December 27 – Fort Lauderdale

water, water everywhere

Weather – 25º rain in the morning, cloudy for the rest of the day

Steps – 17,277

We procrastinated a bit making plans for today. For the past 2 weeks, the weather forecast said that today would be the rainiest of the 3 days we were spending in Fort Lauderdale. There’s nothing we had our hearts set on so much that we would do it in the rain. We decided to wait and see how the weather was. 

In the end, the weather was fine. We decided to walk to the Las Olas area. Las Olas blvd is about 10 min from our hotel, but the Las Olas area we were after is about an hour’s walk from the hotel, this is far-ish, but it was an easy, direct walk where we were able to admire the canals, yachts, and homes. Las Olas blvd is busy, so not where the biggest of Fort Lauderdale homes are, but nothing around here is exactly shanty-ish.

"Thrive"

Although getting to Las Olas took us over a few bridges, there was only one drawbridge. It was a bit weird to walk over a drawbridge. We knew it would open at 15 and 45 past the hour, and also knew bells ring to signal the opening, but it was still a bit weird to think the bridge we had just walked over would be splitting and opening. We made it both times!!

gelato!!

Las Olas Blvd. is a 5km road that runs straight from the ocean near our hotel and ends at a shopping, bars, restaurants area. Once we arrived at the bustling area, we wandered along the river walk, admired the massive “Thrive” statue, did a bit of window shopping, and then settled on a spot for lunch. There’s no where really on Las Olas for eating or drinking on the water, but there are many, many spots along the main drag. This is good for people watching. 

We grabbed a not-inexpensive post-lunch gelato for the way back before we were on our way.

Once at the hotel, we used our daily $30 on another 2 proseccos. We found no friends like yesterday, so took our drinks back to the room. We would have liked to have enjoyed these on our balcony, but unfortunately, our balcony has been a bit of a bust. The view is good, but it’s been super windy and there is an AC unit close by…the noise and the wind hasn’t made for a good outdoor atmosphere.

Some down time in the room for a nap before dinner back to the place we ate at the first night we were here. Again, there was live music, but not as good as the first night.

We were back at the hotel by 10 to rest up for boarding day tomorrow!!!