162: Blustery sunrise

(Have a seat and watch the sun come up.)

Greetings from Lauderdale By The Sea!  I know I posted the same greeting yesterday, but that was an auto-post composed at home in the Bogs.  Today I’m posting from Florida.  Yay!

We arrived late yesterday afternoon after relatively smooth flights.  I was particularly impressed with how well the pilots handled the landing in Fort Lauderdale where there were sustained winds of 25 mph.  Good job, guys!

It was warm (near 80), sunny, and incredibly windy. After surviving two flights to get here (in spite of my body’s attempts to kill me with panic attacks), I realized it was the cab ride from the airport to our hotel that I should have worried about.  Our driver must be new at his job as well as fairly new to this country as he barely spoke English.  He didn’t seem to know where he was going.  We provided him with Mapquest directions.  Instead of just reading them and then driving, he started driving, directions in one hand, cell phone in the other.  At one point he was driving, looking at our directions, and talking on the cell phone.  He went south instead of north.  We got him turned around and finally he decided to follow the directions M was giving him.  There were a few hairy moments when the driver tried to weave in and out of some traffic, but we arrived alive.

The wind continued to bluster and blow all night, rattling doors and windows, and throwing a few of the pool chairs into the pool.  What is odd about this wind is that it’s the kind of wind I associate with storms or an approaching hurricane, but shortly after sunrise the clouds cleared out and it was sunny with a lovely clear blue sky.  It’s been blowing at about 22 mph today, with stronger gusts that just about knock you over.

I got up early to watch the sunrise, something I love doing when we’re at the beach on the east coast.  I processed the photos through Picnik, mostly so I could resize them and save them to the computer as WordPress was giving me grief when I tried to post the photos using my Flickr account.  I don’t feel like spending all day trying to figure it out.  It might have had something to do with the hack attack.  Or not.  Who knows?

Whatever the case, I can’t see them well on the laptop so I have no idea how good or bad they might be, but they give you a general idea of how lovely it was this morning.

M and I have taken a few walks on the beach since arriving here yesterday.  I forgot how difficult it is to walk the beaches here.  It’s a little like trudging through the snow, only warmer.  Even the sand near the water, which is typically hard packed on most other beaches I’ve visited, is soft and you sink in with each step.  It’s a great workout.

We went swimming (in the pool — the ocean is much too rough, with riptides, choppy water, and jellyfish galore) this morning and then spent the afternoon on a 3-hour tour of the Intracoastal Waterway (for more on the Intracoastal Waterway, see my post from last year).  We got on the Pelican Hopper, a free shuttle bus that runs around Lauderdale By The Sea, and took that to Shooters, a bar/restaurant on the Waterway where we had lunch and then hopped on a water taxi.

I would love to tell you all about it, but I’m exhausted and want to get this post published.  Hopefully I’ll find some time tomorrow.  If not, once I go through the photos at home, I’ll go back and fill in the details.

Even with the ferocious wind, it’s been a great day filled with lots of sunshine, warm temps, and fresh air.  We spent more time outdoors than in.  Meeting my outdoor commitment here will be a piece of cake.