Saturday, Nov 11^th, 2017 – Debarkation Day

It was a grand sunrise, all pink and gold, while pulling into the Everglade Port in Ft Lauderdale. Lots of big puffy clouds tumbled in the turquoise sky. We moved through a channel to the dock, a channel lined with homes, with lawns and swimming pools running right up to the edge of the channel. Our ship was maybe 50’ from the edges but not a wave or other disturbance was created.

Debarking Lounge

We breezed through customs, took the bus to the airport, picked out our rental car and was on the road to Orlando by 9:30am. This area is flat-flat-flat. The biggest and only hills are overpasses. There’s lots of grass, palm trees, low bushes and trees, with small ponds and lakes pooling up in every low area around. The only hurricane damage we saw were shredded billboards everywhere. The billboards appear to be made of cloth and hang in tatters.

At noon, we stopped in Ft Pierce at, wait for it, where else???

Yup, The Waffle House, the finest of southern traditions. I’ll admit, it was a close call. The Cracker Barrel advertised “Breakfast Y’all Day” but we just had to revisit that bastion of Southern Hospitality. Nor were we disappointed. Our waitress, Princess MoMo, was friendly and prompt, suggested hash browns, covered, smothered and diced, to go with our meal, but we stuck to a simple waffle and eggs with coffee. Pretty good, too.

We followed our Garmin leader, avoiding toll roads, and weaved our way north for about 4 hours, arriving in Orlando and the Best Western by 3pm. We unpacked, got our bearings and did some planning.

Along about dinner time, we wandered across the parking lot to Miller’s Ale House. It is an open air bar with a couple of dozen tvs blaring college football; buckets of beer and lots of cigarettes burning. We had a couple of pints and some bar food; calamari, chicken fingers and pot stickers. Also pretty good.