The Travelling Hershbergers: Fort Lauterdale, Peanut Island, and West Palm Beach

On July 2nd, two days before the Fourth of July, Charlie, Mom, and I touched down in Fort Lauterdale.

And so, thus begun the record of our numerous humorous and tragic escapades in the new city.

Getting off the plane, our heads bursting with images of Jurrasic Park and Robocop, we rushed to the baggage claim, as we'd checked our bags before the flight. And thus, we encountered our first challenge.

My bag, which I'd checked in before the flight, was gone! Confused, we rushed to the baggage claim service office, where they told us that our bag was most likely still in San Fransisco and would be flying over on the next plane.

None the less, unable to do anything about the situation, we moved on and went to our hotel, with the promise that we would be called if anything turned up about our bag.

So, after a frantic search for a diner open at 1 AM, ending in a cheap drive thru that served gyros, burgers, and fish and chips, we finally arrived at our hotel.

We ravenously ate our meager dinner, called the baggage services to check up on our bag, and went to sleep.

The next morning, we woke up to dreadful news. The bag, which was supposed to come in on a flight from San Francisco earlier that morning, had still not arrived from the West Coast.

So, out of options, a trip to Walmart for clothes to replace the ones I'd lost was warrented. After the obligatory, "Mardi and Walmart" jokes and a lot of fussing, I finally managed to escape the store with two new sets of clothes, enough to last me the weekend, and a new swimsuit.

Eager to put that swimsuit to good use, we set off to Peanut Island, just off the coast of Palm Beach.

There was a boat that took tourists to the island, so we gathered up our beach chairs, snorkel gear, beach towels, swimsuits, and snacks, and took off to the island.

Once on the beach, Charlie and I got on our swimsuits and plunged into the water with our snorkel gear on.

The view underwater was amazing! There were huge lines of boulders in the water that served as hangouts for all types of fishes. Most of the fish were brown and gray, but other species were green, blue, yellow, orange, and even black. Other fish had colorful stripes or markings in their body, or were simply exceedingly large. There was even a purple and yellow fish that was very colorful and pretty. And exceedingly impressive to me were the large schools of easily a hundred fish that swam under water together.

"Look, Charlie," I said, taking the snorkel out of my mouth, "Pretty fishees!"

The only problem with snorkeling was, as I soon found, I kept on forgetting that the snorkel only works of the end is above the water and kept on trying to dive underwater for a better look at the fishes.

Still, after much complaining from Charlie regarding salt in his eyes (shut up and man up, that's my motto) and some silly complaint about a cut on his leg, Charlie got out of the water and Doug and I got in again, to look for more marine wildlife.

After a while of "oh-ing and ah-ing" at the fish, we were rewarded for our hard work with a manatee sighting, no more than ten feet away from us. Excited, we finally got out of the water and told Charlie and Mom about our escapades. (Cue obligatory Barbra Manatee joke.)

While we'd been swimming, we figured out that the Baggage Claim Services had called us. When we called them back, we were delighted to discover they'd found our bag. Apparently, it had arrived on the right plane to Fort Lauderdale- someone else had mistakenly taken it home with them, and that person had just returned it to the airport.

Luckily, even though we were out of town, the airport agreed to send our bag to the hotel we were staying in by the end of that day:

With the peace of mind, knowing that our bag was safe, we continued on our journey.

Next, we visited the Kennedy Bunker and Coast Guard Station on the island.

There we learned about the history of the island- it was a man made island created when Henry Flagler dumped all the soil from a ship canal dug in Palm Beach in the ocean. The island had later gotten the name "Peanut Island" for a peanut oil shipping company that had almost been built there before a hurricane came along and destroyed any prospect of construction being completed.

Then we got a tour of the old Coast Guard Station- the first floor, at least- where the old Coast Guard had protected the coast from the 1920s to he 1990s. We saw old Coast Guard uniforms, ship parts, signal flags, Coast Guard "survival suits", and radio receivers.

Next, we visited the Kennedy bunker.

Built during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the bunker was made to protect the president, Kennedy, from radiation if the Cubans managed to nuke one of their target cities.

The bunker was made of double walled steel with lead in between. Origionally, it included a decontamination shower, rations for thirty days, waste buckets, and beds.

There was even the remains of the old exits ladder and hatch that would've allowed the president to escape.

Currently, however, the main room of the bunker was transformed into a museum, on the bunker and Kennedy's life.

Unfortunately, much to my disappointment, the shelter would not be much help nowadays, as time has rendered it's original function useless.

Leaving the bunker. (Ohh, look, so artsy!)

Next, we rested up in our hotel and continued in to the Barbeque and Blues festival that was going on for the Fourth of July.

We had a blast, eating ribs, Barbeque chicken wings, shrimp and grits, collard greens, pound cake, and okra and tomato.

At around 8, the Blues band began playing and we enjoyed the live music and games. Charlie and I played Jenga and I won. Needless to say this was the highlight of the day, far topping my measly manatee sighting from earlier.

Anyways, stuffed with food, we proceeded to Worth Avenue, the only street in town where a $500 dollar bag is the norm.

So, surrounded by overpriced, clothing, accessories, and furniture, we found a restaurant and settled down for dessert. First, we had an antipasta plate as an appetizer, and then a Nutella pizza. It was at that moment I knew I was in heaven.

Still, we decided to go for a walk around the street (and various alleyways) and soak up the (admittedly very expensive) culture of the street.

After staring at the overpriced dresses, handbags, towels, jewelry, bizarre modern art, and antique furniture, we soon turned our attention to the beautiful architecture of the area.