Fort Lauderdale - Day 1

December 25, 2009

On a cold chilly freezing morning, with a few feet of snow piled up on either side of the road, we took a cab to the Baltimore Washington International Airport. For the first time in the two year history I have been here, we had an American drive us, Caucasian to boot! Very friendly and a local guy, shared a lot about his life and how things have changed in the metro-DC area. As many cab drivers, he peppered his talk with religion, politics, philosophy, family story, and life in general. A great start to Christmas morning!

We were eagerly awaiting our flight departure and escape to the warmth of Florida. Luckily by then the airports had cleared up their runways and we were all set to go!



You can still see the snow cover on the non-essential part of the airport. But we didn't care. We could already feel the warmth of sun and the light breeze blowing onto our faces. We landed 2 and half hour later in Fort Lauderdale. MIL wondered if weather had an effect on people and their moods. Surely there must be some truth to it as we had such a friendly shuttle driver who picked us up and drove us to the car rental place! Although who wouldn't want to show off a place to a bunch of visitors still defrosting from the cold North! After picking up the car, we found ourselves driving down to Ft Lauderdale beaches.

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All pictures in this post and the following were taken either by MIL or N. A handful were taken by me, but none that are shown here! I really relaxed! ;)

Everglades National Park - Day 2

December 26, 2009

We got up leisurely, had breakfast, enjoyed the surprisingly chilly morning, wondering if we were actually in Florida! I drove us to the Everglades National Park. We stopped at the Ernest Coe Visitor Center and signed up for some of activities coming up in the following days. I had read that this was their busiest season and the Ranger was also very happy that we were there for five days!! He is always taken aback at visitors who come in wonder what they can fit into a day or even a few hours!! The National park only has about 1.4 million acres to explore!!

We headed onto our next stop, the Anhinga Trail. We joined a Park Ranger guided tour. We really enjoyed the tour. I think if we hadn't gone for the tour we would have just looked and thought, "ah pretty tree, pretty flower, pretty bird" and gotten bored in a day. Ranger Cindy was awesome. She shared a lot about the ecosystem, the birds that are local to the place, the river of grass and of course about its infamous dweller - the alligator.



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