Saturday 6/25 was the end of the North Palm Beach part of our big summer trip. My sister Mikele had asked us to accompany her to Florida, for emotional and physical support, as she took over the responsibility to disposition our Dad's estate. This mostly involved dealing with his condo and its remaining contents, and had taken over two years so far, with no status or resolution in sight. We spent the majority of the time helping Mikele with those tasks, and I won't bore you with my dozens of pictures of the condo before and after our efforts, but here's the last one I took, of his now cleared-out living room. We did carve out some time to do a few fun things, including dining out at several of the restaurants where we had taken Dad and Adele over the years. Here's a recap of the more fun parts of our southeast Florida adventure.
Our first task was finding dinner. No problem! Greetings from the Waterway Café, on the bank of the intracoastal waterway, near North Palm Beach Florida!
The Waterway Cafe has a wonderful view of the intracoastal waterway, and a
delightful nautical and tropical ambience, with all their palm trees,
and the various boat traffic passing by, and waiting for the drawbridge to go up every half hour. Dad and Adele had taken me here
years ago, when I flew out to do some work at Cape Canaveral, and I
found I loved their Key Lime pie!
We stopped at the Publix grocery store for supplies, and I was so excited to find my favorite Entenmann's Crumb Coffee Cake!
6/18 Jennefer and I shared a delicious macadamia crusted yellow tail snapper dinner at Café Chardonnay in Palm Beach Gardens. They easily matched
the high standard they had set for themselves, when I brought Adele and Dad
here in 2017 and 2018. Jennefer
isn’t big on sweets, but she was willing to help me with this delicious
crème brûlée, after we finished off our main course.
6/19 Happy Father’s Day to all our friends out there who are dads! I posted on Facebook that I was missing my Dad today, and reminded them that we were looking forward to seeing any of his friends that wanted to join Mikele and me and our partners, for our casual get-together at his regular lunch place, Duffy’s Sports Grill in North Palm Beach on Friday 6/24 between 2 and 5 PM. I told them that they could find the event specifics, and RSVP,
on Facebook at this address. I'll leave that Event page up for awhile.
We enjoyed a fun
Sunday morning Father’s Day outing to MacArthur Park, just down the road from Dad‘s condo
in North Palm Beach. Such a delightful place! We really enjoyed the
Nature Center and their short but informative movies about the park and
the turtle nesting areas, the aquariums and other displays, the local mangrove swamp, walking the
pedestrian bridge over the estuary, and our moderately long walk up and
down the beach in the waves.
After our MacArthur Beach adventure, we had a late lunch
at one of Dad's favorite restaurants on Father’s Day. It's called
Guanabanas, but he used to refer
to it as Tahiti, where he lived for a few years, so my sister and I are
strongly reminded of the time we spent together in the south pacific
back then.
6/20 Our pleasant
"Sunset Cruise" from West Palm Beach around Lake Worth, almost turned into a battle for our lives against the
weather… with a line of rapidly building thunderstorms heading our way
from over the Atlantic, our skipper turned back way before planned.
She
beat the storm back to our launching point, then waited a while at the
dock after returning, hoping the storm would blow over, but it seemed to
camp out on us, so they kicked us off after a while. Here we are, all scrunched together, trying to minimize the amount of the downpour that was soaking our clothes. I was glad to be wearing lightweight clothes that would dry out quickly, even though they weren't keeping me warm at all, at the moment.
Already drenched,
we took refuge from the rain and lightning at ER Bradley’s, and shared some warm drinks and a
delicious key lime pie for dessert. They had a delightful atmosphere there, which we did enjoy, even through our shivering, but I'll bet we would have had a much better time on a slightly drier evening.
6/23 We enjoyed our second to last dinner here in Palm Beach Gardens, at Seasons 52,
another place we took Dad and Adele when visiting over the years. Lovely
food, view, servers. We especially liked their elegant little dessert display, kind of like a totem pole, with small dessert servings mounted in a spiral climbing up it.
6/24 We held a small "celebration of life" for my Dad, at his favorite lunch place, Duffy's Sports Grill in North Palm Beach, just across the street from his condo. I was glad to spend some time with our family friend Anita and some of her family, and to see a few of his friends who took the time to attend. We finally got to meet Dad's friend Etonella, who provided this picture, and told us that Dad was proud of us, for having such a nice celebration of his life party. I'm sorry
to say, I was so anxious about coordinating everything and trying to
make sure I visited with everyone, that I forgot to take any pictures.
Finally on our way North, to spend a week with my cousin in Maine for a real vacation. We're glad
to be in our seats, even if the flight is delayed for weather. It was a little weird, to be on a different airline, leaving from a different airport than where we arrived, to accomplish this second leg of our trip. This is the first time I can remember, that I had to book three separate flights, instead of a single round-trip booking, in order to be able to spend time in two different destinations along the way. I guess it made sense, but I've gone on so many there-and-back trips in the past 30 years, it just felt strange. It all worked out just fine, though.
