using traditional media such as pastels or oils. Others use additional media to set themselves apart.

We hope you enjoy visiting this year's Winter Art Fair with us!

Bob and Cole in Fort Lauderdale

We brought Bob and Cole to Fort Lauderdale together for the first time last November, and they did so we that we brought them back this month. It's good to bring two of them so each has another to play with or socialize with.

Fred and the Cats

Bob's personality has changed a good deal in the last couple of years. When he was a kitten, and we brought him down here in 2017, and he and his sister were very active and gregarious, and both of them were always anxious to get in a lap and curl up.

But Bob has become more solitary of late. Whether that's due to losing his sister (who went to live with Nancy in San Antonio), or losing his friend Tyger to cancer, or just getting a little older, or perhaps because of the addition of Cole to the menangerie, I don't know. He doesn't go hide out, exactly, but he is content being by himself or with Cole, rather than anxious to be close to one of us.

When we are at home, and in the study, all four cats, including Bob, are usually with us, curled up in different places. It you go to pet Lucky, he will immediately want to get in your lap, and the same is true for Zack (although you don't have to pet him at all for him to want to nuzzle you). Cole is still maturing and likes attention, but when one goes to pet Bob, he often acts as if he doesn't care for the touching, although he won't up and leave. So maybe he is just the most independent of all four of the cats. This picture of Fred with both Bob and Cole was the only one we took this trip.

Boat Traffic on the New River (Installment 48)

Over the many years that I and then Fred and I have been coming down to Fort Lauderdale, the boats that go by the condo on the New River have been a frequent subject of photographs that we have taken. So much so that the boats have become "old hat", although there are always at least a few candid pictures:

Some Camera Experiments

One of the newest buildings downtown is the Icon Las Olas- a 45 storey condominium right across the street from the Cheesecake Factory and just west of where the Kinney Tunnel goes under the New River. You can see this intersection above in the aerial view of the site of the Las Olas Art Fair.

The Icon Las Olas

This building, as tall as it is, makes it impossible to get a good view looking west along Las Olas from the west end of the Art Fair venue. If you just take a normal picture looking west, this is the kind of shot you get:

As you can see, with me as far back east as I can get, I can't get all of the Icon Las Olas in the picture. I tried taking a panoramic view, but the same thing happened:

I tried a couple of other views with Fred's camera. If I get the top of the Icon, I can't get the street. Changing some settings, this was the best I could do.

And then I tried my Pixel phone. As it turns out, it has a feature that allows you to take numerous pictures across your field of view, and then it automatically stitches them together in the phone.

I can do the same thing manually with my camera, and I have done this numerous times here in this photo album. But when I do it manually, I usually run into perspective problems in situations other than left-to-right panoramas. I thought the results from the phone were much better, and even though we are looking at four different images, stacked in two levels. I think the result is pretty impressive, especially after I did a little post-production to even out the sky color.

Christmas on Las Olas

Las Olas Boulevard, just a block north of the condo, is Fort Lauderdale's answer to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, and because it is so upscale, it can afford to decorate to the nines for Christmas. We spent one evening before New Year's just wandering the boulevard.

Las Olas has mostly restaurants, art galleries, bars, and clothing stores, and is a great place to go window shopping. Here are a couple of typical storefronts:

I was able to get quite a few nice evening shots with my Pixel phone which has a camera setting that is great for shots in low light. The first four pictures below were taken the evening we were walking around, and a few days later I took a picture of the building shown in the fourth picture, the Amaray, in the daytime. It is one of downtown's newer buildings- an apartment building two blocks north of Las Olas.

An Art Gallery

An Art

An Antique

The Amaray (at night)

The Amaray (daytime)

Here are two more pictures from our evening walk:

A New Las Olas Restaurant

Looking West on Las Olas

Visiting with Ron and Jay

One of our most frequent activities down here in Florida is spending time with Ron and Jay. We began by having dinner with them on December 30th at Olive Garden. And on New Year's Eve, we spent some time at their seasonally-decorated house in northwest Fort Lauderdale. Jay fixed a really nice dinner while the rest of us sat in the family room by the fire.

On the way to Ron and Jay's house, we passed probably the most decorated house we saw this season. A sign out front suggested we stop and tune the radio to a specific frequency so we could hear the music accompanying the compter-controlled display. We did that and enjoyed it. Here are a picture of the house and a short movie made from inside the car:

The House

The Show (Mouseover for Video Controls)

On another evening, we were a bit early getting to their house, and so we had a seat by their front door for a minute. They have done a lot of remodeling of their house, and it looks very good. On the way home, we passed another nicely-decorated house.

At Riverview Gardens

Of course, being right on the New River, Riverview Gardens has nice views up the river towards downtown and, from some units, down the river towards the Intracoastal Waterway. But what makes it really nice is that there is 150 feet of dock front, and sitting down there is one of the most relaxing things we do here.

Fred at the Dock

We are down there at the dock most evenings before dinner, and about every other day, we are down there with frozen margaritas of one flavor or another. My blender really gets a workout down here. We usually have our phones with us, and so fairly often we are taking pictures of the boats going by, the sunsets, or just the homes across the river or the condos upriver from us.

We took a fair number of pictures down at the dock this time- particularly on some evenings where we had beautiful sunsets. Here are a selection of those pictures:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Along about 7PM most evenings, the Jungle Queen- a faux paddle-wheel steamer that takes tourists up and down the river- goes by on its evening run upriver where tourists have a barbecue supper and then return. You can always tell it is coming from the distinctive toot of its whistle.

Lunch With Roger and Moe

As we usually do, Fred and I planned to have lunch with our friend Roger Wilson, who had been very close to our friend Jack Fontaine who died a few years ago. His partner, Moe McDonald, was also able to join us, as he has just retired and moved down to Florida permanently. As we usually do, we had lunch at the Courtyard Cafe, just up the street from their house, and before we started eating, I took a couple of pictures for the record.

Moe

Roger

The Trip Home

We left Fort Lauderdale on the morning of the 16th, and followed the reverse of our route down. It takes us literally all day and almost 700 miles of driving (Fort Lauderdale to Jacksonville: 320 miles; Jacksonville to Pensacola: 360 miles) to get out of Florida. As a matter of fact, when we finally enter Alabama, we are over halfway home.

Following out normal schedule, we typically eat dinner in Gulfport, Mississippi or Slidell, Louisiana. This leaves us a manageable 160 miles before we stop for the night in Lafayette, Louisiana. In the morning, we have a comfortable drive home- 200 miles up to Shreveport and then another 200 miles over to Dallas. We arrived back home at 3:30 this time, and were happy to be back.

And Bob and Cole were happy to see their brothers.

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	January 26, 2020: Dinner With Prudence in Fort Worth
	Return to the Index for 2020