Nov 21-30/ 2012

Have spent the past 10 days being tourists up and down the "treasure" coast from Boca Raton south to Homestead. Have window shopped till we dropped in several mega malls (most of them designer outlets) looking for the ultimate pair of shoes.......for Norm !! We enjoyed a full day on the hop on/hop off water taxi (all day for $17 each) which took us from North Fort Lauderdale along the beach area to the Hilton Marina where we enjoyed a cobb salad on the waterside patio and a tour around the marina (saw Steven Speilburg's mega yacht, the 7 Seas, and Ralph Lauren's mega yacht). At this point we transferred to the Hollywood route which took us through jungles before reaching the bars & restaurants of Hollywood, FL. We cruised through Port Everglades, not the largest but the busiest port on the east coast. It is home to the 2 largest cruise ships in the world (each carry about 6500 passengers and 2500 crew -talk about a floating city). There was only one cruise ship in port while we were there but they have had as many as 13 in one day !!! There are dozens of container ships loading and unloading at the great length of piers. It was a great 1.5 hr return trip except the only bathroom on the taxi had backed up and was out of service. Once back at the Hilton stop we transferred to the downtown route which passed many millionaire's homes and yachts in their docks before getting to the Riverwalk. At this point it was getting dark so we saw the return trip under the moon and with lots of Christmas lights already on. A really fun and interesting day -really makes one feel humble after all the riches and decadence but so glad to be alive and healthy and able to be here to share the view !! Another really fun day was our mystery trip to the Monkey Jungle. I knew that Norm wouldn't be that interested but I LOVE monkeys so off we went on our 65 mile journey along the coastal route which ended up taking us 3 hours with all the many LONG traffic lights in the smaller towns. The Monkey Jungle is so unique as the visitors are caged while the monkeys are free. You walk through chicken wire covered walkways with monkeys on all sides of you including overhead. I have never seen so many monkeys (also wooley gibbons, orang utan, a 400 lb. silverback gorilla, and monkeys that dive and swim underwater for crabs (in this case, hard boiled eggs as it is fresh water). Could not believe the minute size of some of the spider monkey babies, and the obvious pecking order within the groups. I could go on.....Norm admitted he really enjoyed the day and all the information we got from the trainers & staff. We have had a really anti-social stay at Breezy Hill RV as over 90% of the guests are from Quebec and don't speak any English, nor do we speak any French so were at an impass. In fact, we don't hear much English even in the shops -lots of Spanish and Creole (Pigeon English amongst the African Americans -from Jamaica, Haiti, Barbados, etc). We have now moved from Breezy Hill RV to Paradise Island RV (Passport) where we are storing the coach for the next 2 weeks while we are away on our Southern Caribbean cruise. Meantime we are off to meet our cruise mates, whom we presume have arrived here overnight.