Thursday April 13. 2023 Day 1 Aborted Departure
This was the day we were supposed to go to Florida. However, Southwest Airlines, and the weather had other ideas. There were severe thunderstorms in Ft. Lauderdale to the point that the airport was underwater. We initially heard that the airport was closed in the morning and our flight was delayed. So we drove down to Murry to drop off the car, the Bolt, that we were reluctantly selling to the dealership. The Bolt is a terrific electric car. It has 250 miles of range and has fast charging which is slow by today's standards. Plus, it doesn't have four-wheel drive which made it difficult on some wintery Utah days to drive up to work in Park City. Since none of the offspring wanted it, we sold it since it would not be practical to have three cars.
As the morning wore on Southwest delayed our one-stop flight twice more and then canceled it. That sparked a round of travel adjustment calls. Initially to Southwest which could not rebook us until Saturday. Then I thought that I had to cancel our hotel rooms, but the hotel said we did not have a reservation. Finally, the Enterprise people cheerfully pushed back our car rental reservation two days without penalty and did not charge us for the two days.
Friday April 14, 2023 Day 2
A bonus day in Salt Lake City. I made some refinements to my packing and did some shopping for items that I would need to address my still lingering bowel movement condition. Not an exciting day.
Saturday April 15, 2023 Day 3
Our rebooked flight had us departing for Florida at 8:30 am now going through and changing planes in Baltimore so we had to get up early to get to the airport 2 hours ahead of the re-scheduled departure. The first flight to Baltimore departed a few minutes late but was otherwise uneventful. However, the flight to Ft. Lauderdale was delayed for several hours due to weather conditions. My son and his family were flying to Florida to meet us there from Washington National airport and they too were encountering weather delays.
We ate in the airport and finally took off about 4:30. Arriving in Ft. Lauderdale we were delayed further because our (and others) luggage was placed on a subsequent flight. There were lots of cruise ship passengers waiting along with us. It took us 1.5 hours, almost 10:00 pm, to get our luggage. Thanks Southwest.
We then picked up our car from Enterprise. Theer was no electric car that I had requested, perhaps because we arrived so late, and we ended up with an oversized SUV. With all our delays I had to call the hotel to allow my son to check in since the reservation was in my name. Traffic was moving briskly on the highway up to Pompano Beach and after exiting that road we drove on a virtually deserted Atlantic Ave. to the Wyndham Sea Gardens Hotel arriving about 10:30 pm. Fortunately, my son had picked up some food, but the grandson was sound asleep.
Pompano Beach is a beachfront city with about 112,000 residents. It is the product of the 1947 merger of the cities of Pompano and Pompano Beach. he latter was first settled in 1896 by two railroad workers and their families. They named it after the Florida pompano fish. The beach area is lined with high rises, primarily condos, but also hotels and resorts. As you go west of the intercoastal waterway there are lots of small single-family homes.
A fun fact about Pompano Beach is that Al Goldstein lived there for a number of years. The New York Times obituary of Goldstein described him "a cartoonishly vituperative amalgam of Borscht Belt comic, free-range and social critic and sex-obsessed loser who seemed to embody a moment in New York City's cultural history: the sleaze and decay of Times Square in the 1960s and ‘70s."
I knew him as my landlord from 1972-74 when I was in law school and lived on the top three floors of his west village townhouse with my 5 roommates while he lived in the bottom two floors with his third wife, he eventually had five, and son. He was a fine landlord and threw fun parties.
For almost 20 years he worked at an eclectic list of jobs and even ended up in jail in Cuba for taking an unauthorized picture of Castro. In 1968 he was the co-founder of Screw magazine, a weekly NYC tabloid. It featured reviews of elements of the adult entertainment industry, eg. porn movies, peep shows, brothels and escort services and was interspersed with news about sexual topics. At its peak it sold 140,000 copies, but it engendered massive prosecutorial assaults against him. He was arrested on obscenity charges 19 times. Once he was even indicted in Wichita Kansas as the prosecutor sought a favorable venue. spent millions of dollars defending these suits on First Amendment grounds, always prevailing. He then built an empire of media properties, TV, Midnight Blue, magazines and movies which focused on pornography.
In the 1980s he built a 10,000 sq ft mansion in Pompano Beach which featured an eleven-foot statute in the back yard facing the intercoastal waterway with a raised middle finger. He died penniless in NYC living on the funds of his friend Penn Jillette.
It was also the home for many years of Mark Gilbert, who holds the distinction of being the only person who was both a major league baseball player, albeit briefly for the White Sox in 1985, and a US ambassador to New Zealand, 2013-15.
Sunday April 16, 2023 Day 4
We were on the 10th floor in a spacious two-bedroom unit with a good west view of the Pompano Beach airport and a view of the ocean from the balcony. It was an older but well-maintained property with two pools. It is a very short walk to the beach. After breakfast in the room, we spent most of the morning in the pool. Lots of time devoted to trying to get the grandson to swim while also throwing him around the pool between the adults. Lots of potty training occurring and so a portable potty was always in the vicinity.
The hotel grounds were lavishly and beautifully landscaped. At the second pool they were handing out free shaved ice drinks which the grandson consumed during our slow walk back to the room. The walk time was lengthened by our grandson's frequent stops to observe and touch the lizards and othe animals we encountered along the path. Upon arriving at the room the grandson took his afternoon nap, a daily occurrence that is rejuvenating to both him and his caretakers.
After the nap my son and the grandson walked to the beach. Very nice sand and a wide beach. Very few people were there in the late afternoon. The waves were gentle and the water comfortably warm so I swam for about 20 minutes. However, tas he grandson found the sand too hot to walk on, he road across the beach in a large wagon, and he was not happy about being placed into the ocean.
The view of the airplane landings and takeoffs from the balcony was a source of endless enjoyment to the grandson. The airport is the home of the Goodyear blimp Spirt of Innovation which we saw parked at the airport. We prepared and ate dinner in the room.
Monday April 17, 2023 Day 5
After breakfast I took the grandson for an intended walk to the beach. He was again reluctant to go there so we walked south on the adjacent strand. He is a good, but in this instance, a slow walker. As we walked south toward the pier and the center of Pompano Beach, he greeted many other pedestrians and always the dog walkers.
There were several openings to the beach which the grandson continued to resist. We finally arrived at the Fischer Family Pier, about a .5-mile walk. The pier is named after a former Pompano Beach mayor and has been recently renovated. It has a bait and tackle shop and has lots of people fishing off of it. We walked part of the way out onto the pier. The grandson threw rocks into the ocean where we saw many fish and lots of birds, many pelicans, looking for food. After exhausting our rock pile, we walked a few hundred yards further south and went into a playground. By about noon the grandson was getting tired. I had forgotten to put sunscreen on him, so I called his dad who picked us up in the car and drove us back to the hotel.
After lunch and his nap my spouse and I drove a short distance down the beach to another Wyndham property, Royal Vista, that was right on the beach for a sales presentation. In exchange for the two hours of pushing us to purchase more points we received four grass boat tickets and two cabana tickets. We agreed to realignment of our ownership to be signed off in the evening.
When we returned to our hotel my son and his wife took off for a brief getaway in Ft. Lauderdale. So we played some games and music with the grandson and after dinner we did stories and songs and put him to sleep in his blackout tent, albeit later than his normal bedtime. No drama.
Tuesday April 18, 2023 Day 6
The parents were still away so it was just us and the grandson with some new routines for breakfast. Only 2 eggs and an assortment of fruit and bread. After breakfast we loaded up the car with little kid stuff and drove inland to the Pompano Community Park. It was a big complex with a pool, various courts, tennis etc, fields, baseball etc, and an amphitheater. We passed all that and went to the playground which the grandson loved. He was all sun screened up and wore his hat. They were also setting up for the Seafood Festival that would occur later that week. We didn't attend that.
After about two hours at the park, we piled back into the car and went shopping, first at Walgreensfor my continuing c-diff issues and then for food at Publix. That was followed by a big lunch and a nap. Again, easy to put him down following books and songs. He sings to himself for a while but eventually goes to sleep. Again, no drama, easy to put down. After the nap we went to the pool with the grandson. and practiced swimming. We were playing with a big water gun and sharing it with an older kid. That boy inadvertently broke it to the consternation of the grandson. The mother of the kid went back to her room and returned with a dolphin water gun which the grandson loved and carried around for a few days.
We had salmon for dinner in the room. The grandson ate it. Then we watched a little MSNBC on TV. The grandson was fascinated by the talking heads. No difficulty putting him to sleep on time.
Wednesday, April 19, 2023 Day 7
The grandson gets up regularly at 7. More eggs and fruit for breakfast. We took a walk around the hotel grounds and got some shaved ice. Then we piled into the car and drove a short distance south to another Wyndham property, the Royal Vista, which is on the beach and has a kiddy swimming pool. We first tried the beach, but the grandson, who was sunscreened up, didn't want to walk on the sand. The kiddy pool was nice, but it was in the shade and not warm enough for the grandson's liking. We went into the larger pool which was bathed in sunshine and that he liked. We stayed there for two hours while he swam around with me and made friends with two other children, both girls who were 4 and 5 and doted on him.
We returned to the hotel about 12:30 for lunch and a nap. His parents returned during the nap and after the grandson woke up, we walked down to the beach. This time he went on to the sand, but not the water. Dinner in the hotel room.
I swam in the ocean for about 20 minutes. The water was warm, but i had to go out into the ocean a significsant distance to get enough clearance to swim.
Nice sunset.
Thursday, April 20, 2023 Day 8
We got out of the hotel and into the car for a one-hour drive to Sawgrass recreation center. This commercial airboat operation is located on the edge of the Everglades, but outside the National Park. The boat ride tickets were our reward for enduring the Wyndham sales pitch. At 10:30 we boarded a large boast that could hold up to about 20 passengers. It was about 3/4s full. The ride and terrain were sort of as I imagined. We zipped over the water that flowed around the fields of seagrass. It was a bright, sunny and scenic ride. The captain was talkative, but mainly chatty, not too informative. We saw a lot of birds, but only one alligator. The ride was a bit over 30 minutes.
We then went to the reptile exhibit. It had many alligators of various sizes and ages, along with turtles and iguanas. The gradson enjoyed that.
We drove back to the hotel for lunch and the nap, barely getting there before the grandson fell asleep in the car.
After nap in the tent, as usual, he is very regular, from about 2-5, we walked down to the pier, with the grandson in the stroller. We ate at the Lucky Fish which is at the pier and right on the beach. This is an informal beach bar and grill serving a variety of fish, burgers, wings and conch fritters (of which my daughter-in-law is a big fan but I found them to be mushy and like hush puppies.) and served by scantily clad waitresses. The grandson mainly ate French fries. After a reasonable period at the table, he meandered off to the playground. We walked back and returned to the hotel about 8:15
Friday, April 21, 2023 Day 9
We went to the beach in the morning and got our complimentary cabana, again part of our bribery package from Wyndham for attending the sales pitch. The grandson played in the sand and made a brief and limited foray into the ocean. I had a nice long swim although I had to go a long way out into the ocean to get to swimmable depth. We stayed through lunch and returned to the hotel for nap time.
We returned to the Lucky Fish for dinner. The grandson had less patience tonight, so he left the table early and ran off to the beach. Packed for departure the following morning.
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