Thursday, April 2 — It rained hard all morning, but the forecast said it was supposed to stop in the afternoon. By the time Christi and Keith finished school, the rain had mostly stopped. Believing it was going to be clear for the rest of the afternoon, Keith and Christi hopped in the car and drove down to Ft. Lauderdale, which was about an hour drive south, to see Tiki Tour.

Shortly after getting on the freeway, a cloud rolled over that dropped rain so hard that there was no visibility. Maps re-routed us off the freeway, so we figured there must have been an accident ahead. The detour took us a couple of miles south before routing us back onto the freeway. The street route had many traffic lights, and it took a solid half-hour to drive those two miles. By the time we were back on the freeway, the rain had stopped and the freeway was clear.

Tiki Tour was anchored in the ICW near a bridge. Unfortunately, Christi was confused about which bridge and went to a spot about a mile away. After a bit of texting back and forth with Tiki about not seeing their boat, Tiki figured out we were in the wrong place. All in all, by the time we finally arrived at the correct bridge, the one hour drive had turned into a two hour drive.

While there had been heavy rain North Palm Beach, it hadn’t really rained in Ft. Lauderdale this morning, and no rain was in the forecast for the afternoon. Christi, Diane, Keith and Fynn went to the Hugh Taylor Beach State Park, located on the barrier island between the ICW and the beach. The entrance fee was $6 per vehicle or $2 per person if entering by foot, so it was actually cheaper for the four of us to take the car in than it would have been to walk in.

Per the map/brochure they gave us, the road did a one-way loop around the 180-acre park, with parking lots interspersed along the loop. We found a parking spot and began to explore on foot. Per the blurb on the brochure, the Tequesta Indians utilized this land during their annual migrations, but generally moved on quickly. The first permanent settlement in Ft. Lauderdale was the fort, which was built for the Second Seminole War, and was located about 2-miles south of the park. It sounded like Hugh Taylor Birch was one the earliest non-military residents in the area. In 1893, he started purchasing land in what is now part of the city of Ft. Lauderdale. Upon his death in 1943, he donated this piece of land to the city to be used to preserve a natural, wild area for the protection of wildlife. It was a surreal little rural oasis in the middle of the dense and bustling city.

The diversity of the park was surprising. On the south side was the ICW, with a sea wall and dock that offered great views of the nearby expensive waterfront homes.

There were quite a few walking trails. This one paralleled the road.

And several trails went through the center. Most of the trails we walked were quite different from one another.