March 15 - April 8, 2022: Our Spring Trip to Florida
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We left Dallas a few days after Christmas to spend New Year's and the first haf of January down at the condo in Fort Lauderdale. As these trips to Florida have become so commonplace, we tend to take fewer and fewer pictures, and so there is less and less need to divide up the trip day by day. Rather, I'll continue doing what I've done for the last few years- just divide the photo album page by topic, pretty much regardless of when the picture was taken.

Getting to Fort Lauderdale

If you've been through more than a year or two of this photo album, you are undoubtedly familiar with our route to Florida. Years ago we used to fly, but that has gotten to be such a hassle (and a good deal more expensive) that now we drive. This allows us to take all kinds of things with us- including, on this trip, our two youngest cats, Bob and Cole. Both of them are good travelers, and we thought they should keep each other company.

The trip is routine; we stop at the same places to eat and to stay- almost without exception. And it's an easy route, too. Getting out of Dallas is easy if a bit congested, sometimes. We usually leave about nine-thirty, and by ten or so are on I-20 heading east towards Shreveport. We usually turn southeast on I-49 about one in the afternoon, reaching Lafayette and I-10 east along about three-thirty. Baton Rouge can be very slow if we don't get through there by four-fifteen or so, and then it is another 90 minutes to get across Louisiana to the Mississippi border.

Mississippi and Alabama are an hour each, so we are heading east from Mobile about six-thirty or seven. This puts us north of Pensacola right about dinnertime about eight. After dinner, we have now developed the habit of continuing on to Tallahassee, ariving there about midnight. There is a Red Roof Inn there that is pet-friendly (allows them and doesn't charge extra for them.

We usually get away from the hotel in Tallahassee about nine or so for the 150-mile drive to Jacksonville, which we usually reach about noon. Then we take I-295 around Jacksonville to the south, going through Orange Park. This 14-mile stretch is kind of neat, mostly because of the long bridge that crosses the St. Johns River as it opens out into a large lake southwest of the city. (It narrows as it approaches and flows around downtown Jacksonville to eventually empty into the Atlantic.)

Cole Helps Navigate

I-295 connects up with I-95 south of the city and we simply take that south for another kind of boring 300 miles down to Fort Lauderdale. Along this streth, which Cole is quite familiar with, he sometimes comes up front to watch the traffic and help navigate. Since there are absolutely no turns to make all the way to Fort Lauderdale, this is no problem for him. We usually get to the condo around 5PM, depending on traffic in Fort Lauderdale on I-95 (which can be horrendous).

We unloaded everything at the condo, got Bob and Cole situated (and fed) and the laptops all set up, and then retired to the dock for a celebratory frozen drink. Then, as is our custom, we headed down to the Floridian Restaurant for dinner. I wish we had transporter technology, but the drive is not a hard one- although sections of it can be boring.

Bob and Cole are young enough that they are still good travelers. Bob, for example, will come out of his carrier every hour or so and walk around the car and sit up front for a while. But then he goes right back in and curls up. Cole stays out of his own carrier more; he usually curls up behind my seat where I usually make a flat space on top of my computer and duffel for him. I like it when they come up front, and it is especially nice when they will stay in one lap or the other for a while. As the driver, I'm OK with that; I just try to ignore them and concentrate on the road.

We have been here to Florida so many times that we have pretty much photographed everything worthwhile anywhere nearby. The pictures we take now are just candid shots around the condo, at the dock or perhaps at an Art Fair or other event that occurs while we are here. So I've begun the practice of just grouping the pictures for these Florida trips by topic.

The Las Olas Art Fair

Sometimes, our visits here correspond with the Las Olas Art Fair, an event held three times a year (January, March and October) where Las Olas is blocked off and a whole bunch of art vendors set up booths along both sides of the street.

The Art Fair usually extends from the intersection by The Cheesecake Factory (located above the Kinney Tunnel that takes US 1 underneath the New River) right at downtown Fort Lauderdale four blocks east to the Colee Hammock canal that goes under Las Olas.

Last January, the entire Art Fair was canceled, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But over the balance of 2021, thing slowly improved, and a scaled-down fair was held last October, and a slightly larger one this January. Instead of the solid line of booths extending from the Kinney Tunnel to the Northern Trust Bank, there were gaps this year and half of the easternmost block of the fair was not set up.

So, the Fair was held this time while we were here, the weekend of January 8-9, and we went over to walk through it as we usually do. It is always interesting to see the wide variety of arts and crafts offered, and perhaps every other fair we end up buying something for ourselves or for a gift. The Fair was smaller this time, but that's undoubtedly due to the pandemic.

For pictures this time, we took some of the more interesting artworks, and I also made two movies. One will introduce you to what it is like to walk through the Art Fair, so let me show those two movies first:

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) In this movie, we'll walk for a few minutes through Art Fair, have a look into some of the artist booths, and generally have a look at the people going by.

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) This movie shows an art installation that wasn't actually part of the Fair, but in one of the galleries along Las Olas. You'll see a couple of pictures of this artwork in the slideshow.

Of course, what the many vendors are hoping for are sales, and while we hardly ever see lots of people carring away lots of merchandise, we assume that most people conclude their transactions like we do- buying things and then coming back at the very end of the day to pick them up. There's a large variety of works and media, so the Art Fair is always interesting.

One artist I've seen frequently, and whose work I like, shows stylized figures- always in a big-city, Art Deco style- with old cars and clothes and cityscape. This time, he's changed, and all his figures are in motion- dancing- and I confess I don't like the works as much as I used to. One example is at left, and there's another in the slideshow below.

Click on the Image Above to View the Slideshow

I've put my pictures from the Art Fair this weekend into a slideshow, to make it easy for you to flip through them at your own speed. To view the slideshow, just click on the image at right and I will open the slideshow in a new window. In the slideshow, you can use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image to move from one to the next, and the index numbers in the upper left of each image will tell you where you are in the series. When you are finished looking at the pictures, just close the popup window.

At the Dock

We often take pictures of the various boats going by, and on some trips quite a few of them. This time, though, we didn't, and actually only have a couple of pictures from our evenings at the dock that are worth including here:

Bob and Cole in Fort Lauderdale

We brought Bob and Cole to Fort Lauderdale together for the first time more than two years ago, and they have done so well with the traveling that we have been routinely bringing them down since then. It's good to bring two of them so each has another to play with or socialize with.

We almost always find at least a few photo-ops with the two cats. First, here are a couple of short movies of Cole:

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) This behavior while I am on the recumbent bike is common to Cole and Bob (who is shown here). Both will get right next to me and try to get into my lap which, of course, doesn't work while I'm pedaling.

(Mouseover Image if Video Controls Not Visible) It is said that for a cat to expose his belly to you is a sign of trust. If that's true, Cole is one of the trustingist cats around.

And here is another picture of Cole, perhaps not as happy as one might think about being in Fred's lap.

The New Kinney Tunnel Deck Park

NOTE:
What follows is a section called "Background to the Project". It is a repetition of information on the Deck Park Project- a bit of the history and what the park is to look like that has appeared on any earlier "Florida Trip" pages where we took pictures of the progress of the project. If you have already read this information, please scroll down to the next subsection entitled "Project Update".

Background to the Project

When we were here last October, work had begun on the new deck park that is being constructed over the Kinney Tunnel and the northern approah to it. Essentially, the area between the point where Las Olas goes over the Kinney Tunnel (that carries US 1/Federal Highway under the New River) and the river itself will be transformed.

Here is an aerial view of the area between the Riverside Hotel and the Icon Las Olas, and the New River and Federal Highway heading north out of the Kinney Tunnel. The view looks north, and shows the area as it was about a year ago, before work began on the Kinney Tunnel Top Park Project.

Driving south on Federal Highway from Broward Boulevard, the street descends quickly over two blocks to enter the Henry Kinney Tunnel under the New River. Just as you enter the tunnel, Las Olas is over your head. Up on Las Olas, there has always been an ugly concrete wall on the north side of the street to keep people from accidently (or on purpose) dropping anything onto the roadway below (or falling onto it). South of Las Olas, SE 4th Street curved south and east from Las Olas to go through the Riverside Hotel (actually going under part of the parking garage) and then on eastward to our condo.

Between that street and the Cheesecake Factory, there were some planters and an outside eating area for the restaurant. This is also where the commemorative brick we placed for Ty Ferel and Scott Dole is located. Between 4th Street and the New River is the Laura Ward Plaza- basically an open area with a kind of ugly ventilation shaft from the tunnel below right in the middle of it.

Ever since the Icon Las Olas went up, there has been a movement to try to do something more with this whole area. First, everyone wanted to beautify it; where Las Olas crosses over the tunnel entrance is a particular eyesore. Also, new buildings are going up just west of Federal Highway, and these, as well as the existing buildings, have a particularly unattractive view of Federal Highway's descent into the tunnel.

But to do anything really significant, there had to be more space, and the only way to get it would be to essentially cover over 100 feet or so of the sloping highway. But if just a flat "roof" were put over the roadway, there would not be enough clearance for many trucks that use the tunnel.

At right is the concept plan for the finished Kinney Tunnel Top Park. It also looks north, like the aerial view above, from a vantage point just over the New River. Laura Ward Plaza is in the foreground, and you can see that the ventilation structure has been hidden with sculpture and foliage. You can see a red car, which I assume is on SE 4th St., just going through the Riverside Hotel, which is the building at right.

The greenery along the Riverside Hotel about halfway back is where the existing outside eating area for the Cheesecake Factory Restaurant is; I assume that area will return when construction is done. A bit further back, Las Olas crosses through this new park, and then there is the 100-foot section of new deck. This deck, incidentally, slopes up as it extends north, thus increasing the vertical clearance for high vehicles using the Kinney Tunnel. There appears to be more sculpture in the distance, on this new deck, perhaps also concealing another ventilation structure.

This is certainly an ambitious plan, and I will admit I am not at all sure that what we end up with will look like this, but I have to say that almost anything would be an improvement.

Project Update

Fred and I walked down to the construction area for the new deck park to see what progress had been made since last October, and we found out that quite a lot has been done.

In the picture at left, composed from a couple of separate shots, you are looking straight north up Federal Highway as it comes up out of the Kinney Tunnel. You can see that progress is being made on both sides of the tunnel approach to lay the groundwork for constructing the supports for the new deck that will cover part of that access. It is hard to see now, but the deck will slope up to the north, allowing vertical clearance for trucks.

On the right is the side of the first of the buildings on the north side of Las Olas that has been here forever- just across Las Olas from the Cheesecake Factory. The beautiful mural on the side of the building has also been here for a long time, and I certainly hope it will be preserved.

Just west of Federal Highway there used to be a parking lot for a downtown bank, but that land has become too valuable to use for that purpose, and so a new highrise is going up there. So far, only foundation work has been done, but the cranes are in place to take the building up.

This view looks across Federal Highway (which is below) and west along the downtown Las Olas corridor which, west of the tunnel, is mostly offices, with new residential towers in the distance.

This view looks a bit northwest across Federal Highway at more of the downtown office towers. The new highrise will go right on that site, and so this is a view that will soon no longer be visible.

Some Miscellaneous Pictures

To conclude this trip to Florida, I have a few pictures to include here, although if you are interested in experiencing Fort Lauderdale, they may not be particularly helpful, save for one picture that I took of Fred on the Riverwalk near the Third Avenue bridge.

(Picture at left) There was no particular reason to take this picture save that Fred wanted me to. Each day, we bike over to Holiday Park and spend a half-hour or so tossing a Frisbee around.       (Picture at right) This was one of those Art Fairs where one of us bought something. Fred got this colorful acrylic creation to put on the high table where our laptops are. When the sun shines in the window, it really lights up.

The Trip Home

We left Fort Lauderdale on the 16th, and were home the next afternoon. As always, it will be great when we finally get transporter technology, but for now driving will have to do.

At least there are times when Bob helps me with driving duties by watching the traffic for idiots I might not notice right away.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	March 15 - April 8, 2022: Our Spring Trip to Florida
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