Florida Turnpike Renovations

The duties of my position as a district manager of south Florida require me to travel every couple of weeks, or as needed, to offices in Ft. Lauderdale, Hollywood and Miami. The turnpike is the only way to drive to these offices because I-95 is almost always a mess, especially the closer I get to Miami. My favorite place along the turnpike to get gas, take a bathroom break, buy water and gum is at the Pompano Beach rest stop. This is because it's almost half way to my Miami destination, and If I don't stop at Pompano Beach then it never fails… I get stuck in traffic on the Homestead extension, making my bladder miserable for the rest of my trip. For the longest time, this particular rest stop had been under construction because the place was old and disgusting. The bathrooms were falling apart and the floor had puddles of unknown origin everywhere. The mini mart was actually a micro mart with so many people stuffed into it, I always got claustrophobic when I was in there.

Several weeks ago the Turnpike opened up the newly renovated rest stop in Pompano, and it's like Disney World. When you walk into the place, it feels like you've walked into a dream. One of the sidewalks to the entrance is tiled so that it looks like sea glass, and the main entrance has a fancy pebble style sidewalk.

The main lobby has blue and white tile throughout, a large beautiful fountain in the middle, incredibly high ceilings, flat screen TVs, a food court, large CLEAN bathrooms (at least for now) and a mini mart that is actually the size of a small grocery store with all kinds of goodies in it.

The custodians who maintain the bathrooms even put fresh flowers in a vase near each sink.

The best part is there is no waiting in line for gas as there are many pumps.

I drove away today wondering to myself if one day people will drive on the turnpike just to go to this place because it's so nice. Each time I've visited, people seem to be enjoying hanging out, drinking their coffee, watching the news on one of the four 50 inch flat screens and pretty much enjoying life.

The PIO for the Turnpike was just on the news the other night, and he said that our tolls were used for these renovations, and each rest stop will have a theme. The theme for Pompano Beach is water. The West Palm Beach rest stop, which is not finished yet, will be a land theme.

You may think I am odd for writing about a rest stop on the Turnpike, but they deserve some kudos for using our tolls to build something so grand. So far, I've been in there 4 times and each time it appears to have more visitors. I encourage anyone driving through the area on the Florida Turnpike to visit and enjoy the rest stops of the future.

Book Review on Fifty Shades

I bought this book for my Nook because everyone was raving about how great it was. To be fair to the author who took the time to write this book, it was mildly entertaining (that's me being nice), but mostly silly. When I was in my late teens, early twenties, I would read Harlequin romances, and this book is like one of those, but on steroids. The characters "murmured" and "mumbled" throughout the book as if the author had never heard of a thesaurus. I actually found a generous handful of grammatical errors too. The S&M was a bit over the top, but that does it for some people, so whatever floats their boats; no judgement here. There was absolutely no plot, and that is my main criticism. I know there are two more books, and although I liked the characters (kind of) I don't care enough about them to read any further about their very personal, messed up sex lives. If I could pick one word to describe this book,it would be: rubbish.

I'm back!!

This is the first post I have written in several months because I have been trying to finish up my schooling. A lot has happened since I last posted. My office moved to beautiful Jupiter, Florida (1/2 mile away from the beach), I fired one of the managers who worked for me, hired another manager, bought a new house closer to where I work, bought a new IPad (love, love, love the new IPad), passed all my classes including the suckiest class of all; managerial accounting, and signed up for my last class before I graduate in the fall. My son came to visit from San Francisco, then went back home only to severely break his wrist skateboarding. He had to have pins surgically inserted and is healing nicely. My daughter moved out of our house and is now renting a room from a retired clown (yes a real clown--how totally cool is that?). Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Donna Summer and Robin Gibb died. It has all been an experiment in letting everything flow without getting too stressed. I can honestly say that I have coasted, of course with the help of many others in my life (thanks Mom, Dad, Marty, Michelle, Chris, Bryan & Frank) but nevertheless coasted through it all with minimum stress. Thanks to all the followers of my blog for being so patient. I have a feeling the posts to follow will be worth reading. Please stay tuned :)