Living Life Like it's a Vacation!

Thursday, December 10, 2015

12-9-15 Biking a new route and awesome Christmas lights!

Finally, the rain seems to be lifting and there was actually some blue sky today! Haven't seen that in several days. The wind was even way down. Plus the temps were only about 80, albeit still a bit humid. But it was a great day to get out on my bike. So much so, that I went exploring on a route I hadn't taken before and got in about 12 miles.
I started out with one of my normal routes to the end of Coral Ridge (Knob Hill) to see how the construction to Loxahatchee was coming along. It was still closed off. On the way back, I decided to ride into the gated community of Heron Lakes. This is the view as I'm sitting at one of the benches overlooking one of the lakes in the community.

It makes a huge half circle that goes all the way to the edge of the everglades. There's actually a dirt road behind it that runs parallel to the Everglades berm. I decided to check it out. The berm is on the other side of the canal.

There's my bike waiting for me to come back for it. Beyond it is the little road I found that led behind the gated Heron Lakes.

I decided to ride the dirt road for awhile, but didn't go too far.

Back into the large Heron Lakes subdivision.

When I got back to my apt. complex, I decided to check out the pool. I was surprised to see someone in it. I waded into it and decided it was still doable so went back and put my swimsuit on. The water was probably about 73, but after riding for an hour or so, it felt pretty good!

That night, we went for a ride into Plantation to find some Christmas lights that were on tv a while back. This is the Hyatt House---not well liked by the neighbors. They claim it's a nuisance having cars blocking and parading up the street all night. They asked for police to direct traffic and not let gawkers in, but were supposedly denied. I say supposedly because when we went, there were about 2 or 3 police cars in each direction not letting none residents in. We were directed to a church on the south side and were told to walk down. Ken wasn't interested in walking, so he let me out and I went and gawked by myself. I was surprised that there was noone else there. I guess making people walk to it is a deterrent.

Wonder what their electric bill is like!?

Ken had read online that there were several more houses in the area with lots of lights. We drove around a bit, but didn't really find a whole lot of houses lit up. But I did find a few worthy of a picture.

So we thought we were done. Little did I know the best was yet to come! We actually found it by mistake. I thought we could take a short cut to the main road we needed to head back to Coral Springs, but the road didn't go through. Instead it took us to Plantation Baptist Church! This light show was to music and was put together phenomenally! The whole light show lasted about 1.25 hours before repeating the music. We were probably there for about 45 minutes. I would have liked to sit in the chair provided and watched more, but the chairs were wet and my ankles were being eaten my mosquitoes. So we left---but not before I got a complementary hot chocolate. There was no fee for this show, even parking was free---but we did give a donation.