Independance Day - Sun, Sand and Watermelon.

I'd been thinking of getting away for a few days. One day I got an email from a condominium in Delray Beach offering discounted rentals for a beach front condo in Delray Beach. The email said I had contacted them before about renting and they were emailing me to let me know about their summer specials. The email had a genuine feel to it with a sort of Craig's List sort of under designed look.

I emailed them. I looked at some flights.

Turns out Southwest was having a sale. Incredibly to me the dates we wanted we available.

The Fourth of July was coming up and since the Fourth was on a Saturday our office would be closed on Friday. By leaving the afternoon of Thursday July 2nd, I could get a nonstop flight to Fort Lauderdale, about 30 miles south of Delray Beach. We decided to return the afternoon of Monday July 6th, beating the weekend traffic, the holiday crowds and taking only one and a half days for work for a extra long weekend.

We found The City of Delray Beach has a massive, free Fourth of July celebration. There is a street fair and a 9;00 pm a Fireworks Concert. The fireworks display lasts 30-45 minutes and is set to music broadcast over a local radio station.

The view from our Bedroom

The only problem at this point was I didn't actually have a place to stay. The Condo hadn't emailed back., so I called. The onsite manager is a very nice person named Sharon. She was very accommodating and in short order I had faxed her all of the rental information and had a confirmation.

We were on our way. We packed our suitcase, made a grocery list and bought a pineapple.

Our trip over was great, our rental car was ready when we arrived. We made it up I-95 quickly. We stopped a Publix on the way to get some food for our stay.

Arriving at our condo we found the keys in the mailbox by the door, parked our car in the designated carport and hauled everything up to our room.

Atlantic Avenue Delray Beach Florida

She wanted to go look around and go out to dinner. We headed for the main drag of Delray Beach a mile or so away. Atlantic Avenue runs perpendicular to the shore. One end is at the beach and the other significant terminus is the Tri Rail station. Near the Beach are a lot of shops and restaurants. There is lots of free parking behind the buildings. We picked out a restaurant and had a very nice Italian dinner.

The Pool - Our unit is third from the left on the top floor.

The Condo was an older building, probably built in the early 70's on a large site with a large deck and pool area. Everything was beautifully maintained and very laid back. There were dozens of deck chairs.

The Beach, the beach chairs weren't out in the offseason.

The beach was spectacular. The sand was soft, the water so clear you could count you toes in chest deep water.

The actual apartments were fairly small but had spectacular views. The bedrooms and living room all had floor to ceiling glass doors opening on to a full width balcony. It wasn't a token balcony either, there was room for a a dining table and chairs plus lounge chairs. Since the building faced east, there was almost no direct sun on our balcony.

We stayed in almost the whole time, dividing our time between the beach, the pool and the balcony. We ate all of our meals on the balcony. We only left to go to the grocery store.

The best thing about the trip was the people. There are fewer than 40 units in the building and many are occupied by full time residents. Many of the other owners spend a lot of time there. Everyone mostly knows everyone and we were welcomed as a guests, not just renter scum. They held a Fourth of July party and everyone was invited. a couple of the owners grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, there was coleslaw, potato salad and of course watermelon.

It was great. We are definitely planning on going back.