Ahhh, it's nice to relax. I'm sitting in Jill and Anthony's living room with Jill watching TV, Anthony playing the X-Box and the cat curled up under the coffee table. It took about 3 ½ hours to get to Miami, but the flight was half empty and so I got a row of three seats to myself which was definitely needed. I doubt I'll be that lucky on the way home alas. Jill met me in the reception area and Anthony was outside with the car, though when I walked outside, the humidity hit me like a warm, sticky wave. We stopped off at a Bennigan's (a chain sports bar) for a late dinner and a few drinks and we were joined by Avi and Pablo. We stayed there talking for a few hours, and then we headed home where I crashed out hard.
The next day I didn't wake up until about 11 am, which is not so bad when you consider that it was only 9 am Montanan time. We sat around waking up for a few hours and then had breakfast before Avi and then Pablo dropped around. It was 4th July of course, so a cook-out was in order and I was up to my elbows in meat, glorious meat, making beef patties. Anthony fired up the grill after a temporary impasse over a blocked gas cylinder and we sat around playing “Spades” and then after a short, sharp thunderstorm we sat around outside with a breeze cooling us off. Avi left around 5 pm to go home so he could have his crack i.e. Star Wars Galaxies. He's really quite addicted and so we made some small fun of him for that. Pablo showed me how to play “Hero Clix”, a sort of board game with miniatures and strategy and so forth. It was ok, but not really the sort of thing which would suck me in, especially when it's not particularly inexpensive.
We wanted to go and see the fireworks on Ft. Lauderdale beach and so we left the house about 7 pm and drove down. The traffic was fairly crazy, so we parked a few blocks away and walked over to “The World Famous Parrot” a little bar in a curious area with a mix of tattoo shops, biker bars, sex shops and, well you get the idea. Still, it was a lot of fun, though $4 for a beer was a little bit much. We sat there playing bar games for an hour or so, drinking and having a good time as the sun set. About 9 pm we wandered out of the bar, dragging Anthony away from the baseball game which was on. We walked over to the beach as the fireworks were just starting, and it really was amazing, there were a whole string of firework displays going on along the coast and we could see at least 4 of them. A string of boats lit up a huge chain of lights which extended up and down the coast as far as we could see. The beach was crowded which didn't stop some people from setting off their own fireworks with a strong breeze blowing into the street. I guess that is the reason why fireworks are banned in a lot of states because (apart from exploding tractor trailers) people are stupid and can't be trusted with things that go “Bang!”.
We stood on the beach and watched the explosions going off, and then since we didn't want to fight the traffic we went back to “The World Famous Parrot” and sat there talking to an older couple from St Louis at the bar. We watched Anthony play the golfing game which was in the bar, and then we left around 11 pm. When we got home Pablo kicked off a game off Hero Clix with Anthony and while they were involved with that, I watched “Empire Strikes Back” and then finally we crashed out about 3 am.