I am feeling smug about the fact that we are in Palm Beach Florida reading about the cold and snow storm back home. From our balcony I see people in the ocean swimming and others around the pool. On my computer I’ve watched the video of traffic problems, closures and bad weather. We were supposed to fly out on Friday, but as the reports got worse about what was expected we instead took the red eye at 11:30 at night Tuesday. We flew to Atlanta and after a layover flew on to Palm Beach, arriving at our hotel about 10:00 am the next day. With the three hour time difference and the long overnight commute we slept most of that day and stayed at the hotel.

The next day we took a cab to Worth Avenue, which is the Rodeo Drive of Palm Beach. There are designer stores and many small stores selling expensive things. The Ralph Loren store had $3600 shoes "on sale" and belts for only $700.00. Beautiful models walk along the side walk wearing featured clothes from a designer store and hand out cards from the establishment. However, most of the stores are without customers that I went into. I don’t think it is due to the fact that Bernard Madoff lives here and his massive fraud caused the wealthy residents to stop shopping. The economy has apparently impacted even this wealthy area. I wandered into the Brooks Brother’s clothing store and a woman clerk rushed over since I was the only one in the store. I told her I was just looking, but she wanted me to know she was ready to assist. When I repeated that I was only looking around she gave me her name and followed me. Anything I touched or even looked at produced encouraging words from her. It was as bad as a visit to a Hawaiian art gallery.

The Ritz Carlton hotel where we are staying appears to be rather empty as well. I choose to think it is because of the way they operate it as we are unhappy with our stay here. To start with they add an 18% gratuity to food, liquor and anything else with a service aspect. Since that is close to the maximum tip most people leave it means that there is little motivation for the staff to provide good service. They get their tip irrespective of the service. This results in having to ask for the bill several times and getting up to find someone for service. Then there is the rather loud elevator music they play in the hotel lobby and bar area. Not only is it elevator music, but it is disco music. Here we are a few days from Christmas and the hotel is full of Christmas decorations with disco music pounding away continuously. Then there is the construction. The street is torn up in front of the hotel. There is remodeling inside as well. There was loud pounding in the room next door which turned out to be remodeling. They stopped it when we asked to be moved. Today we are checking out the Four Seasons near by in case we return since we won’t be staying here.

This is a very wealthy here and Donald Trump has a large presence. To start with he sold his residence here for $100 million. The elaborate house with a 48 car garage on a large piece of property may be torn down by the buyer and subdivided into lots to sell for more then he paid. Trump also purchased Mar-A-Lago, the Marjorie Merriweather Post estate on Palm Beach Island. The 80,000 square foot estate was built between 1924 & 1927. Remade into a private club it features 12 fireplaces and three bomb shelters. It is a wealthy and beautiful area.  More on our trip later.