South Florida Day 3

 Hugh Taylor Birch State Park was on our list of things to do, but I had no idea it was smack in the middle of town across the street from the Fort Lauderdale beaches. So we drove down the road to check it out on Friday morning. Birch was the attorney for John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, Company. He took his money and went to south Florida in the 1890s, buying up beachfront property for a reported $1 per acre. He died in 1946 and donated the land for the park to the state of Florida. It ran a train for tourists until 1985.

old train tracks

 Now it is a popular place for walking, running, bicycling, fishing, roller blading and picnicking. 

When we arrived, they told us to check out the mangrove tree. It was kind of on a remote trail but it was an awfully impressive tree...

The trails wound through the park and through pretty little tunnels...

The trail eventually took us back to a large picnic structure and the actual famous mangrove tree and this thing is GINORMOUS!!!

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On our way back to the car we stumbled upon a water taxi stop inside the park and our agenda for the rest of the day...

With beach access from the park, we decided to have our lunch in the sand...

We got gussied up and drove to the northern stop on the taxi route by our hotel. The weather wasn't the best and it did rain quite a bit but rain in Florida isn't so bad...

Now we really got a close-up look at the canals that make up the city of Fort Lauderdale and make it "the Venice of America." Basically we saw a crap ton of mansions and mega yachts...

We got off at the Las Olas stop right at the historic Stranahan House. Las Olas is a famous shopping and dining distric and we enjoyed a few yummy treats before taking the taxi back to the car while checking out the Christmas lights along the way. Unfortunately, the pictures of the lights didn't really come out well..

this totally reminded me of Disney