Exploring renovations at Lake Worth's beach

Adirondack chairs line up to face the ocean.

Finally after nearly 30 years of talk, Lake Worth is busy renovating buildings along its beachfront.

Sunday, I loaded my dog in my car to check out the renovations to Lake Worth's storied casino building and other restoration work underway in the multimillion-dollar project. I wanted to see how my tax dollars are being spent. But I also needed to get in a morning walk with my dog. So the trip to the beach filled two purposes, my new definition of multi-tasking. Here's what I saw:

1. Lower parking lot still a construction zone. I parked here in order to get the most steps on that Sunday morning. We drove onto an unpaved road into the parking lot and had to dodge cars and pickups on our walk up to the beach.

Exploring Snook Islands in Lake Worth

Little blue heron with fresh catch atop limestone boulders

Friday morning, before I went to the local grocery store, I took a detour to the other side of Lake Worth and stopped to explore the Snook Islands Natural Area.

The islands are man-made, created to help clean the Lake Worth Lagoon and provide a fish habitat. I read about the $18 million project that involved 28,000 tons of limestone boulders installed to stabilize the 11 acres of mangroves planted and the 1.2 million cubic yards of sand that filled the deep trench along the city's golf course.

But I wanted to see what the area looked like for myself. I longed to walk on the relatively new boardwalk to the gazebo and satisfy my curiosity about the type of wading birds attracted to the area. I once was an avid nature photographer back in the days when cameras still used film.