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Best Mile of Palm Beach

Bryant Park to Lake Worth Pier

This mile has two possible endings -- kind of like one of those interactive mystery stories. And you've got to hoof it. But it has only one beginning, the mansion built by G. Sherman Chides in 1925 at 1 Fifth Ave., the southernmost end of Bryant Park. You can't miss it -- "La Florentia, The Wedding Cake Castle," a fantastical confection decked out in turrets and chimneys, festooned with pineapples, and gates guarded by two stone lions (and, judging from the signs, at least that many German shepherds). Stand there gaping. Then take the path by the Intracoastal, feeling glad that the unbroken line of condos across the water is -- well -- across the water. Pass the Guatemalan boys playing soccer on the green and the teenagers groping each other on picnic benches. Tempting as it is, just walk on by the multilevel wooden playpark -- you're too heavy for that rope swing and too fat to fit through the tube slide. Pass the listing old cypress trees carved with lovers' names ("Alex and Amber," "J.D. loves Amanda"), the boat ramp ("Be a Better Boater! Watch out for Manatees!"), the fogies parked in their lawn chairs, the shuffleboard courts. Here's your crucial decision. Straight on takes you to the remnant of the old Lake Worth bridge, stinky with bait blood and spilled wine, populated by the most diehard group of fishermen you're ever gonna meet (no one has hooked so much as a boot there since 1975). Or if you're coming with us -- up the new bridge, puffing along that gigantic arc right to the top, queasy and giddy with the cars whooshing past and the slow river moving under you. Don't forget to turn around and look back! Those minuscule palm trees and baby park benches, all that glittering water, look like an architect's model, don't they? Now it's just a straight slide down to the beach. A cold beer's waiting for you on the pier at Benny's.

Best Road to Avoid

The Road to Perdition

You can lay off the booze, renew your wedding vows, pay down your Visa bill, and apologize to your mother -- maybe that'll steer you clear of the gaping maw of hell. But if you've gotta get to work, there isn't much we can do to keep you from entering the inferno. Like most Floridians, you probably spend 100 hours a year commuting (tally that up against your yearly vacation hours, chump), and for 52 of those hours, you're stuck in gridlock. Recent estimates figure that's costing you $927 a year in wasted fuel and lost work time. The news isn't getting any better: I-95 has developed magnetic force fields (Broward-Hollywood, Lake Worth-Boynton) into which drivers mysteriously disappear, cell phones and all, never to be seen again. Don't get mad; get moving. At getfloridamoving.org, you can post your most vicious traffic rants, send indignant hate mail to your legislators, and cast your vote for "the worst road in Florida." It won't bring down gas prices, but it might check your blood pressure a notch or two.

Best Local Girl Gone Good

Sandora Irvin

Basketball was about all that Sandora Irvin had when she grew up in Pompano Beach. Her mother spent her time on the streets, a drug addict. Her father, Daughn Irvin (former Dallas Cowboys' star Michael Irvin's younger brother), wasn't around much. So she was raised mostly by grandparents, coaches, and anybody else kind enough to help. The only place that Irvin, who was so thin she was nicknamed "Paper," really felt at home was on the court. Growing to six-foot-four, she excelled on her Fort Lauderdale High School team, earning numerous All-American honors and leading the Flying L's to a state championship in 2001. Heavily recruited by major programs, she chose to attend little-known Texas Christian University. And there, during the past four years, she became the all-time -- that's right, all-time -- NCAA blocks leader. In her 2005 senior campaign, she swatted an incredible 4.7 shots a game. She also averaged 20 points, 12 rebounds, and 2.4 steals -- and solidified her status as a sure-fire top-five draft pick in the WNBA. But it wasn't easy. During the middle of her college career, she was wracked with anger at her parents for abandoning her and nearly quit the game. Rather than succumb to self-destruction, she achieved perhaps her most significant feat. She forgave them.

Best Defense Against Terrorism

Hollywood Police Department

Hollywood police do heinous things to patriotic American citizens, so just imagine what they would do to Middle Eastern terrorists if they got their heavy hands on them. There have been accusations of manslaughter, assault, and sexual battery -- and that's just one officer, Pete Salvo. How does the city respond to the brutality? It makes Salvo the Officer of the Year. For photographic evidence of just how much damage Hollywood cops can administer, check out the snapshots of Donald Baker, a 52-year-old construction worker who was beaten silly -- and quite bloody -- by officers after being detained on an open-container violation. Then there's Officer Joe Pendergrast, whose nickname "Heavy-Handed Joe" says it all. He was accused of beating a man and breaking his ankle. The man's crime: He was playing music too loudly in the vicinity of Pendergrast's father-in-law. Forget Texas, Osama. Don't mess with Hollywood.

Best Political Protest

Fort Lauderdale city employees'wearing gags

Maybe Alan Silva, Fort Lauderdale's volunteer city manager at the time, didn't actually intend his new policy to become a gag order per se. But it sure looked that way when he decreed in late May that no city employee could talk to the media, neighborhood and civic groups, homeowners or businesses without clearance from above. When the city's communications director, Leslie Backus, then forbade those self-same employees from even commenting on the rule, some of them staged a fitting silent protest at a City Council meeting with stickers reading "employee" over their mouths. Newspapers tend to bristle when their sources are muted, and the local dailies threw fits. The Miami Herald editorialized: "[T]he get-permission-first, speak-with-one-voice policy smacks of party line spin." The president of the police union compared the policy to "Nazi Germany in 1940." Silva lasted eight days before he reversed field, apparently stupefied that he had thrown the city into turmoil. "The idea this was a tremendous change never occurred to me," the Sun-Sentinel quoted Silva as saying. "To compare me to Nazi Germany, my Jesus mercy! I'm a card-carrying member of the ACLU."

Best Power Couple

Mary and Kevin McCarty

She's a long-time member of the Palm Beach County Board of Commissioners and a onetime chairwoman of the county's Republican Party. He's on the board of governors for the South Florida Water Management District and a bond underwriter for Bear Stearns & Co. in Boca Raton. Together, they oversee public budgets of more than $3 billion and lord over almost 11,000 employees. But their real power is acting as the eyes and ears of Gov. Jeb Bush in Palm Beach County, which is dominated by Democrats. Mary is among the staunchest supporters of Bush's plan to build Scripps' biotech research institute on Mecca Farms, environmental concerns be damned. As Bush's handpicked choice for the water district board, Kevin has worked in tandem with his wife as his agency approved the go-ahead for Scripps.

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