A Trip To Miami

The handyman I hired to fix up my sister and my condo in Stuart, Florida seemed to not want me looking over his shoulder all day this past Saturday, and so I decided to head for Miami and play tourist for the day.  The last time I drove to Miami, the traffic was horrible. There were several accidents that slowed traffic to a crawl on the way down, and on the way back I-95 was closed due to another accident.  I remember driving west through what seemed like the Everglades to find the beltway that would once again take me north.  In other words, the trip home took hours.  That's why I decided to park at the rail station in West Palm Beach and take the Tri-Rail to Miami, where I took the photograph on the left of the Miami skyline as I was standing in front of Miami City Hall.

I started off touring Coconut Grove, a very trendy and expensive part of Miami.  All the beautiful people were at the bistros having brunch, and there was an art show being held on the grounds of The Barnacle, a state park right in the heart of Coconut Grove.  The Barnacle is a house built in the 1870s by an early settler, and sits on the remaining 40 acres of a once very sizable property.  The house and grounds show what Florida was like back when it was basically a frontier, and I once again have to commend the State of Florida for preserving what must have been a very desirable target for developers.  The photo on the right shows the path leading to the house, which sits on a rise overlooking Biscayne Bay.

After spending a few hours in Coconut Grove, I took Miami's version of a light rail train (the Metrorail), to the Metromover (a small driverless train that loops around downtown) to Bayside, an upscale shopping center located on Biscayne Bay.  I have been there before, and was running late, so I hopped on the C bus to Miami Beach, where I planned to party with the hipsters.  After having dinner at the Burger King on Washington Street (a whopper and a beer, and yes - the Burger King on Miami Beach serves beer!), I headed to Ocean Drive to walk down the very crowded sidewalk and wait for sunset, when I could take some photographs of the famous Art Deco hotels all lite up with neon.  The most iconic of these hotels is The Colony, which is seen in the photograph on the left.

And of course, my Canon G9 Camera, with which I have been having off and on problems with the battery, starting switching off, and I had to keep trying to switch it back on until it would finally restart.  An early photographer once said photography was all about "the decisive moment," which is when you must snap the shutter.  None of that defining moment stuff with this model.  I am damn lucky all these hotels don't move.  And after walking among the young, hard-partying crowds, I began to long for a little peace and quiet, and headed back to the Tri-Rail Station, where I had to wait an hour and a half for a train.  They had trains running every hour until 7:00 P.M. There were no trains at either 8:00 or 9:00, and the last train of the evening came at 9:52.  As you can imagine, the train was packed - standing room only.  I guess the Tri-Rail people feel nobody in their right mind wants to leave Miami before 10:00.  As a result, I didn't get home until 12:30 A.M, which as I recall was the same time I got home when I drove back from Miami last time.  Go figure.