Family Trip to West Palm Beach

Day 1 - West Palm Beach, Florida

Hey well surprise to all ... I am in Florida and I am posting a blog of my current adventures. It is really been just that so far. I am here in West Palm Beach and it is a lovely 75 degrees outside with a slight ocean breeze coming through my window - man I sure do love warm weather.

I got here a day earlier than the rest of my family to meet up with a friend of mine that ended up flaking on me, but luckily I made back up plans. I tried to find a youth hostel some where around here, but there were none, but this is pretty much a really up scale area. So I turned to a service that was suggested to me about 6 months ago. I went to a website called www.couchsurfing.org. It is a really unique service that has a huge network of people that put up their couches for travelers for free, which is awesome. The best part about it is that you meet the locals and see the place that you are visiting in a whole different perspective - being part of the community.

I was lucky enough to find someone to put me up for the night, Rachel, who is a reporter for the local paper - The Palm Beach Post. She nice enough to pick me up from the airport and then ended up going out to dinner with her and her friends who also work at the paper, they were very nice people. They will probably read this blog, so I hope that they don't make too many off remarks about my writing skills.

Rachel had a very nice house in a beautiful neighborhood.

It was only two blocks from the beach, so this morning I got up earlier and watched this awesome sunrise. Waiting along side me was this bird.

After that she took me to the Marriott Resort where I am staying and I took a two hour nap under some palm trees next to the pool.

When I finally got up, I decided to go on a walk and take some pictures. I decided to do something different this time and I picked a theme for the pictures that I was taking. I wanted to show West Palm Beach for its beauty and how fun it is here. Such as these people playing beach volleyball.

West Palm Beach is a popular place, as is all of Florida, to retire. So it wasn't much of a surprise to see this lady soaking in the sun reading her book.

I came across this area that was full of seaguls. I talked to someone that lived near by and she thinks that there are more birds than normal because there haven't been any major hurricanes for a while. It was very curious and interesting to me to see all of these birds just lined up on this post not making a noise.

I walked around some more and found more birds hanging out.

I cruised around a little more and found all sorts of people relaxing and having fun on the beach...

And in the water.

After that I went out to dinner with my brothers and we saw some pretty awesome cars - like this Ferrari.

I am pretty excited to be here right now, especially when it warm weather and back home it's in the 30's. There is going to be more adventures, so check back tomorrow or the day after for more pictures and updates on what's going on down here in lovely West Palm Beach.

Day 2 - West Palm Beach, Florida

Okay so day 2. I stayed up late playing with my pictures and posting my blog that I slept in late and didn't really do much but relax today - it was really tough. I did however take a few pictures.



I was laying on the lounge chair next to the pool and I looked the left and saw this neat pattern and captured it.



I took this picture from my window - it was a great way to watch the sunset.



My aunt Linda and I went for a walk down to the water and admired the many palm trees in the area.



We also found some great boats in the area.



My grandparents and my mom's friend Jeanne arrived this evening and after taking these night shots we spent the rest of the night playing games and having fun.

Day 3 - West Palm Beach, Florida

Well more relaxing today. Went to this awesome park this morning.

My dad went there early this morning and did some snorkling and said it was the best he had ever done - there were fish all over the place. I went there later in the day with him and my grandfather and we hiked around.

My brothers went the movies and saw something that I have already seen twice so I decided to take another walk and photograph some more of these lovely boats.



The resort that we are staying at is on Singer Island in West Palm Beach. To get to island there is this huge bridge.



There is a great view on the top of the island and all the resorts.



The last photo that I have taken today was of the resort sign ... OCEAN POINT at the Marriott.

Some of us here are thinking about going to Key West tomorrow and staying the night. So hopefully I'll have more to share tomorrow rather than the boats that I've posted today and yesterday. So stay tuned.

Day 4 & 5 - Everglades NP and Key West

Wow, the past two days have been full of fun. Check out the pictures and I'll tell you what happened.



Yesterday we went to the Everglades National Park which is a, like I just said, a National Park. It is full of the famous crocodiles and all sorts of birds. We went for a leisurely bike ride and pissed off a ton of aligators. Afterwards we went for an air boat ride through the marshlands.



Bill had been here to Florida a couple of years ago and knew about this great place to eat, so we all went there and had some good food served to me brought around on swords - a real traditional Brazilian Churrascaria. It was located in the Dolfin Mall in Miami. The resturante was beautiful inside.



After eating we made the drive down to the Florida Keys and stayed on Key West. It was a really interesting place to visit and I am glad that we made the effort to make it down there. We were the closest to Cuba as we can legally get as Americas - only 90 miles away. Key West was filled with tourists that had gotten off from the huge cruise boats that were docked there. The streets were busy and there were chickens running around all over the place.

Tomorrow we are planning on taking a ride on the Jungle Queen. So check back tomorrow.

Day 6 - Good Morning

I had some people call my cell phone last night and said that it was snowing there in Utah yesterday. I got up early and felt that I really needed to share these pictures with you to cheer you up.



Just know that there are warmer places in the world than Utah.

More snow means bigger snowmen. I'll post more pictures later.

>Day 6 - West Palm Beach, Florida - It's hard saying goodbye
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So today was spent relaxing and hanging out with my family on the beach and near the pool.

It is sometimes hard to say goodbye to places that I visit, because I never know when I'll be back to experience it all over again. So knowing that I tried to make the most out of my trip. Good times.