Travelsmartplanet

Stan and Sandra with Dan Laxer and Dave Fisher during his retirement party at CJAD.

Tags: audience, broadcaster, Canada, CJAD, Dan Laxer, Dave Fisher, guest, Montreal, onair, party, Quebec, radio, retirement, roaltrip, show, staff, travelblogger, trivia

This weekend we celebrated the retirement of Dave Fisher after 32 years of hosting radio programs at CJAD. Seated from left to right are Dan Laxer, Dave Fisher. Tommy Schnurmaker, Barry Morgan and Aaron Rand. The usual Sunday morning Trivia Show took place in front of a live audience of CJAD staff, broadcasters and former on-air guests, who participated in answering the questions along with the radio audience.

Tags: Aaron Rand, answer, audience, Barry Morgan, broadcaster, Canada, CJAD, Dan Laxer, Dave Fisher, guest, host, Montreal, morning, morning show, on-air, program, Quebec, question, radio, radio host, retirement, show, staff, Sunday, Tommy Schnurmaker, weekend

George Bowser and Rick Blue have an amazing way with words. True to the their well-known genre it’s the songs at Centaur’s Last Night at the Gayety, that really “sing”. They are just so darn clever. The play, about Montreal’s infamous years of “Casinos, Bordellos and Booze” (one of the songs) could have been formulaic, but manages to relate a story which not only keeps you interested, but giggling and titillated throughout.

A tale of this era could not be told without the usual suspects: the gangster, nightclub owner, priest and cops (the good and bad). The glue holding it all together is the famous stripper Lili St. Cyr. Julia Juhas is a knockoff, so perfectly cast; she elegantly glides across the stage dressed to kill in early 50’s fashions, yet bumps and grinds so provocatively with those sinuous long legs.

What could be wrong with a night of inside jokes, overacting, silly songs, erotic dancing, love, lust, murder, gangsterism and priestly disgust – all so definitively Montreal. Bowser and Blue make sure to point out, tongue-in-cheek this city was made for burlesque because there’s a main street named Beaver Hall Hill and the crossroads of downtown is after all, called “Peel”. Lili retorts that she prefers Las Vegas because its main street is known as “The Strip” (bada boom).

Tags: beaver, booze, bordello, Bowser and Blue, burlesque, Canada, casino, cast, Centaur, Centaur Theatre, city, clever, cop, crossroad, dancing, downtown, era, erotic, fashion, formulaic, gangster, genre, George Bowser, Hall, Hill, infamous, joke, Las Vegas, Last Night at the Gayety, lnockoff, love, lust, Montreal, murder, nightclub, owner, play, priest, Quebec, Rick Blue, sing, song, street, stripper, suspect, tale, Theatre, year

This is the statue of Bel Vizcaya, who was not actually a real person. He was dreamed up by James Deering, who designed Vizcaya in the early 1900’s, and he stands at the entrance to the grounds.

Tags: architecture, bel vizcaya, compound, design, dream, drivei95, entrance, Florida, garden, ground, i95, interstate95 usa, james Deering, Miami, Museum, person, roadtrip, stand, statue, structure, travel, travelblogger, vizcaya, vizcaya museum and gardens

Parrots enjoying themselves at Jungle Island near Miami. There are about 1,800 birds here, in addition to the tigers, vultures, flamingos, kangaroos, lemurs, hippos and a kookaburra. You can get very close to the animals, and you may even wind up with a parrot on your shoulder.

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How many of you know that Henry Flagler of Standard Oil, who was a pioneer of tourism in Florida, appears on some US five dollar bills? His Flagler mansion, which was known as the Whitehall Hotel, appears on the back.

Tags: bill, dollar, drivei95, flagler, flagler museum, Florida, henry morrison, hotel, i95, interstate95 usa, mansion, Museum, oil, palm beach, pioneer, roadtrip, standard, tourism, travel, travelblogger, whitehall

Ceiling detail in the entry hall of the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach. The carving was intricate, and the gold was real gold.

Tags: architecture, carving, ceiling, design, detail, drivei95, flagler, flagler museum, Florida, gold, henry morrison, i95, interstate95 usa, intricate, Museum, ornate, palm beach, roadtrip, structure, travel, travelblogger

Here is the magnificent ballroom of the Flagler mansion, in its heyday and today. You can see carved moldings, electric chandeliers, arched doorways and windows and polished wooden floors.

Tags: arch, architecture, ballroom, carved, chandelier, design, doorway, drivei95, electric, flagler, flagler museum, floor, Florida, henry morrison, i95, interstate95 usa, molding, Museum, palm beach, polish, roadtrip, structure, travel, travelblogger, window, wooden

Here is the magnificent ballroom of the Flagler mansion, in its heyday and today. You can see carved moldings, electric chandeliers, arched doorways and windows and polished wooden floors.

Tags: arch, architecture, ballroom, carved, chandelier, design, doorway, drivei95, electric, flagler, flagler museum, floor, Florida, henry morrison, i95, interstate95 usa, molding, Museum, palm beach, polish, roadtrip, structure, travel, travelblogger, window, wooden

This is the skeleton of the largest turtle that ever existed – an Archelon. Instead of a solid shell, it had an open framework of struts covered by a thick coating of rubbery skin. This allowed him to swim more efficiently. You can see it at the Museum of Science and Nature in Ottawa.

Tags: Archelon, Canada, Canadian, coating, explore, framework, Museum, Museum of Science and Nature, Nature, Ontario, Ottawa, roadtrip, rubbery, science, shell, skeleton, skin, solid, strut, swim, travel, travelblogger, turtle