Chapter 21 - Fun at the Beach Again

And we are off on another trip! This time to sunny Florida.

Hi again, It's Tammy...this time back in the U.S. in southern Florida.

On December 29, we were on the road again.....we left St. Cloud for Hollywood, FL.

Hollywood, FL is located between Miami and Fort. Lauderdale on the Atlanti side of Florida.

Along the way we stopped in the Knoxville, TN area for one night to see our friends John and Meg.


It was great spending New Year's Eve with them.

Charlie made two new friends with Roxy and Bobo.

It sure was nice spending New Year's Eve in a place with grass instead of snow.

We brought Charlie, our 17 year old terrier, with us on this trip. He eats his evening wet dog food on a plate that Corp made when he was 7 years old.

Posing with his 43-year-old art piece.

One of my funniest memories in Knoxville is Corp's reference to his "driving pants". We all call them joggers. He calls them driving pants.

We had dinner in Market Square (Downtown Knoxville), which has such a great vibe. They even had a ice skating rink in the center of Market Square. We plan to return to Knoxville for a longer stay in Fall 2023.

The next stop along the way was a one night stay in Charleston, SC.

We biked to Downtown Charleston and walked up and down Historic King St. There was lots to see and take in. There were so many historic houses. Southern style architecture is definitely different than what we are use to. I loved the huge front porches.

After we left Charleston, we were off to Orlando, FL to see Corp's cousin Brady and his girlfriend Taylor. We just stayed one night and met them for breakfast before taking off for Hollywood.

On January 3, we arrived at our Airbnb, Roy's Place, in Hallandale Beach, FL.

The hosts even left a few treats just for Charlie.

Charlie loved the hard treats we bought him at Petsmart. He is very picky with treats so it was fun to see him enjoying his treat so much.

Roy's Place was a very nice and comfortable place to stay for the month of January. The place also had a nice backyard for Charlie. We enjoyed chatting with the neighbor Randy who showed us how to light a charcoal grill with a plastic clamshell instead of lighter fluid.

Hallandale Beach is adjacent to Hollywood, FL which is where we spent most of our time. We couldn't believe how many condo buildings have been built along the beach.

It was condo building after condo building
from Hallandale Beach to South Beach, which is about 20 miles.

Where we were staying was about 3 miles from Hollywood Beach. The bike ride included biking down the "gauntlet" of traffic on Hallandale Blvd and crossing the bridge over the Intercoastal Waterway. T

This is what you saw when you crossed the bridge over the Intercoastal Waterway.
I loved the water tower and mural.

The Hollywood Beach area was our favorite and we spent several afternoon taking in the sun, sand, and surf. The 7-mile boardwalk was perfect for our electric bikes.

Just pics of a few things we stumbled on or came across on our bike rides.


Look at huge pegasus/dragon sculpture outside the Gulfstream Park horse racing park. Corp and Charlie look so tiny.

A fun piece of fish art made with recycled materials at the
Marine Environmental Education Center (MEEC) on Hollywood Beach.
We thought the flip flop fish scales were pretty neat!

I couldn't resist a kiss with Charlie at the puppy kissing booth at the MEEC.

We had been to Hollywood, FL once before and one of our favorite restaurants is the Le Tub Saloon. It's a waterfront burger joint that is mostly outside and features a unique old tub and toilet decor as shown below.

The burgers and seafood salad are (were) our favorites. Our first visit we had a burger that came with fries and seafood salad (that I ate for three meals), which totaled about $40 with tip. We went back two weeks later and had a burger that did not come with fries, and a much smaller seafood salad (1 serving) and the total was $80 with tip. What? We called the next day and they told us the restaurant was sold between the two times we ate there and the new owners raised the prices and reduced serving sizes. We were pretty disappointed!

On January 8, we headed south and took a day trip to Key Largo and visited Gilbert's Tiki Bar. We have been there many times before on our two boating trips and love their buffalo wings. They were still delicious! Such a great waterfront place with a beachy vibe!

On January 9, we headed north up to Fort Lauderdale. Fort Lauderdale Beach and Las Olas beaches were fantastic.

We also visit the Hugh Taylor Birch State Park. We don't know what kind of tree this is but they were huge and the root system growing from the limb down to the ground was so unique.

When we returned to the state park from our bike ride along Fort Lauderdale beach we got yelled at by the admission person because we entered the park on the left side of the entrance. He informed us that you never enter a state park on the left side of the entrance. If we did it again we would be banned from the state parks.....very serious about his job.

On January 11, we went to Little Havana, which is a historic culturally-rich Cuban neighborhood in the City of Miami.

Lots of mural to see.

Cuba is know for playing dominoes. Little Havana had a Domino Park. It was fun see so many people playing dominoes in the middle of the afternoon.

We spent a lot of time on Hollywood Beach. We loved their 7-mile boardwalk. Biking was interesting with all the people around.

One day it was windy at the beach and our umbrella went air born.

On January 16, a Martin Luther King Day parade went through our neighborhood. It was a small parade, but included bands and a princess too.

Downtown Hollywood was within biking distance and we went there a few times. We had the most terrible pizza ever. They charged an extra $2 to put the pizza in a box....yikes!

We discovered some sidewalk art in Downtown Hollywood that was so fun!

Loved this...Pets Are A Treasure

On January 16, we took a road trip north of Fort Lauderdale to West Palm Beach. Along the way, we discovered a small funky beach town called Lauderdale-By-The-Sea. It had a great beachy vibe, but think it might be too small to stay for any length of time.

Lauderdale-By-The-Sea | Anglins Fishing Pier & El Prado Park

West Palm Beach was something else. It was $50M+ beachfront estate after estate for miles. We found the excess so disturbing. No one needs the $83.5M beachfront estate shown below.

On January 17, we biked 15 miles down to South Beach. They had a great trail system between Haulover Beach Park and South Beach. I still loved all the art deco architecture.

We had to check out if Mac's Club Deuce was still around. We discovered the place on our last trip to South Beach in 2017. It's a great dive bar about three blocks off of Ocean Dr. It was still there and looked the exact same. They even still had the 2 for 1 chips for drinks.

On January 21, we went to the Yellow Green Farmers Market. It was a really big farmers market...probably the largest we have ever seen.

I love the the cork made wallet that I purchased.

Check out these doughnuts.....they have a syringe of frosting coming out of them.
We didn't try them, but they definitely got a 10 for creativity.

On January 22, we took a road trip about 3 miles into the interior of south Florida and went biking on the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail. It was advertised as a mostly paved biking/walking trail around the second largest lake entirely within the borders of the United States.

Most of the section we biked in Pahokee was not paved.

Pahokee was a pretty depressing small town in the middle of nowhere,
but we did like the palm lined streets when entering the town.

We also saw a lady driving a golf cart with a wire basket of 8 husky puppies in the front of the golf cart, but we weren't fast enough to get a video of it. It was super cute!

We came across a funny road on the way back....Hooker Highway.

We also came across a drive thru convenience store in the middle of nowhere.

On January 25, we took another road trip north to Fort Lauderdale.


We walked on their Riverwalk, which was probably 3-4 miles long along the canal.

Lots of big boats going up and down the canal. Lots of draw bridges going up and down.

Our reality in south Florida is there are way too many people with too many crazy drivers. Check out the stupid driver in the video below.

Miscellaneous pics/videos

We found this tiny hammer while biking on Hallandale Beach Blvd. It is about half the size of a full hammer. I have never seen a hammer like this before.