 9/17/2021 - Fort Lauderdale, Florida - Today, we started our Florida adventure driving from home west down the NYS Thruway to Buffalo Niagara International Airport to catch a direct flight from Buffalo down to our first stop on the Florida tour. Tampa Bay. We arrived mid afternoon and the Frontier flight was very good and I picked up my discounted rental car from Enterprise without issue. We stayed for the night at Nicole's place in rainy Pinellas Park having a nice dinner at Mr & Mrs Crabs. Next day, we drove South down I75 onto 595E taking us to our tremendous suite at Lago Mar Resort on the private beach in Fort Lauderdale. The resort was just fabulous and pretty empty. We enjoyed this as our home base for the week and the private beach and facilities were excellent. We next headed to Hollywood Beach for dinner at our namesake restaurant Florio's of Little Italy right on the beach and caught a nice rainbow! We enjoyed the Bills beating the Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium and also went to Hard Rock Live for Hall & Oates. We journeyed north up Route 1 beach hopping to Delray Beach, Deerfield Beach, Boca Raton. the very nice Pompano Beach and we even stopped for breakfast one day at Lauderdale By The Sea. We took part of a day and headed to Miami having a late breakfast on South Beach and then got caught in torrential downpour, luckily discovering a discarded lunch umbrella helped us survive the storm. The time at Lago Mar in Lauderdale was very nice enjoying the two pools, watching the sunrise and the ships on the private beach and tons of activities. We found several good spots for food including a New England joint called Kelly's Landing, breakfast at Joe's Cafe or pizza at Manhattan NY Pizza. We finished the week at Lauderdale and drove back to Tampa stopping at Naples to walk one of my favorite Florida beaches Lowdermilk Park. We made it back to Nicole's place and headed to St Pete Pier to enjoy dinner with family at Frescos Waterfront Bistro, the bacon wrapped scallops were delicious. We caught Clapton at Amalie Arena and finished the week watching the Bills pound Washington at a Bill's Backer bar in St Pete called Buffalo City Bar & Grille. A fun place with many Western New Yorkers in attendance eating Roast Beef on Weck, wings, drinking Labbats Blue and watching the Bills! Up very early the last day to catch a direct flight from Tampa back to Buffalo, a great trip.Slideshow |
