Latest News on Lake Worth Beach

Would you believe it? Our daily paper this morning had this headline and article:
The last days for a historic hangout*

There are a couple a neat historic photos, enlarge them and take a trip back in history. And a report on the renovation of the Casino Building on Lake Worth Beach. We just discovered the area and now they are going to tear it down in March to build a new modern one. Of course if things go as things go in Florida, it may take a few years instead of a few months.

Lake Worth Beach

We spent several hours today on the beach of Lake Worth.

The City of Lake Worth is located in central Palm Beach County on the eastern coast of Florida. It is due south of Palm Beach and considered part of the South Florida Metropolitan area. It gets it’s name from a historical General, William J. Worth. Actually we found out that there are several cities names for this general and he has a very interesting history. If you are keen on knowing more about him then click on his name above.

There is even a paperback book, (used) at Amazon called “Lake Worth(Images of America: Florida. Better hurry as there were only 4 available costing from $99 to $158. It has 128 pages and was published in 1999. That is a pricey paperback affair. But the cover is a really neat photo. Check it out. http://www.amazon.com/Lake-Worth-Images-America-Florida/dp/0738500550/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product

Lake Worth Beach has 1,300 feet of guarded beaches. Most of the life guard huts are set among the vegetation bordering the beach. Today they had yellow flags flying which means medium hazard and some sea pests.

The amenities are very nice and include showers, and picnic facilities. A nice park borders the beach area and many people bring their chairs and books and enjoy the ocean view while resting in the shade of the many trees.

There are 6 retail stores in the Casino building and 2 sit-down restaurants. There is a full service restaurant and bar on the pier, called Bennie’s on the Beach. You can see it in the distance in the 2 photos below. It sits right at the beginning of the pier and there are always thirsty, hungry folks there.

The pier is being repaired and these two photos below show the damage from two different storms. Here is a link to the story on the pier. http://www.lakeworth.org/index.asp?Type=B_PR&SEC=%7b4DB44AD3-FD61-4080-8550-64738F9159F8%7d&DE=%7b0FA70E7F-8E92-4029-B491-ED566C632BB0%7d It was damaged quite a lot during Hurricane Frances in 2004. The project is supposed to take 18 months but Benny’s on the Beach is open.

We had noticed that a little south of this beach area was a hot spot for surfers and while looking around the Internet we fell on this site with photos of kids surfing on Lake Worth Beach so thought I would include it here http://www.geofffox.com/gallery/Surfing-off-Lake-Worth-Pier-Florida/IMG_3071 Some nice photography there.

In the photo below you can barely see two sailboats way out in the ocean. We are sure there are other areas of Lake Worth just waiting for us to explore another time. Hope you enjoyed this visit.

Movin’ On Up

Yes we have moved up the road a piece. We have left Fort Lauderdale for West Palm Beach. For those of you who don’t know the area, it is about 45 miles north of Fort Lauderdale and still on the Atlantic Coast. The photo above shows the Intracoastal Waterway and across is Palm Beach and then the ocean.

Because of the move and all the things that one has to do when one moves, we have not posted to our blog in almost two months. Can’t believe how time has gone by.

We have been riding some and have taken a few photos. It is quite beautiful here too. Downtown West Palm Beach is very scooter friendly and we see lots of other people scootering around the city. The town really has a big city flavor with all the tall buildings. Many are new and many are restored. A great mixture of architecture and sitting right on the Intracoastal Waterway, which by the way is much wider here than in Fort Lauderdale. We love walking and riding along it.



There is a nice area on a street called Clematis where they have a park and a slew of water jets for kids to play in. There are usually at least a dozen little ones running and jumping and playing in the water. We took this picture early on a Sunday morning before the crowd arrived. It is a great way to cool off on a hot summer Florida day. And then stop by Sloans for an ice cream.

The roads along the ocean in Palm Beach are spectacular for riding. On One side of the two lane road there is the ocean, a huge turquoise blue spreading out for miles and on the other side of the road sits mansion after mansion in park like settings. A truly spectacular ride.

We are excited to have lots of new places to discover. Now that we are back in the swing of things, we should be posting pretty regularly. We have also missed out on reading a lot of our favorite scooter blogs. We're back!

Key Largo and Islamorada

We went down to Key Largo to do some snorkeling and thought to share some of our photos with you. Of course Heinz and Frenchie were not along for the trip. We talked about that in our last post. They were parked in the garage that weekend. We missed them but we had a great time anyway.

We went out on a catamaran named Quicksilver. The boat takes a group out to two different coral reefs and you have about an hour or more in each spot. The waters in the keys are so blue and so warm. It is such a pleasure to be out in the ocean swimming with exotic fish. Wish we had an underwater camera along with us, but we didn’t think of that. I think they sell cheap ones to the tourists for just such an occasion.

We stayed at the Ramada, right at the little cove where all the fishing and diving and snorkeling boats are moored. Here is a photo of the hotel and the small harbor.

One cannot go to Key Largo without taking a photo of the African Queen from the Bogart movie. So here it is.

We toured the Key Largo Grande Resort and Beach Club and had dinner there. This is a view from the balcony at the restaurant. Spectacular place and they preserved so much of the natural vegetation. Here is a link if you want to see it. http://www.keylargoresort.com/?src=sl_keywestcom_mainlink It is truly a beautiful place and the website is great! You will need some big bucks if you want to stay there. In our next life!

We continued down South to Islamorada. A truly beautiful area. Here is a link for more info. http://fla-keys.com/islamorada/ where we visited the World Wide Sportsman store. It is like visiting a museum of everything fishing related. We could spend hours just looking at all the equipment. They also have a fascinating aquarium. "World Wide Sportsman was designated as a Certified Audubon International Signature Sanctuary on September 22, 1998 and celebrates over ten years of environmental stewardship and protection." For more information, go to: http://www.auduboninternational.org/

The wild birds are really beautiful and we were fascinated with this lovely white thief. I think it is a white heron. He had a brush of teal blue around the eyes that looked like he applied make up especially for this photo session. And he was quite tall when he decided to give it a stretch. He was hanging out in the bait room hoping to steal a little from an unsuspecting customer.

Could not resist taking this photo of a tired old pelican, hope he is retired, and a proud little sea gull. Since our knowledge of birds is limited, if we didn't call these guys right, feel free to let us know.

Hope you enjoyed this and that it gave you some inspiration to visit the Florida Keys.

Roaming The Canals

One of things we enjoy doing on the weekends is just taking off and roaming around the canals of our area. One can ride over a small bridge and voila there is a gorgeous big boat just sitting there.



There are many beautiful yachts like these.



And usually where you find boats one finds pelicans. These guys were just hanging around hoping someone would drop some fish on them. And someone usually does.

We were riding in an area called Harbor Beach, very upscale, when a guy steps out into the street and flags us down. We thought, oh no, he is probably going to give us some grief for riding on his street. But he wanted to let us know about a Vespa group here in South Florida called the Southeast Florida Scooters. He gave us their card and told us how to contact them. We talked a while and then he got back to his business of installing a window in a house and we got back to our scenic ride.

This is how strange life is. The next week we get an email from a lady who found our blog and wanted to invite us to the same Vespa group here in South Florida. She had actually seen us riding in Victoria Park, a lovely residential area of East Fort Lauderdale. Seems the club is really very organized and they do lots of social events. In case anyone local wants to get in touch with them here is the link to their Yahoo group.
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/SouthEastFloridaScooters/

They go on fairly long trips, in fact they were planning a trip to Key West. So we will check it out, but getting on any major highway on our scooters is not a choice we would make at this time. We just started riding in October of last year so we are pretty cautious. Don’t know how many of you have visited Florida, but voting is not the only thing we screw up. We have some of the worst drivers in the country.

The group meets frequently at a place called The Cove Restaurant and Marina in Deerfield Beach. It is a nice place, here is a link to the website. http://www.thecoverestaurant.com/

We ride up to Deerfield occasionally and in the past we have posted some nice beach shots from Deerfield Beach on our blog. So we plan to ride up there some weekend and see The Cove.

Peacocks Again

Last November we wrote about discovering some peacocks living right near downtown. We thought they were awesome. Then we found these beauties walking around in another neighborhood several miles north of downtown.

We were riding in an area called Wilton Manors when what do we see but peacocks. These guys were just amazing. They were right at home in this neighborhood. We laughed as they were strolling around visiting their neighbors, checking out the carport, looking in the glass doors, and parading on the patio among the plants. Nothing seemed to faze them. They ignored us, acted like we were not even there. These guys were used to being kings and queens of the hill.

South Fork Middle River runs along this particular neighborhood. In fact Wilton Manors is often called the Island City because it is surrounded and bordered by the North and South Forks of the Middle River. The landscaping here is quite beautiful and shows how the residents take pride in their homes.

The view up the river was so pretty as you can see in these photos. We parked at the end of one of the small streets which dead end at the river.

It was a great ending to a day of riding, very peaceful surroundings. We almost did not want to leave and go home. But the peacocks had already staked out their territory and we were only allowed to visit and look and take a few photos.