A Third of the Way to Ghana
The Government Finance Officers Association, to which I belong had its annual conference at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, just north of Miami this week. So I and two others from the County climbed on a plane and went to the workshops. The distance was just a little more than 2,000 miles, but it was a different world in that tropical air. The plane featured video screens which displayed maps, altitude, and outside temperature just like when I flew to Europe a few years ago. The freezing level over south Florida was at 28,000 ft. and on the ground the temp varied between 80 and 90. Mornings dawned relatively cloudless, but the clouds built up over the land and drifted east to give us afternoon showers every day. The first morning I stepped out on the balcony to get pictures for the panorama above and the camera lens immediately fogged up, so it was wipe and snap, wipe and snap to get the pictures.

We spent much of our time attending workshops and sessions at the conference. There were keynote speakers on two days; Mary Madiline, the conservative wife of Democratic Party mogul James Carvill on Monday ("We get along - we have two separate TV rooms to watch the news", she said.) and Shalala (the Clinton Health Secretary) on Tuesday. Very interesting comments about the upcoming elections and the candidates from both of them.

There's lots of good seafood places to eat there and we were treated to one big dinner by the County's bond underwriter. Overall a nice time.

The least expensive attraction is the yellow water taxi ($13/day) which route spans over 2 hours and with lots of commentary about who lives in which mansion that fronts the bay. With a day pass you can get off and on the water taxi and do your own looking around.