remembering

SUGAR PLUM xoxoxoxo ...

Ft Lauderdale Museum of Discovery & Science
Mouse Trap!

We spent a day in Ft Lauderdale this week, while Ray's Mini was in for service. Oddly enough, all service must go through the Lauderdale shop, even though Mini is now owned by BMW. No matter, a quick search of "things to do in Ft Lauderdale" the night before and we decided on the Musuem of Discovery and Science, conveniently a few miles from the dealership and right across from the Riverfront historical park.

This functional Mouse Trap covers the entire entrance to the Musuem (I loved that game as a kid!). The displays include a little of everything (space, air travel, conservation, science, nature), almost all of which is interactive (very few things your not allowed to touch). We had a great time, despite the hearing test (field trip day!!!). They even have an IMAX Theater (the screen is 3 stories tall x 5 stories wide!). Again, the sound was a tad loud (maybe our ear drums were just maxed out), but if your a movie buff it's the ultimate in movie going experience. We saw the new remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still (very good!). Museum and Movie fees totaled $32 for the both of us - outstanding value for an entire day of enterainment!

What we first considered a bit of an inconvenience, actually made us get out of the office for a day (practically unheard of!) and I'm glad for it. We're looking forward to going back in Feb for the Mini's first oil change ... at 15K Miles!!! A difficult concept for us to grasp, even though we've been using synthetic oil in all of our vehichles for many years (which allows 6-7K between each change)

Besides catching Madagascar 2 at the Imax, we're going to investigate the half dozen or so historical buildings in the Riverfront Park, that were build by the same man in the early 1900's (1905-?).

These pics are from Cape Ramano, our fav long time chill spot ...


nearly pristine, it's accessible only by boat



as we recently discovered, a tour pontoon boat now brings some 30 people

out every 2 hours (for a fee), for season only, we would guess.

On this day, we were quite surpised to see this impressive vessel pulled up to the beach (it's rather shallow as close up as this one is)

Who can blame them for coming here? it's a wonderous spot!


* From what I've heard, about a dozen vacation homes were built on the Cape

in the late 60's, early 70's. Storms quickly eroded the beach and thus, their

foundations, which apparently weren't deep enough)

* This is where Hurr. Wilma first hit landfall in Fla (2005). She pretty much

demolished the remaining half dozen houses altogether, with the except of

the "scrubbing bubbles" house.

.

* In doing a quick serach on Cape Romano (with various alt descriptions),

and the closest references to "development" I could find was a time line indicating

that it was part of a 1969 land purchase by the Collier family (founders of Collier

County), whothen turned it over to the state for protection.

* This same timeline (of Rookery Bay history) indicates that in 1976, the

"Deltona Corporation" lost a three year battle for Permitting, which would have

destroyed 3,200 acres of Marco wetlands.

I haven't posted in forever, as i was recently reminded ("so last year!" lol). thought i'd re-start with recent pics taken in our yard ... and a few of its welcome (mostly) visitors:

garden path ... birds fern nest blooms (they smell delicious!)

the bear (and what he did to our new above ground pool) ....

Pileated Woodpeckers (if you look closely, there's a pair of pileated woodpeckers in the first pic.). They're prox 15" long and are one of the largest woodpeckers found in North America.

a hawk ... a cardinal that got trapped on the back porch for a short time

a brazen little bunny (puppies and i were on the deck, yet
he sat quietly munching, in plain sight, right below us)

and last, but not least, a really cool bug!