Showing Denae the Florida wildlife

There is a park about 10 miles west of our condo, which is where the city ends and the everglades start, we wanted to take Denae out to to show here some alligators. We had been there last year and we saw about 5 of them in 10 minutes so we assumed it would be easy to find a few. We got out there and walked around for an hour and could find none. It was overcast and windy, about 75 outside and I concluded the alligators must like the sunshine since they are reptiles, and are in hiding waiting for the sun so I just started taking pictures of some of the other wildlife.

Native bird (I think)

Native butterfly

Native boat

another native butterfly

Parrots on a fence

parrots on the ground

The edge of the everglades

After spending most of the afternoon walking around we decided to head to the beach. As we were driving back to civilization there is a canal along side the road. I decided to pull over and check the canal and lo and behold...a gator!

Native alligator

He is awake

about 6 feet

Denae loves animals

After a few pictures we went down to the beach. Not a lot of people down there late in the afternoon, but there were a bunch of surfers.

Not a busy beach

except for these guys

Girls on the beach

boulders on the beach

So it was off to lighthouse park. It was getting close to sundown and the fishing boats were coming in.

here comes the boats

We ran across the street to the Pompano fishing fleet docks and watched the guys unload the fish.

Fresh fish anyone?

Probably going to be a McDonald's fish fillet

Until nex time....hasta lavista (Spanish for later)

Boat parade (for real this time)

Sunday was boat parade day. Well Sunday night would be, and we were sure this time. We decided to hit a few garage sales in the morning. We found nothing we wanted except for a artificial tree. We bought it and brought it home. It was quite a bit taller than our old one. It is about 6 feet tall and our old one was 3 feet tall..

Our old Christmas tree

Our new and improved Christmas tree

We just lounged around until 6, then headed down to the water to watch the parade. We immediately noticed a fairly large crowd as we pulled into the park. We found our area we wanted to sit and opened our chairs and sat down.

Looking at Bonnie, you would think it was cold out

This was the temp, Her blood is thinning out from lack of real coldness

Here come the boats...

Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum

Where is the rest of the parade?

there they are!

Just kidding.....
It was about an hour and a half until we could see the lights of the boats coming. The crowd murmured with anticipation....here are some pics and some videos.

slow down buster!

Deck the deck with ball of holly

that is a real airplane on that boat

Monday was laundry day....You know the grind....

Tuesday was picking up Denae (Bonnies daughter) day from the airport. She is staying until after Christmas while I am up in Iowa visiting the family.
I took this video as she came off the plane.

Gotta go...

I gotta get off my A$$

I have been very lackadaisical on my postings and I will attempt to correct this. I Think being retired is getting me tired.

We decorated our tree.

Oh Tantembaum

I have taken and posted many pictures of the blimp, which is housed just down the road from our place.

The Blimp!

They had a USMC toys for tot's drive over at the hanger this morning, and I couldn't resist the opportunity, so we zipped over there to see the inside of the hanger.

Blimp in a hanger

Bonnie and the blimp (and Santa)

Bonnie and a couple of US Marines (Thank god for our service men!)

After the blimp stop, we ran down to the beach to have some lunch.

The beach cafe...

what a view!!!!

After lunch we stopped by the Swap Shop (a huge flea market)
and the had some cars on display. One of them was the testerosa that was used on the TV show Miami Vice.

Sweet ride

I think from cars....

Then tonight we pulled a Griswold move. (It must run in the family)
We went down tot the inter coastal around 6:30 to watch the Christmas boat parade. We went last year and wanted to get a good parking place. We got there and there was only one other car there. We were pumped, as we figured we would get a good spot to set up our chairs. The other people there were speaking a different language so we set up our camp site and waited.

Wasting time waiting...I call it Moon over Miami

Bridge over wrong night waters

an hour and a half later, one of the people from the only other party there came over and asked in broken English, "is there boat parade?"
I quickly responded "it will start pretty soon". A half hour later a lady drove up to walk her dog and she walked by us and Bonnie asked if the boat parade was coming by tonight. She said....It is tomorrow night. I laughed all the way home. What a dork.
On the way home we saw the city was having its Christmas tree lighting ceremony so we stopped and got a picture...

Christmas tree in the tropics

Oh, by the way, speaking of the Grizwolds, we got an inflatable kayak....This should make for some interesting future blogging headlines.....

This should be fun.......