Florida Sunshine

Sometimes life throws you a curveball high and inside, but sometimes you get a soft easy one right down the middle. This post is about a recent soft easy one down the middle.
Through a unique set of circumstances, our office picked up a client who has a resort hotel in the Florida Keys and needed an audit done. I was asked to go down to the resort and do some onsite work for the audit. So, off I trudge through the snow and cold to the airport - duty calls and I will do what I am asked:)
The Florida Keys are a group of islands stretching out south and west from the bottom of Florida into the Gulf of Mexico. It is about a four hour drive from Miami to Key West, which is the last island and the end of the road. The place where I had to go for work was halfway between Miami and Key West. The bridge above and the bridge below are past the place where I was. Most of the bridges are not too long, but as you can see, there are some long ones! You can see a secondary bridge that is pretty narrow. This is the remnants of an old railroad that was built to transport pineapples up to the mainland. I think a hurricane in the 60's caused some terrific damage and the railroad was not repaired. However, by that time the tourism demands were enough and a new highway was put in.

This picture below is on the mainland. You go through miles of this stuff - I suppose it is a part of the everglades?

This picture is looking back at the island where I was working on. I was told that all the water is piped down from the mainline. You can see the pipe under the bridge.

Same bridge but other side

Looking out into the Atlantic. You can see little islands out there.

This is a picture of the resort hotel. It is called Cheeca Lodge and Resort.

more pictures of the resort

Here is a really cool tree. These do not grow in the forests I am used to!

More pictures of the resort.

"Key Lime pie" is on about every restaurant's desert menu. I thought this was a cool design and took a picture to show the children.

This picture below was taken from the same chair as the one of the pie above. The weather was very nice, high of 78 and low of about 68. However, the locals said it was much cooler than normal. All things are relative as Tara told me it was at zero the same morning I took this picture!

The picture above and below are from the same chair.

I believe a person could almost get used to this!

The next several pictures are of the room I stayed in. These were very nice rooms and I was definitely out of my comfort zone (like how much and how often do you tip?)

The tub filled from the ceiling!

I am standing in the bathtub below taking the picture above.

The two pictures above and below are of a couple of homes in Miami in a normal neighborhood. Notice the bars on the windowns and doors. It reminded me of some of the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia.

In was a nice change of weather, but it sure would have been a lot better if my family could have been there. Maybe next time.