Ten days in Florida

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.

Wednesday 6/15 was our travel day to Florida, after making arrangements for our pets to be cared for. Mikele and Bob met us at Denver airport, after catching an earlier flight from California. They had a few trials and tribulations with checked baggage and their flight being late, but it all worked out in the end. We flew to Ft Lauderdale and rented a car for the drive up to our hotel in North Palm Beach, within walking distance of Dad's condo.

 

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.

6/25 We enjoyed our last morning meal in Florida at Sara's Kitchen, before the next part of our east coast trip. We had breakfast every day of our visit at Sara's, my favorite breakfast place in North Palm Beach, just a few steps across the street from our hotel, which was close to Dad's condo. I'll always think of how I discovered Sara's, when I was arranging to meet Dad for an early breakfast, after I realized I had inadvertently booked a midnight flight, instead of a midday flight, to go visit him in 2017. I found them on the Yelp app, when he and I were chatting on the phone about how we were going to get together the morning after my flight arrived in Ft Lauderdale at 5am. He was surprised to learn that this wonderful breakfast place was so close to his condo, after having lived there for over 30 years, and never knowing about it. After that, I dragged him and Adele to breakfast there quite a few times, every time I came to visit. 

After the required checkout time at our hotel, we spent a couple of hours wandering The Palm Beach Gardens Mall, and catching Deinos during the Pokemon GO June Community Day event, before heading to the airport. We were sad to remember that Adele was still recovering at her rehab facility Los Posada not far away, the last time we visited. And we grinned ruefully, when we remembered the story about taking Dad and Adele to Brio Italian Grill here, and him insisting on asking for chopped salad with honey mustard dressing, which is what he always ordered when visiting Adele at La Posada for Dinner.

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.