12-13-15 --deerfield, CSCC car show shoot, Hyatt House lights:

We've been quite busy lately!  Today was no exception!   One of Ken's contacts from his years of working at Ameren happened to be in the area passing through, so we arranged to meet for lunch.  Ken picked a place somewhat close to I-95---2 Georges.  We've eaten there with Angie and Josh once a long time ago and thought it would be a neat and unique place to meet them at.  Lunch was very good---great fresh fish---and company was great.   All too soon it was time for them to continue on their way to Orlando.  Since we were so close to the beach, I had Ken drive over there for a little while.  It was an angry ocean today.  Plus there were off and on showers.  We actually got a bit wet while eating lunch when a downpour happened and blew into the covered patio.

Still warm, though!  Air temps of 82 with water temps still 78.  I saw the pest flag was flying, too---for  the man-o-war jelly fish.  After my recent bought with jelly fish, I think I'll stay clear of man-o-wars!

We left there and headed towards home, by way of the Festival Flea Market.  They were having an old car show and our camera club was using it as an outing, too.  So Ken dropped me off and found somewhere to wait for me while I wandered around the cars.  I actually enjoyed it a lot more then I expected to.  There were some really neat cars here and there were hundreds of cars.  I've been to a few old car shows in St. Louis, but none anywhere close to the size of this one.  I don't know how long I was wandering around it, but I got a lot of pictures, even waiting out another downpour.

 I was fascinated by all the different grills

 and the rains came---

and some of the cars left.

 some had their engines exposed.

the greens caught my eye here.

lots of cool tail lights, too.

I was looking for an Oldsmobile like we had when we first got married, but didn't find one.  Did see a couple Olds, though.  

one of several old Fords

This is what I call a pick up truck!

Loved the painted bumper.

Loved it so much I took 2 pictures of it.

There were cars here from all over the USA.

what happened to all the details?  Now so many brands look alike.

Thunderbird

Love the color combination of this car.

an emblem I've never seen before.

 more distinctive designs.

one advantage of the rain is the reflections in the puddles.

Many of the cars were even for sale.

On our way home, we were treated to a brilliant rainbow.  Could even see it's origin.

 It didn't last very long, but it sure was brilliant while it was there.

 Shortly after getting home, we headed to a nursery with Angie and Josh.  She had read stuff about it being all decked out for Christmas and it was very close to Flamingo gardens.  We had hoped to go there, too, but it was too late by the time we left.   But the nursery was really pretty cool, even though we were too late for Santa and a few other activities there.
Love that you can go to a nursery in winter and there's a section for seasonal color!

 We didn't need them, but they even have umbrellas to borrow.

 some of the garden items.

 gotta remember this!---reindeer coconuts!

 Looks like Foxglove.  We're use to seeing it growing wild all over Oregon in the summer.

 patio furniture.

and the usual cut out things.

Santa selfie

 Disappointed that they missed Santa.

 They had this guy hidden away, but I couldn't resist taking his picture.

 more seasonal color and Christmas decoration.

 We were also pretty close to the Hyatt House with all the Christmas lights so we asked the kids if they wanted to go see them.  They did so we headed that way.  Ken was going to drop us off near the street like he did for me earlier in the week, but they had it blocked off and made everyone pull into the church parking lot and walk the 1/2 mile or so.  It was a beautiful evening, though, so the kids and I we happy to take the walk.  Ken stayed at the car.

They even opened up the gates and let people walk around the yard, so we waited and did that.

  Santa was even there.  Apparently they open the yard up 3 or 4 times a week now and the time I came before wasn't one of those days.  There were more people today, but I imagine the walk is keeping the gawkers count down.  I noticed they had a sign up that said they've been fined $7000 so far for having this display.  Wonder if that's what's being used to pay for the police keeping cars away.

As we were leaving, Angie started making weird pictures with motion and a slow shutter on her phone, so I decided to do it with my dslr.  Love the designs!  

 No 2 are alike, either!

 One more---------

We thought about going to the Plantation Baptist Church where there was music to the lights, but we were pretty starved by the time we did our hike so we just went home. 

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.

 I even took videos and uploaded a couple of them to youtube---
https://youtu.be/xgfFcokbzM8
and
 https://youtu.be/W6Jux7LDC-w