The Intracoastal Waterway at dusk. This separates Fort Lauderdale Beach, which is actually on an island, from the rest of town.
The Intracoastal again. You can see the houses where the rich folks live and dock their yachts. You know the rich folks, don't you? They are the ones who pay all of those taxes for you and aren't allowed to have a tax cut.
Imagine you are a Florida pioneer coming to carve out a new community in South Florida in the 19th century. This is what you would have seen. Not a particularly hospitable place. This is in Birch State Park, across A1A from the beach (and right next door to the Holiday inn).
Lockhart Stadium, soccer home of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers from 1977-1983 and the Miami Fusion from 1998-2001. (Yeah, I know this stadium is nowhere near Miami.) I used to sit in the east end zone (not pictured on the left) in the Striker Liker Club seats. There was a high school football game on the Friday I took this picture. That explains the pointyball lines on the pitch.
This picture and the ones that follow are of Flamingo Gardens. As I remember it, Flamingo Gardens was out in the middle of nowhere, halfway to the Everglades. Now the suburbs have pretty much engulfed the surrounding area.
A peacock and a tortoise. Wait, wasn't that one of Aesop's fables?
There is a large walk-through aviary full of regional and tropical birds. They all seem to get along with each other pretty well. Can't we all learn a lesson from the birds? Can't we all eat bugs and crap on the ground?
I had some feed pellets and this ibis wasn't particularly shy about coming on up for some food.
An egret, standing majestically, and some pelicans, sleeping and standing around like they're bored or something.
If you are looking for hard-to-find home repair supplies, go to Home Depot. If you are looking for a wide selection of office equipment, go to Office Depot. If you need to get rid of Aunt Mabel but don't want to spend a lot of money on the old bag, go to Cremation and Funeral Depot. How tacky is this?
Plantation Colonels versus Piper Bengals. Plantation won 28-14. When I was in high school, the other schools used to hang banners at the games that said "POP THE COLONELS!" They thought they were so clever, except every school did the same thing. Twenty years later the Piper students hung a banner that said "POP THE COLONELS!" You'd think that in the past two decades someone would have thought of something else. Guess not.
The team warming up before the second half. I know the night pictures aren't very good, but so what. I just wanted a picture of the big fat player in the back row. Actually he is the back row. He was huge, easily 300 lbs. In high school! I weighed half that when I was in school. Then again, members of the other school's band weren't trying to tackle me during the halftime show either.
After the game I went to Mario's, where my friends and I would sometimes go after football games. They serve killer garlic rolls that drip with butter.
Second Presbyterian Church. "But Jeff, you are not a Christian. Why did you take a picture of this particular church?" I used to be a member of the Florida Singing Sons boy choir. (Yeah I know, band and boy choir. What a world class geek I was when I was a kid!) Anyway, we used to rehearse at this church. Besides, it pretty different looking as far as churches go.
Downtown Fort Lauderdale, 2000. There is actually a downtown now, with relatively tall buildings and everything. There are a couple more that are hidden behind these.
The same picture altered to look like what downtown was in the seventies. Just the Landmark Bank Building. Now it's BankAmerica. But everything's BankAmerica now.
The Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. When the airport was smaller, that short wall where the palm trees are is where parents could lift their kids to look over the wall and watch the planes take off and land. The airports too big for that now. And so am I. That's it from sunny (and hotter than hell) South Florida.

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