Trip to South Florida

This past weekend found me down in South Florida, which I have to admit is not my favorite place to go. I guess it's mainly because I'm out of my comfort zone and I can't find places quickly. Thank goodness the weather was nice and I'm not getting started on the "people that refuse to learn English" topic.
I was there for a sport competition and I will just say that my team took first place as well has some other awards. The other nice part was the hotel, LaQuinta, made a mistake in my favor and gave me a king size suite! Sweet! We were actually in an area called Sunrise, Fl. Everything is hidden! You drive down a major roadway and there is a lot of landscaping and walls, then suddenly you see a small sign for MacDonalds that sits only 4 feet off the ground. Or there are no signs at all and if you don't look off the roadway and see the business back there, you would drive right by it. Seems the main place to shop, eat, meet is the Sawgrass Mill Mall. We went in there and it was a cross between a Zoo and a Circus! Not that it's a bad thing... but once again the culture shift left most of us with the same thought that there are a lot of rude people there.
The drive home was welcome. Along Alligator Alley I decided to stop and take this photo. They didn't name this road Alligator Alley for nothing. The only thing between me and this 5 foot gator was water & a 8 foot chain link fence. What most tourist don't know is that a gator has a natural fear of humans...until you feed him. Then you become a food source one way or another. The other thing is, when motavated enough, gators can climb chain link fences. We counted over 16 that were up on the banks and a couple in the water. At 70 mph it's easy to miss a few, lol.

Then we spotted another team pulled off to the side of the road. They had a SUV pulling a cargo trailer and a van. They blew the transmission on the SUV. I had a full size desiel van with a hitch so we hooked up the trailer and pulled it back to St. Petersburg, while they waited for a tow truck. Hey, I wouldn't want to have those hassles, especially on the Alley! It only added about 45 minutes to our drive. It was sure nice to get home sweet home!