Taking on New Adventures

When I found out I was able to attend a work conference in Fort Lauderdale, Chuck and I decided to tack on a long weekend in the beach city. While it’s not a city that we had on our “top 10” list, we are both up for adventure and checking out the local scene wherever we go. And since work has been insanely busy and stressful for both of us, this was a great opportunity to get away for a short period of time and enjoy something new.

My conference ended on Thursday afternoon, so I took a Lyft to the hotel and checked in. Moments later, a knock on the door resulted in a bottle of wine and a fruit and cheese tray from the GM of the hotel. It was a lovely surprise and Chuck’s face lit up when he arrived hours later.

We’ll skip over his travel nightmare getting to the city followed by the taxi drama in getting to the hotel. But he made it. Just in time to see the Saints lose (nothing like your husband being in a bad mood to start a mini-vacation!). But he recovered nicely and we caught up on the week before plotting out our Friday.

Friday-funday. We made the decision to take a Lyft to a few breweries in town and check out the craft beer scene. We hit Funky Buddha first and did a couple of tasters. Then we made our way to the Khoffler Brewery. What a cool spot! And the beers there were fantastic. I loved the fact that you could do a flight of all of 21 beers, although that was a bit much for us and we stuck to 4. We wanted to stick around a bit longer but since our time was limited, decided to head out for our next adventure.

We tried to hit another brewery but arrived a little too early, as it didn’t open until 5pm. So we walked around the neighborhood and stumbled upon The Brass Tap. Not knowing what to expect, we were pleasantly surprised by the micro-brewery on site as well as the awesome happy hour specials. I would totally check this place out again.

We ended Friday with some pizza from the Primanti Bros place next to the hotel and the wine brought to our room on Thursday. It was a fabulous day.

The cold front coming through on Saturday put a damper on our overall plans, but we adjusted and made the most of it. From a spontaneous haircut at the Barbershop Bar for Chuck, to roaming around the beach community and checking out the happy hour at Coastal, we ended up enjoying our Saturday, rain and all. The day ended with us watching the Winterfest Boat parade and trying to take photos of the amazing decorations on the boats as they passed by. Unfortunately the flashing lights from the police car on the bridge hampered my efforts at beautiful photos but we did get to experience a really cool parade. We ended with a quick bite at the World Famous Parrot and relaxing at the hotel before having to hit the airport early Sunday for our flight.

I really thought the weekend was over when we landed, but we ended up with a spontaneous day of watching football, running a few errands and eating a fantastic meal at Ruth’s Chris before ending our fun and relaxing weekend. It was just what we both needed before the grind of the final weeks of 2017.

We are both looking forward to some awesome 2018 adventures as year 2 of marriage begins.