Florida City – CountUp

Flamingo Gardens

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. This is Part 2 of my look back at my recent trip back to South Florida – my former home of 35+ years. It was my first trip back in nearly 9 months (38 weeks to be exact) – since the end of June 2025 – when I closed on the sale of my 30-year home.

I wrote about my Sunday and Monday in and near Homestead and Florida City in last week’s edition. This week – it’s Tuesday in West Broward (the western portion of Broward County).

But before we leave Homestead – it’s a milestone in my car. I hit 9,000 miles driving to Breakfast. It took 95 days to drive the next 1,000 miles from 8,000 to 9,000. That’s an average of about 10½ miles per day since the middle of December. My trek to 10,000 on the odometer will clearly come sooner than 95 days due simply to this road-trip alone.

It was a good 48 hours in Homestead and Florida City. After Breakfast at the local family-owned Flagler Restaurant in Homestead I hit Krome Avenue (State Road 997), and then onto U.S. 27 just shy of the Miami-Dade / Broward County line.

I made it to Flamingo Gardens along historic Flamingo Road in Davie. It was my 6TH visit since 2012 – and my 1ST visit in just over 4 years. It’s my favorite place in Broward County. If I had decided to leave Homestead and move up to Broward in retirement (very hypothetical) – then I’d very likely be volunteering or working there today. It’s part botanical gardens, part wildlife sanctuary, and part historic house museum. It covers about 60 acres, and it was established 99 years ago as a family homestead and citrus grove at the edge of the Everglades (back then).

Fun Facts: As an 8, 9, and 10-year-old in suburban Lanham Maryland (just outside of Washington D.C.) me and my friends would bring rakes into the woods on a fairly regular basis. We did so to rake the leaves on the ground, clear a path, and create trails and rest stops along the way – essentially creating our very own neighboring nature parks. On the left side of the creek that ran through the woods – I created “Chris Day Valley” (named after myself). On the right side of the creek – two of my friends (brothers) created “Wolf Pack State” (possibly named after misheard lyrics of a popular Gordon Lightfoot song at the time). After my friends on the right side of the creek lost interest in their unique park – I went over to the next street over and joined other friends who had already started working on their park. They gladly welcomed me. We even had a flag handmade of our park. (One of the moms did that for us.) It was so much fun while it lasted.

So why did I bring all of that up ? It’s because Flamingo Gardens looks like a grown-up version of those childhood parks that we created in the woods. It reminds me of those fun days outside 50 years ago.

After a fun 3 hours and 15 minutes at Flamingo Gardens – I headed north to Tamarac where I met my brother (visiting from Texas) at a hotel. (His 3 days of work was done at the Broward County Convention Center.)

We went to a noisy Yard House at The Oasis at Sawgrass Mills Mall for dinner, and then we walked across Panther Parkway over to the Amerant Bank Arena to see our Florida Panthers take on the Seattle Kraken. (The Panthers won 5-4 in overtime after a shootout.)

Next #TravelThursday – we’ll head back to Sawgrass Mills Mall for extensive shopping, and we’ll take an impromptu tour of West Broward County and many of its suburbs. Let’s keep traveling together.

Homestead / Florida City

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. A couple of Sunday mornings ago I departed for my former home of 35+ years – Homestead Florida (at the south-end of Miami-Dade County). It was my first trip back in nearly 9 months (38 weeks to be exact) – since the end of June 2025 – when I closed on the sale of my 30-year home.

I departed my current home about 50 minutes before sunrise, and I arrived at my former home church in Homestead about an hour before the start of the 11 AM service. (It was a typical 3-hour and 20-minute drive.)

It was a great Sunday morning service – with wonderful Praise + Worship music and a relevant sermon from the Lead Pastor. And it was great to see everyone again. (I wrote about this church a couple of weeks ago on #SundayScripture. You can link to it here.)

I enjoyed ministering at the church from 2015 to 2024, and I learned a lot from the Lead Pastor. But nowadays it’s great sitting in the back row with friends as a guest observer and worshiper.

A small group of us went to Texas Roadhouse for lunch (my choice). I had a gift card from last year, and there is no Texas Roadhouse back home. Fellowship, food, and service were all great. I got to catch-up with everyone. I plan to visit again perhaps in 6 months. We have some birthdays to celebrate in September.

I checked-in to my hotel for 2 nights, and I settled in until the next day.

Day 2 was Monday, and after filling up with gas and shopping at Kohl’s – I met two former coworkers / bosses (also retired like me) at Longhorn Steakhouse. We enjoyed lunch together and reminisced, and we’ll probably meet again in 6 months.

After lunch I headed to the tiny mainland portion of Biscayne National Park (at the western edge of Biscayne Bay) for the 3RD time in the past 15½ years. I previously visited in October 2010 and May 2016. In April 2019 I actually took a fun boat tour of the 95% of the Park that is water. (Embarkation of that tour was actually about 10 miles up the coast at the Deering Estate.)

Biscayne National Park was stunningly packed when I arrived at 12:40 PM on Monday. There were only a few empty parking spaces remaining in their relatively large parking lot. I couldn’t believe it. Why were all of those people there ? Oh – Spring Break continued. I stayed there for about 2 hours, and by the time I left there were more empty parking spaces.

A lot of people were fishing at the Park. I have some unpopular opinions about that, but I’ll keep them to myself (as a non-fisherman). I didn’t appreciate how portions of the narrow bridge / walkway were essentially blocked by groups of people fishing (and not particularly watching who was walking behind them or in-between them). It was kind of a safety hazard. But who I am to raise a concern ? I’m just a tourist now. It may be another 10 years before my next visit.

Back in Homestead I hit some stores, and Starbucks, and Outback Steakhouse where I enjoyed dinner with a former coworker friend. And then it was back to my hotel for the 2ND of 2 nights.

The Homestead / Florida City half of my trip to South Florida was planned and implemented perfectly. I’m looking forward to my next visit later this year.

I’m headed to West Broward County for the next 2 days to hang out with my brother visiting from the Dallas Texas area. I’ll write about it – next – #TravelThursday. Let’s keep traveling together.