Vince & I flew out Thursday morning to head to Fort Lauderdale. We woke up at 3:30am to get to the airport at 4:30am. Vince caught the 5:30am flight to Atlanta on Delta. I went home & went back to bed for 2 hours. I then caught the 11:10am flight on Allegiant. He ended up getting to Fort Lauderdale about 2 hours earlier than me. Meanwhile, Billy & Eddie flew in from Nashville. The three of them checked into the hotel then came back to fetch me from the airport. Thursday was such a jet lag kind of day. Everyone was rather tired. We bought groceries at Publix when we arrived since we had a 2 bedroom suite with full kitchen. We ended up cooking 2 dinners, 3 breakfasts, and snacks in the room. It saved on lots of money.
We decided to go to Florida because Miami was having a boat show this weekend. And WOW what a show. We didn't make it onto more than 30 boats on Friday or Saturday and there were thousands. We started out Friday at the yacht show, which was free and separate from the boat show at the convention center. Some of these yachts were just incredible. From the outside, they all looked very similar - white and plain. But as soon as you step on board, they have carpet, beautiful wood, and so many nooks and crannies to put things. Most of the big ones had washer and dryers - one boat had 2 sets (one down in the servants quarters & one in the master bedroom area). The yachts had 2 - 5 bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, etc. And they could be yours for $600,000 - $3 million. The $600K yacht was on sale from $1.5 million since it was a 2008 model. Most people finance them for 30 years like a house payment. We tried to get on the $10 million cruise liner yachts, but they wouldn't let us unless we passed a financial background check to see if we could afford it.
The boats were just fabulous. We got lots of walking in both days, which ended up being my only exercise for the weekend. We parked for $50 for the free yacht show, so the parking cost was outrageous. The next day, we parked in a garage in South Beach for only $4 and walked a long ways, but it was worth it to save money & get our exercise in. We decided that since we don't do a lot of yachting, that we wouldn't buy one, but maybe rent one sometime in the future if we feel the need to go yachting.
Friday night we got pounded with some serious rain. I'm glad the rest of the days were sunny, albeit cool & very windy. We tried to layout at the pool Friday afternoon, but the wind drove us inside, even though the pool was heated.
Saturday night I wanted a nice romantic Valentine's dinner. We originally had reservations at an Italian restaurant in South Beach. But after driving back & forth for the last two days in lots of traffic from Fort Lauderdale to Miami, we cancelled the reservations and walked to the Galleria mall next door to our hotel. We decided to go to a local restaurant since Trulucks and P.F. Chang's only had 10pm openings. It was loud, but fun, and not at all romantic. However, we all had a good time and the food was decent (though limited in selection). Vince's friend, Patty, from his restaurant days in Atlanta, met us for dinner so we had a nice time catching up on old stories.
Somehow throughout the day, we kept having perfect timing. (I know I keep skipping around on the days & the order of what we did, so I hope you're keeping up.) The timing started going well for us Saturday morning when we toured Vizcaya. Vizcaya is a house that was built in 1916 for some really rich dude. It was so amazing to see the opulence and style back then. He designed it to look like an Italian villa. The view was fabulous. It reminded me a lot of the Biltmore. When we left, there was a huge line of people waiting to pay to get in. We had no line. We then went to the boat show at the convention center and walked right up to pay. When we left, there was a huge line to pay. Then at dinner, we walked right in & found two small tables beside each other for the 5 of us. When we left, there was a huge line to get in to eat. I like it when we have great timing.
Pictures coming soon...
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