Atlantic Coast Tour
April 3rd, Miami to Ft. Lauderdale

We notice that Donald Trump owns most of the area that we are biking. He is building all sorts of high rises to keep his other ones company. Most of the area along the Ocean in Miami has these huge buildings with gigantic water features in front. Strange birds call at us from the coconut trees. Bec wants to stop and pick up a coconut, but Louie does not want to carry extra weight, as if that would make any difference at this point! We are carrying a laptop, for heavens sake. Those birds not hiding in the coconut trees are very interesting. A red one plays chicken with the bike right in front of Louie. Big white ones with orange heads fly past. Then there is this huge gray bird that looks like a blue heron, but has a longer beak, that walks beside us in the sand.

We ride past miles of beach in Fort Lauderdale. The beach is filled with young, thin women in bikinis and old fat men with big brown tummies. It is very odd that there are not many young attractive men. Where are they? Everywhere we go is a buzz of activity. It takes lots of people to keep these people in the style they are accustomed. The places where there are no high rises have these incredible, big mansion type houses. Almost every one has a gardener and some workmen painting or fixing things out front.

In between the mansions is a very small, old house with this huge interesting tree out front. It is called the Butler House and was built in 1923. We are sure the tree must be that old as well.

We notice other folks on bicycles. Some are in full bicycle uniform and some are just regular folk. The regular folk ride the wrong way either on the sidewalk or the bike lanes. The cyclists in jerseys and helmets ride in the lanes going the proper direction. In Miami, people's mouth's drop as we pass and Bec smiles and waves at them. In Fort Lauderdale, folks are in a hurry so they mostly just try not to hit us, but the people on the beach lazily watch us pass.

Arriving at our hotel we find lizards are jumping about the windows and sunning themselves on the sidewalk. We are dissappointed to find that most of the pictures we have taken today are bad due to some defect with our camera. We wish we had our old one mega pixel camera back. That camera never gave us any trouble! We will end our day writing postcards and watching some TV, a luxury we won't have for a long time to come.

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