I came to Ft. Lauderdale with a specific mission in mind, the transfer of the historic old audio tapes to digital, as shown in another album. But I actually had a lot of fun on this trip, it was one of my best trips to the old home town in many a year.

SCOOTERS IN FT. LAUDERDALE I think one thing that made it really fun was the discovery of all these little electric scooters laying about the street. My first hint of this was when I was still in Atlanta and I saw a couple of red scooters parked next to Juniors Fast Food. They had the words "Rent Me on Uber?" painted on them. Hmmmmmmm. Well it turns out that you can rent them in an app, and Uber is not the only company, there are several others and they had scattered these little scooters all over the area of downtown Ft. Lauderdale. Lime and Bird were two of the more common brand names. The scooters just lay around on the street unlocked but they all stay in touch with the mother ship, reporting their location using wireless data and GPS. If you want to find one you open the app and log in. There will be a map showing the location of nearby units along with the charge status of the battery. You walk to the unit, scan it's bar code with your phone, it turns on and away you go. Payment by credit card. I think Ft. Lauderdale is very well suited for this type of transportation. Yes, traffic is horrible on the main roads but there are lots of more quiet side streets where these things are so much fun to ride. If you don't have a long distance to go it's a great way to NOT drive and to miss that horrible traffic. I was going back and forth from my AirBnB to the historical society every day. And going out to lunch as well. A great alternative to bus or Uber for short range travel. If memory serves the area extended from slightly north of Sunrise Blvd. to about SW 17th Street and west maybe as far as west 9th AV. The area included my old neighborhood and all the places I wanted to go. Unfortunately many people, who have obviously never ridden one, don't like them. It's true that some riders are bound to be irresponsible and it makes some pedestrians nervous sharing the right of way with these. Also, I have a good friend who is a paramedic, he was a little dismayed that I was riding around like that, he has, I suppose, picked up a few folks who have been injured. I only fell off once. I was not careful enough when crossing a railroad track. But I wasn't hurt and I was more careful after that. Sadly the city Fathers shut down the scooter business during Covid (why that was necessary I don't know) and, to my knowledge, they never allowed them back again. So, though I didn't know it at the time, this was my first and also my last time having this kind of fun in Ft. Lauderdale.