Ft. Lauderdale (1 cent)

Guess where I am?

I flew here yesterday on Spirit(less) Air Line, which flies from DC to Detroit and Ft. Lauderdale only, but leaves here to go to the Turks and Caicos and the Cayman Islands. It is really dull. For a 7:30 a.m. 2 1/2 hour flight, you get a drink but no food.

The Ft. Lauderdale airport was very, very crowded (more tourists in FL this March than ever before, they say). I was surprised that the rental car agencies have all been consolidated into a new facility (that works fairly well), and you no longer have to drive off-site; what surprised me is that the facilities that existed were all large and state of the art, and looked like they would be there forever.

I went to Hollywood (a sad looking town) because I wanted to stop at Trader John's Used Book Store. Had not been there in over a year. It is a very sad looking book store, with an old inventory and a lot of old book smells. When John retires (he looks to be 80), my guess is that no one else will take over the store, or buy the inventory. I bought one book.

I then had lunch (there are a lot of fancy restaurants in FL) at the Hollywood Cafe, where I wanted a caesar salad with salmon, which they were unable to make (only make it with chicken), but I could get a grilled salmon sandwich without the bread and a caesar salad. On second thought, I did not have to get the caesar salad, because the salmon came with a salad. But what kind of a salad? Romaine and tomatoes. If I wanted, they could make it a caesar salad (that meant leaving off the tomatoes). So I had romaine lettuce, no tomatoes, salmon, and a little carton of "caesar" dressing. $8 and no one should have to eat there.

Then I went to the beach in Hollywood. That means, because I had an extra hour, I decided to drive a couple of blocks east and park the car. The area off Highway 101 in Hollywood is non-descript commercial, two blocks of small houses/hotellettes (which look like each should have a sign saying "You don't want to stay here)a boardwalk with concrete instead of a board, and the beach. A typical nice FL beach, with four billion people on it. Average age of the beachgoers is about 85. No kidding.

The drive to my client in Sunrise takes you about 30-45 minutes due west to the border of the Everglades (literally). I keep forgetting how far it really is

Then we went to the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, a joint venture of Hard Rock Cafes and a 500 member offshoot of the Seminoles. Imagine Las Vegas without Las Vegas. The architecture looks sort of like Las Vegas. There are thousands of slot machines and you can play poker. But no blackjack, no roulette, etc. And no big Las Vegas shows. Fancy guitars on all the walls, restaurants that look second rate, and why would anyone want to be here? It is on the Turnpike, probably 6-7 miles from the beach or from anything very interesting.

So, I am coming down the elevator and a woman is checking out with a lot of baggage, saying to the bellman. "Wow, what a great hotel! You could stay here a week and never be bored". Yawn.