Day 97, Year 10: Hurray for Public Transportation
Date: Thursday, January 15, 2015
Weather: Mostly Sunny Until Late Afternoon—Then Rain, Temp in the 70’s F
Location: Anchored Between the City Docks in West Palm Beach, FL
Mark had his first cancer treatment in Fort Lauderdale today. Lee took us to shore and then we took the free trolley from the waterfront to the train station, the Tri-Rail train to Fort Lauderdale, and an unexpected free shuttle van from the train station to Holy Cross Hospital. We walked off the train platform and saw a shuttle bus starting to pull away. The driver stopped and opened the doors and we said we needed to get to the #60 bus route. The driver said he would take us there, but on the way a young man sitting behind us explained that this was a free service and that it would be going right past Holy Cross Hospital. We checked with the driver and indeed we could just stay on the shuttle and get to our destination. Hurray for public transportation in this part of Florida. It is fantastic. Once we got off the shuttle, we had to meander around the hospital grounds for a bit to find a cafeteria. We were an hour early and Mark was hungry, so we stopped to have second breakfast. Then it was on to the Cancer Center for the infusion. The infusion normally takes an hour and a half, but since this was our first time at this hospital there was more paperwork and a few delays. So instead of being done at noon, we were done at 1 pm. Mark was hungry AGAIN, so we went back to the cafeteria. We did have to take two different public buses to get back to the train station and our timing was not great. We had to wait for the first bus, and then wait again for the second. By the time we got on the second bus, we knew the train headed north was pulling out of the station and there was not another for a full hour. So we waited some more at the train station. We are both reading riveting books, so the wait was no problem. But my sister-in-law Sue had called earlier and offered to take us to a Whole Foods to get grass-fed beef liver to add to Mark’s diet. We were going to be two hours later meeting them than I had told them earlier. I called Sue and she said they were fine with that. It was almost 4 o’clock before we got off the train at Boynton Beach and headed out on a food shopping expedition. We went to a fruit and veggie market that Sue had taken us to a couple of years ago and then we went to Whole Foods to get the liver. I had hoped to order the liver from Wellness Meats and have it delivered to Sue and Brad’s, but Wellness Meats is temporarily out of stock. So Sue did some calling around to find it for us. Sue and Brad have really gone out of their way to transport us around and even research where to find things for us. Brad and Sue—Thank you so much!
On the way back to West Palm the heavens opened up. We had heavy rain, but thankfully just as we reached the city docks in West Palm, there was a bit of a reprieve. Lee came in to pick us up and we got back to Windbird without getting too drenched. It was our lucky day.
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| 150115 Day 97 Florida, USA–Tri-Rail to Fort Lauderdale |
