Fort Lauderdale Vacation

So we made it back, safe and sound.  We had a pretty good time.  As you know, the first few days rained for us and made for a pretty irritating time.  We got through it and the weather became really nice.

The House We Stayed In

Our house was a five bedroom place out in Pompano Beach.  The house was actually for sale for the cheap price of $2.5 million.  I was very tempted to buy the place.  The kitchen was enormous, the pool area was nice, but my favorite part was the built-in bar and grill.

The master bathroom was also pretty sweet.  The shower had six heads and was computerized.  Yeah, you could sent the temperature and do all kinds of other things.  Yeah, I am impressed with simple things.

Grill and bar area

Okay, enough of the house.  What did we do while we were there?

Casino

During the first rainy day, we ended up heading to the Seminole Casino at Coconut Creek.  When I signed up for a card, I was able to win $100 in free slot play, which I gave to Lindsey.  I decided to play Three-Card Poker, but they only had $15 tables and I played a few hands and lost.  After that we just hung out at the bar for a bit playing video poker.

Lindsey actually won a little bit of money with my free money, but then we lost all of it playing the crappy video poker.



Jungle Queen Cruise
If you ever head down to this area, I highly recommend going on the Jungle Queen cruise.  You basically travel all around the canals and see the giant mansions that rich people own.  Most of them are owned by Wayne Huizenga or his nieces and nephews.  Apparently if you are like a distant relative of the guy, he will buy you a mansion.

Also, you get to see some amazing yachts.  This first one was just a random we saw that the guide said it cost a couple million.

This next one was called KISSES and was a slight brown color.  I have come to the conclusion that the ship must be owned by the CEO of Hershey.

The next yacht is just a monstrosity.  It is absolutely ridiculous how much money some people have.  This is Steven Spielberg's boat called the Seven Seas.  It cost over $200 million dollars to build!  You can charter it for the weekend for $1.5 million.  That is just absolutely ridiculous.

The cruise then takes you to a place where you can see a guy wrestle alligators.  That dude was a little bit crazy.  Here are a few pictures and then three videos.

Also there was a monkey and a bunch of birds in cages, plus a peacock just running around.

And now for some cute pictures of Lindsey and I at the cruise:

Fishing Trip
The next day we went out on a fishing boat.  It was just Lindsey, myself, her sister (Kayla) and her fiance (Adam).  Plus J.C., the girl's uncle, who chartered the ship.  I really did not think that I would get sick out there.  In fact, I kind of bragged about it.

At first everything was going smooth, minus the water was a little choppy.  Kayla and Lindsey looked a little rough, but nothing major.  We were out there fishing for sailfish.  The method is kite-fishing.  I know, it sounded weird to me too.  Basically, a kite holds two lines and basically dangles the live bait in the water.

The first bite of the day came pretty early and the guy handed it to Lindsey, who battled for about five minutes before giving it up to me.  She was starting to get sick.  It was a big sailfish and she could barely turn the reel.  I will not make fun of her though, I had some trouble as well.  I was able to pull it in after a good thirty minutes or so.  My forearms burned like a mo'fo.  They estimated the size to be around 85-90 inches, which puts it around 160-190 lbs.  Considering that these are the fastest fish in the ocean, you can imagine how much of a fight they put up.  Enjoy the photos below.

This is the kite, it seems very odd to me.

Lindsey trying hard...

ME

Both pictures are of my sailfish

Our puke station!

This is where the story becomes fun.  Adam caught a little silver shark, which I could not get a picture of and then he (or J.C.) caught a smaller sailfish.  Lindsey while they were catching these was busy throwing up over the side.  After a bit she seemed to be feeling fine enough to lay on the couch.  I went in to check on her and laid down as well.  Seeing her vomit made me kind of sick.  Laying on that couch was the worst idea ever.  I could feel my stomach heave up, then down, then left, then right.  It did this for a good 15 minutes and then I realized my stomach had enough.  I jumped up off the couch and sprinted towards the railing.  I puked for a good five minutes.  Then, I felt great.  Unfortunately, we never caught another fish.

Las Olas Blvd
We kept hearing how Las Olas was the place to go for shopping.  Ummm, yeah, if you are wealthy.  Actually, most of Fort Lauderdale seems to be for the uber-rich.  None of the stores on Las Olas had one shirt for less than $100.  Definitely not my cup of tea.

One of the cool things about being in a rich area though:  the cars.  Hell, I can count on one hand the number of Ferrari's I have seen in person.  Yet, this week I was able to actually see tons of them, plus a dealership.  Not to mention all the Masoratis, Lamborghinis, etc.

Mini-Golf
Another fun attraction to do at the beach:  miniature golf.  Well not at Fort Lauderdale.  I guess rich folks do not like playing mini-golf.  We found a place and ended up having a pretty good game.  Okay, not really.  Adam kicked our asses.  I think he had like 8 hole-in-ones.  At least we got a cool picture out of it.

Science Museum
One of the other rain days was spent at a science museum (which turned out to be for younger kids).  I had a good time, but I do not think anyone else did.  Oh well.

The place had a bunch of Egyptian stuff, including a mummy of a baby from the Ptolemaic period.  I took a picture, but it did not turn out at all.

They also had some cool dinosaur bones, which I did manage to get a good picture of some tiny raptors attacking another dinosaur.  Pretty sweet if you ask me.

The Bar Scene
We managed to go out to eat most nights and just drink at the house.  One night though, Lindsey and I went out to the bars and had a pretty good time.  We started at this place called the Elbo-Room, which was kind of famous for being in some movie.

We then went to a bar called Sangrias, which had outdoor couches.  We had a couple of huge margaritas there and at one point allowed some crazy artist guy to do a caricature of us.  The dude was not very good and he only charged us $4.  It was actually funny just watching him do it.  Sorry, I will work on getting that picture posted...

We then left there and went to another little bar and had a few more drinks before catching a cab home.  The cab ride was an adventure.  The guy did not put the address in his GPS, he was just relying on us.  For some unknown reason, Pompano Beach likes to name their roads either court or street.  For example, to get home, you had to turn onto 9th street, then make a right onto 9th court, then another right onto 9th street...

This guy would just not get that!  He kept thinking that 8th street would just take him right to 9th and it did not work that way.  After some arguments, he finally agreed to use his GPS, which took us straight to the house.  Damn idiot...

The Beach
When we finally did get a chance to head to the beach, we discovered that it was actually very nice.  Also, the water was pretty warm.  It did not feel like it at first, but the water got deep pretty quickly and then shallow again if you went further out.  Once you went to the second shallow part, it was quite warm. 

The best part of the beach?  Some weird dude doing yoga and his wife sitting beside him reading a magazine like nothing was happening.  It was definitely funny to watch.  Sorry, the picture is not all that great though.

Anyways, it was a very relaxing trip.  It sucked that it rained for a few days, but after that it was quite nice and we all had a great time.  Here are some more pictures to prove how much fun we had: