DISCLAIMER: The cameras are monitored regularly from Monday – Friday, 8 AM – 5 PM. If there is a technical problem after hours, it likely will not be resolved until the following business morning. Additionally, the globe wiper rests in the camera’s view from time to time, should this occur after hours rest assured it will eventually move out of the view.

PLEASE REMEMBER the underwater camera is located at the bottom of the ocean and is subjected to the natural elements of the sea like heavy wind, storms, and substantial wave action due to its location in a high surf zone. It will go down on occasion or it may be glitchy on certain days. This equipment and your view are at the mercy of Mother Nature. So please be patient and kind with your comments.

KEEP IN MIND that the weather will affect the water quality, which will affect your view. Cloudy conditions, heavy rain, freshwater runoff could make the water appear different in color and even murky. The surf can also bring more nutrient content in the water. Please be patient with Mother Nature.

Thank you to the City of Deerfield Beach for their permission to bring you this camera. Click on the link below and enjoy! No scuba gear required!

Go Live Beneath the Atlantic Ocean Surface

The post See Underwater at Deerfield Beach appeared first on Simply Smart Travel.

Hurricane Irma

Fleeing Irma: Planning Pays Off Even When It is Hurried

Cedartown, Georgia

Fleeing A Hurricane, Finding Southern Hospitality

We always try to plan our Simply Smart Travel trips well in advance. We have found that it pays to do our homework and research the best places to stay and learn about our destination’s attractions and culture. However, long term advance planning is not always possible. That is the situation we faced at our Sarasota, Florida home as category 5 hurricane Irma churned toward us, days away. The official message was clear: get out if you can or go to a shelter if you cannot.

The Exodus Begins
We heeded the advice and fled north. But planning and preparation still proved to be valuable and made our evacuation less stressful.

After poring over TV weather reports and downloading the Florida Storms app for our phones, we filled our gas tank, loaded our precious computers in the trunk, packed appropriate clothes and a few necessities and decided that Northwest Georgia seemed to be a good place to evacuate to, given the storm’s predicted path. Knowing Atlanta would be mobbed by evacuees, we decided on Cedartown Georgia, a town 60 miles west of Atlanta. We made a reservation for two nights at the Cedartown Best Western and hit the road four days before the storm was scheduled to hit.

We figured and soon verified that the highways would be clogged. So we got on our phones and started to call hotels along the way since it became obvious that we would not make Cedartown in the normal drive time of nine hours. After getting a lot of “Sorry, we are full” responses, we found one in Tallahassee and arrived there after a ten and a half hour drive (normally about five and a half), mostly on secondary roads because I-75 became a parking lot.

Southern Hospitality
The next morning, we set off from Tallahassee on U.S. 27 toward Cedartown and arrived there in mid-afternoon. After checking in to the hotel, the front desk suggested that we go to Jefferson’s restaurant across the street for dinner since they were offering free food to Florida evacuees. That was our first taste of southern hospitality. What wonderful and generous people. We tried to pay but they would not accept it.

The hotel filled up fast and by the next morning, there were people sleeping in campers in the parking lot (provided gratis by people in the town) and the hotel even opened a room for evacuees without a hotel room for showering. Even though we had reservations for two nights, the hotel accommodated us and extended our stay for four nights.

The lobby of the hotel began to fill up with huge quantities of food of all kinds, bottled water, diapers, pet supplies, toiletries and so forth, all donated by private citizens, stores and local churches and all available for the taking, no questions asked. The local volunteer fire department showed up and made provisions to set up a huge tent if needed. Fortunately, it was not needed since the hotel allowed people to stay in the lobby and in the campers in the parking lot.

Soon, grills appeared on the lawn and the townspeople began grilling hamburgers, hot dogs and bar-b-que and urging evacuees to take their fill. They kept it up every day until two days after the storm, when we left to return home. Nobody would take any money for anything.

To put it mildly, the people of Cedartown stepped up and showed what hospitality is all about.

Since we had a car, a room, credit cards and adequate provisions, we decided to make the best of a bad situation and explore the region. Cedartown, the county seat of Polk County, is a picturesque town with a population of 9,750.

The town was named for its Red Cedar trees and its downtown is full of historical buildings and listed is on the National Register of Historic Places because of its 1890’s architecture. Although the  town was ravaged by the Union Army during the civil war, the coming of the railroad and U.S. 27 helped it recover in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

Postscript: We arrived back home to no damage. Irma had largely spared our town. Unfortunately, other places were not so fortunate. Thanks for everything Cedartown.

Before You Go, Check out

• https://www.downtowncedartown.com/
• http://www.exploregeorgia.org/city/cedartown/
• http://roadsidegeorgia.com/city/cedartown.html

Getting There
           Cedartown can be reached by car.

• By air, the nearest major airport is Hartsfield-Jackson International (ATL) in Atlanta.
• By train, Atlanta is the nearest Amtrak stop. Birmingham.is 120 miles away.
• By car, Cedartown is located on U.S. 27, 27 miles north of I-20 and 60 miles from Atlanta and its interstate highway connections.

Must-Sees For A Short Trip:

• Historic Cedartown downtown.
  

  Downtown Cedartown’s bright skies while Irma raged in Florida

   

• Big Spring, the largest natural limestone spring in the South.
• A stroll on the Silver Comet Trail which runs through town.

If You Have Two or Three Days:

Recommended for a slightly longer stay are:

• A drive to the restaurants and antique shops at nearby Cave Springs.
• Seeing the still-open West Cinema Theatre’s art-deco architecture.

If You Have Several Days, enjoy:

• Exploring the gorgeous campus of Martha Berry College in Rome, Ga.
• Wandering through Museum of Coca-Cola Memorabilia in Cedartown.

Sidebar: Ginny O’s  Tips For Dressing The Simply Smart Travel Way For Hurricane Evacuation. Dress comfortably for being in the car for a long time and for the expected weather. Forget fashion. If you are evacuating a natural disaster, put your emphasis on clothing that will help you survive.

Sidebar: This Destination At A Glance

Over 50 Advantage: Small town Georgia oozes history and hospitality. Cedartown’s historical
downtown is walkable and welcoming.

Mobility Level:  Public and commercial buildings are accessible. There is no public transit system. The terrain is flat-to-rolling and most places have convenient on-street parking. A car is a necessity.

When To Go:  When you need to, in time to beat the throngs of last-minute hurricane escapees. Hurricane season is June through November. Georgia summers are hot and autumn turns cool to cold.

Where To Stay: Before you leave, make hotel reservations. Plan on slow driving since you are not the only one with plans to escape.

Special Travel Interests: Safety and a place to be comfortable. While you are away, be sure to explore your surroundings and enjoy its hospitality, history and charms.

The post Fleeing Hurricane Irma-An Unexpected Find appeared first on Simply Smart Travel.

The Jungle Queen is a popular Ft. Lauderdale tourist attraction

Before our migration from Boca Raton on Florida’s Atlantic coast to Sarasota on the Gulf coast in early 1999, we were frequent visitors to neighboring Broward County and Greater Fort Lauderdale to visit friends and enjoy the restaurants and recreational opportunities.

So, when we embarked on recent road trip back to our old stomping grounds in June, 2016, we were curious to see what has changed and what has endured. There are ample amounts of both.

For starters, the impressive infrastructure of greater Fort Lauderdale has stood the test of time. Visitors and residents alike can move around with east on the wide and well-maintained roads, and a remarkably good public transportation system with frequent buses and commuter trains. The downtown Ft. Lauderdale airport and the Port Everglades cruise terminal are also convenient and efficient terminals for visitors.

Mega yachts and skyscrapers abound in Ft. Lauderdale

The subtropical ambiance that strikes visitors from the north so positively as a defining characteristic has not changed either. Lush landscaping of both public and private spaces is the norm and tends to dress up even some not-so-upscale neighborhoods.

Another enduring feature of the area is its allure to visitors. The warm weather, dynamic night life, great restaurants and tourist attractions ranging from Butterfly World and clean public Atlantic beaches to touristy lures such as horse racing, gambling and sightseeing cruises still give visitors plenty to do. Shopping malls of all kinds such as Sawgrass Mills, the Galleria and the Festival Flea market still draw throngs.

What is different is mostly in the commercial realm. Many of our favorite restaurants are no longer there or under new management, though some new ones caught our attention. The area immediately to the north of the iconic Deerfield Beach pier, one of our favorite evening walk venues, has gentrified significantly and we loved the view from Oceans 234. Demographically, South Florida ‘s refreshing diversity seems to be have continued.

We really enjoyed playing tourist. One of our favorite “touristy” things to do was a daytime cruise on the venerable Jungle Queen tour boat which is based at the Bahia Mar yacht harbor. For 90 minutes, we glided through the intracoastal waterway and the New River, passing mega yachts and mega mansions galore and absorbing some local color from the narrator’s spiel.

We also found some neat little restaurants on tony East Las Olas Blvd., along Ft. Lauderdale’s beachfront N. Ocean Blvd., and in Pompano Beach in the vicinity of the Intracoastal waterway and Atlantic Blvd. Waterfront restaurants ranging from commonplace to ultra-upscale are easy to find throughout the region.

Our visits to Butterfly World, downtown Ft. Lauderdale, Sawgrass Mills, The Festival Flea Market, and a drive along highway A1A as far as Mizner Park in Boca Raton also landed them on our “should do” list for visitor.

Lush landscaping characterizes the New River waterfront.

It was fun to revisit greater Ft. Lauderdale and see it from the eyes of a tourist. If you are looking for some good food, beaches and a lot of vacation attractions, we highly recommend you visit there whether for the first or the tenth time.

The post Revisiting Fort Lauderdale: It Still Deserves The Title Of Tourist Magnet Extraordinaire appeared first on Simply Smart Travel.

                           Fall In Florida

By Jeffrey R. Orenstein, Ph.D., Simply Smart Travel

This autumn we will mark our twenty year anniversary since we moved from Ohio to Florida. One of the things we missed during our first few years in the Sunshine state was the annual abrupt change that marked each autumn in northern Ohio. Like clockwork, the tress put on their gorgeous display of color and the weather turned sharply colder, even though so-called Indian summer warm spells were frequent. Unfortunately to this warmth-loving writer, frosts and even an occasional snowfall that tuck were also part of an Ohio October. They were the inevitable harbingers of the long winter to come.

But now that I am an honorary Florida native (a curious cultural phenomenon that seems to happen to transplanted residents after about a decade), I have come to appreciate that there is a change of season each fall in Florida. Admittedly, it is more subtle than what happens up north but it is real and it is perceptible.

Our first clue is usually that the early morning temperatures become noticeably cooler. Instead of a overnight low in the upper 70’s (and occasionally the lower 80’s), the overnight low is in the high 60’s and lower 70’s. Today, for example, the overnight low was 67 and the prediction is for a high of 84 with another low in the high 60’s for tonight.

Another sure sign of autumn is that the annual migration of what we affectionately call snow birds (northerners who winter in Florida) is beginning. The auto carriers that ferry their cars down are in evidence in increasing numbers, dropping off their Lexuses, BMWs, Audis and Mercedes Benz sedans and SUVs. The restaurant lines are a bit longer and the traffic is a little heavier, though nothing what they will be like when the flock is in full force between early January and Easter and Passover.

Still yet another sign that fall has arrived in Florida is that the humidity is lower-in the 50% to 60% range instead of the 80% to 90% range. The difference is huge-the level of summer soggy air discomfort is gone and usually won’t return until April.

Another tip-off is that the summer rainy season that started in June is over. The sun is shining brightly and the set-your-watch regularity of late afternoon thunderstorms is a thing of the past. While there are occasional rainy days in the fall, they are few and far between. It still may be hurricane season but it is winding down and well past the peak weeks for storm development.

What says Florida fall to me most of all is the rainbow of colors from freshly-planted annuals that will bloom until spring, the brilliant yellow and then orange blooms on the numerous rain trees that dot residential areas and the median of one of the main streets in our neighborhood. Along with them, the bright yellow blooms of the Tabebuia trees contrast with the fluffy white clouds in the omnipresent blue skies. They don’t call it the Sunshine state for nothing!

Yes, there are seasons in Florida and Autumn is one of the best. It is a colorful, mild and delightful time of the year in Florida. It’s good to be here. When you visit us, keep your eyes open for signs of all. They’re here. When are you going to be?

The post Autumn In Florida: Paradise Enjoyed appeared first on Simply Smart Travel.

Tampa’s TECO Trolley runes every 15 minutes to and from Ybor City.

A Saturday In Tampa Slightly Off The Beaten Path

 If you’re ever in downtown Tampa on a business trip and have the better part of a half day free, there are some interesting attractions very close by and certainly worth a visit.

While Busch Gardens, Rays baseball and International Mall attract the throngs, if you stray off the beaten path a bit, there is a lot to see.

I recommend a visit to be the beautifully restored Tampa Union Station, served by Amtrak’s New York to Miami route. Built in 1912 and renovated in 1998, the Italian Renaissance edifice sees two trains daily and is the third busies station in Florida. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places and is beautiful inside and out.

A fairly short walk east down Twiggs Street brings you the Port Authority Station of the TECO Tampa Trolley, a real-live streetcar that runs every 15 minutes between the hotels, convention center and amenities of the tony Channelside area and Ybor City The all day fare is only $5.00 (good also on local city buses) and it runs until 2:00 am on Fridays and Saturdays. (If you are staying at Channelside, you can catch the trolley there and walk to and from Union Station.)

We hopped the trolley to historic Ybor City, the historic home of Tampa’s Cuban immigrant cigar makers It was founded in the 1880s by Vicente Martinez-Ybor as a cigar-manufacturing center, and was home to thousands of immigrants, mainly from Spain, Cuba, and Italy.

Although it fell on hard times in the middle of the 20^th century, today it has been gentrified and has become a lively entertainment and food district. The Columbia Restaurant is justly famous (try the white Sangria) and Spanish, Cuban, Italian, Greek and French restaurants are available on La Setima, the main drag of the Historic District. Cigars are still hand rolled there and the cafe con leche is as good as that found in Miami or Havana. One of only two National Historic Landmark Districts in Florida, Ybor City is a must-visit.

Another place worth a visit lies just south of downtown. Old Hyde Park is accessible by cab or local HART bus route 30 which runs about every half hour. Built in the 1920’s, it is an area of beautiful old homes and what used to be a very tony shopping district. Many shops and restaurants remain, although tony shopping has moved to prestigious International Mall in Tampa. It’s a good place to shop, have a glass of wine and take in the sights of one of Tampa’s interesting neighborhoods.

A summer drum circle on Siesta Key. It happens every Sunday.

The Joys of a Florida Summer

Summer gave us a sneak peek on the Gulf Coast this week. The mercury climbed into the high 80’s and the humidity ramped up a bit from where it was during our cooler-than-usual spring. It will probably cool off again now and then before summer heat settles here in earnest in a few weeks but I am one of those Floridians who love summer.

Yes, I know that many Floridians are “snow birds,” our affectionate term for those who winter in Florida (usually for six months and one day to establish Florida residency and save a bundle on state income taxes which don’t exist in Florida). But I’m not one of them. I live here year-round and love it during all of our real but subtle seasons.

Summer is particularly nice in Sarasota, a tourist mecca, because we get steady ocean breezes and actually experience less heal and humidity than most cities in the midwest and northeast endure. Have you ever experienced summer in St. Louis, or Memphis or Philadelphia? It’s H-O-T and S-T-I-C-K-Y and you can’t count on the cooling zephyrs coming in from the Gulf.

Summer traffic is a less intense. As famed Florida columnist and novelist (“Bad Monkey”, “Sick Puppy” and others) Carl Hiaasen observes, you can tell it’s summer in Florida by looking at the license plates. The majority are actually from Florida in the summertime. It’s seems like it’s the reserve between Thanksgiving and Easter.

Summer also brings us warm water and uncrowded beaches. Ah, the beach. Florida has many of the finest on the planet.
Floridians enjoy the beach year-round but we in the over 50 set especially like to have a glass of wine and nibble on hors d’oeuvres as we watch the spectacular sunsets over the Gulf. It truly is one of the most moving shows nature provides.

Another joy of Florida summer is al fresco dining. Whether you’re overlooking an inland pond, the Gulf, the Intracoastal Waterway or just passing traffic, more and more Florida restaurants have outdoor seating to enjoy. And enjoy we do.

So, Porgy and Bess were right when they sang about Summertime and its Easy Livin’. If they had lived near Siesta Key public Beach, they would have had to weave the word ‘paradise’ into their song.

The post Summer In Florida appeared first on Simply Smart Travel.

Tips, Trips and Tid-Bits for the Savvy Over-50 Traveler.

Why are there so many over-50 travel companies and tour operators? Because being 50 or older (sometimes a lot older) today is not what it was in when your parents and grandparents were that age. Today, those of us in the second half of our lives live longer, work longer, stay fit longer, have more disposable income and travel far more for business and pleasure than our ancestors ever dreamed about.

We’re also better educated, are able to easily access more information and are more adventuresome than previous generations.

The old over-50 travel largely focused on quiet luxury resorts, cruises that were long on leisure and short on activities and sightseeing and gentle bus tours that started late in the day and got everybody back to the hotel in time for dinner. Boring!

That’s not the over 50 travel we’re talking about! Over-50 travelers like us are out there. We’re exploring the world, looking for new tastes and sights, soaking up learning and culture and not afraid of a little adventure.

So what set us apart from the under-50 set? Frankly, not that much. Still, age has its privileges and we do have some relevant characteristics and interests that define us and make us such a desirable travel market.

• First, while we like to hang out with our contemporaries, we also enjoy and relate to folks of all ages. Senior-only tours and groups appeal to only some of us.

• While we’re not quite as athletic as some (by no means all) twenty-somethings, we’re a pretty fit and adventuresome bunch who are not afraid to bike, hike, climb and explore on our way to adventure.

• Though we’ve finished our formal education, we’re committed to lifelong learning and yearn to absorb as much as we can in our travels.

• Because we’ve climbed the ladder through at least one career (and many of us are in our second or third), we’ve got some money in our pocket and are willing to spend on what we deem to be good values.

• We’ve also honed our tastes so we’re always on the lookout for excellent food, drink and attractions, especially those just off the beaten path.

• Many of us travel with our children and grandchildren so we wind up at the Disney World’s of the World but look for more than roller coasters while we’re there.

As we blog about over-50 travel and bring you trip reports and travel tips, we’ll cover health and fitness as it pertains to travel and keep today’s senior traveler in mind.

The post Savvy Over 50 Travelers appeared first on Simply Smart Travel.