People like myself might know South Florida for the Everglades, the pristine marine life, and the unique swamplands. Most people know South Florida as that place you go to hit up the beach. The two areas coexist in shocking proximity in the areas near and south of Miami. However, the further north you go through the giant Miami metropolitan area, the less you feel like you’re near a national park, and the more you start to feel like you’re in the land of Florida Man. We’ll pick up our story of the April 2025 Florida trip late in the morning of April 27 with Elizabeth driving our tiny rental vehicle from Florida City to Fort Lauderdale.
The rental car was the only one left in our miniature convoy. It was Sunday morning and Kins and Keer were on their way back home before the work week started. It makes sense if you live in Tampa like they do; they could be back in plenty of time. For myself and Elizabeth, James, and Moriah, there wasn’t a whole lot of appeal to flying down on a Thursday night and then leaving on a Sunday morning. We all took an extra day off of work to fly out of Fort Lauderdale the following afternoon and got a hotel room (thanks to my free Best Western points after spending 4 weeks in the Best Western in Fairbanks!) in Hollywood, Florida.
None of the four of us had put a whole lot of thought into what we were actually planning on doing in Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood. For Elizabeth and myself, it had been task enough to come up with a reasonable itinerary for the group of 6 for the Everglades and Biscayne. It’s easier to plan things for 2 than 6 (ground-breaking, I know). For Moriah and James, this vacation was an opportunity to live the Meister way without having to put too much thought into it.
Fortune struck in fine Fairchild fashion for us. Unbeknownst to Elizabeth or myself, her brother had been planning his own Florida vacation at the exact same time. Winston and his girlfriend Moira were staying in Fort Lauderdale at the exact same time we were visiting. If you know Elizabeth’s family, then you know that it’s never rude to invite yourself to stop by and visit. Especially when it’s immediate family that you see so rarely. I wonder how Moira felt that her boyfriend’s sister and brother-in-law, who she’d met a grand total of once before in her life, had invited themselves to come spend the day with them on their nice weekend getaway? And invited two random friends? Well, she was extremely nice about it. That solidified my opinion: I like her.
So now you know why we were cruising up the freeways toward Fort Lauderdale. I had no idea where the two of them were staying, only that it was right by the water. And, as Elizabeth pulled up, I discovered: they were not exactly staying in the modest-income part of Fort Lauderdale. This place was nice. (Note: it was the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort.)
We met them in front of their hotel with the sun sparkling down on the Atlantic just across the street. There were hellos and hugs all around; this was the first time I’d seen Winston since just before the New Year, after all. We introduced Moira to James and Moriah who were being good sports as always. After talking it over and revealing that the four of us hadn’t really had much of a meal yet, Winston suggested the two-block walk to a nearby rooftop bar known as Escape. That sounded pretty good to me!
It turned out to be a pretty good choice. The Escape Rooftop Bar commanded a spectacular view of the Fort Lauderdale harbor.
It also commanded a delicious (if somewhat expensive) lunch menu. The panini probably wasn’t worth $17 on its own, but it was pretty tasty. AND I was able to get a drink with a hell of a lot of rum inside a coconut. We consider that a score around here.
What did the six of us want the most after lunch? Some relaxation time rated highly for everyone. Nobody wanted to cause a scene or disruption, but Winston and Moira were staying at a four-star hotel already… so why go look for somewhere else to do so? We followed them back toward their hotel and onto the pool deck, trying to look inconspicuous and not like someone who came in off the street and needed to change into swimsuits in the bathroom (guilty).
The pool was pretty nice. It was mostly quiet despite it being a beautiful weekend in April, probably because the sun had already moved behind the high-rise hotel behind us. Dedicated beach-goers and tan-seekers had likely relocated across the street to get their UV rays. The pool had plenty of chairs and an extremely bored bartender who was willing to take your card instead of asking for a room number when you ordered an overpriced margarita. Shoutout to the bartender for that. We spent a good chunk of our afternoon laying out. I had a book about George Washington and the Siege of Yorktown to read. On top of that, the Tigers were playing in Baltimore looking for a sweep of the Orioles. Because of that, I may have been less than clued in to the conversation everyone else was having. Perhaps a bit of a social faux pas, but it was my vacation too. Gotta recharge the social batteries when you can.
Winston and Moira were on their way back up to DC that evening. They still had a little bit of time before their flight back, and did you know that Fort Lauderdale styles itself the “Venice of Florida”? Ignore that there’s actually a town in Florida called Venice. FLL has canals and that makes them unique and special among all coastal cities. There’s a spot in town called the Riverwalk (again, this is the ONLY city in America to have thought of the concept, please don’t listen to San Antonio) that is essentially one of the highest concentrations of high-end shopping that I’ve ever seen. There were things like Tommy Bahama, Sunglass Hut, exotic jewelers, boutique beach shopping, even an open-air hibachi restaurant right along the road. None of us really needed anything but it was a fun way to spend a couple of hours. I even bought something: a nice set of salmon-pink shorts perfect for brunches.
There’s also actually a path along the New River in the Riverwalk part of town. We took a walk along it. There were a lot of water taxis, a multicultural hodgepodge of boats with their Trump flags skimming the water (A very Florida In Early 2025 thing to see), and big skyscrapers all around. At the end of the Riverwalk, there was a spot you could walk over where US-1 tunneled under the New River directly beneath you. As a highways and tunnels aficionado, it was a nice little footnote to the trip for me. To complete the loop, the six of us walked back toward the road with all of the nice shops and found a gelato place. Any day gets better with gelato, and given that three of us would be heading to Italy in 6 months (something that didn’t feel real at all to think about), it was a topical thing for us to order.
It was getting toward dinnertime now. Winston and Moira had to catch their flight from Fort Lauderdale back to DC. We loaded them into Uber with final good-byes and thank yous for letting us crash their vacation. Had it been a random way to spend a Sunday afternoon? Absolutely. Not sure if I’ll ever run into a sibling almost out of the blue in such a random spot again in my life. But it had been fun and was a nice chance to see the two of them.
As for the four of us who remained of our Florida trip, there was still close to a full day until our flight from Fort Lauderdale took off. James, Moriah, and I resumed our roles as Elizabeth’s passenger princesses while she dealt with horrifying south Florida traffic. Thanks, Elizabeth! She got off of I-95 safely and pulled into the Best Western right next to the highway…
…And this is how we learned that our hotel that night was sharing a parking lot with the largest strip club any of us had ever seen. I mean, it looked somebody had converted a Hobby-Lobby-sized building into the Cheetah club of Hollywood. What I was rapidly coming to realize is that the entire Miami metropolitan area is actually just one giant Grand Theft Auto video game setting in real life. The inside of the hotel was a little better, but not much. The highlight was the extremely overzealous front desk clerk I talked to while getting the key (alone, because even though our room had two queen beds, we weren’t sure if I was allowed to book a free room for four people). One elevator was sketchy and the other was nonfunctional, and our room and beds were marginal comforts, but it was a decent enough place to spend a night.
Elizabeth and I encouraged James and Moriah to get involved in the dinner planning a little more. The last thing we’re looking to do is take a vacation with all of our friends and start a yearly tradition entirely based on us bossing people around. They found a spot with Asian fare of some sort. Unfortunately, when you write a blog post 7 months later, some of the details end up lost to you. I do remember that it was a good meal, and Hollywood was also a neat little downtown to walk through. It was classy and modern with just a hint of GTA V.
Back in our hotel that night, the curtains were drawn tight to keep the light from the strip club out. And that’s the best way I can sum up our final night in Florida.
