MIAMI AND SOUTH BEACH

Wednesday, September 30 – We took one of the Toll-by-Plate highways to Miami Beach, Florida, this morning. This method of toll roads has a camera that reads your license plate, and then they send you a bill for usage at the end of 30 days. The alternative here in Miami, Florida, is the Sun Pass for the toll roads, a cheaper alternative, that has a toll transponder on the inside of your windshield. You put money in your account that is then debited when you pass under the overhead reader. A typical cost is 25¢ for a length of highway on the Sun Pass verses a 50¢ charge with the Toll-by-Plate system.

Miami

The third alternative is to take surface streets with no tolls. We tried this on the way down to Miami when we were towing the trailer. The bad thing about this cheaper solution is that the streets are jammed with traffic. For example, Google Maps predicted our trip this morning at 45 minutes using the toll road. On the free surface streets the time predicted was 2 hours 15 minutes.

Upon arriving in South Beach, the next problem is finding a parking space for a dually pick-up truck. Street parking meters were not a very good solution due to narrow streets and heavy traffic. After cruising around for 20 minutes searching for a space we finally found a parking lot.

We ran up over the sand dune to see the famous Miami beach. Nice, but where do you park to enjoy this beach? We saw several people walking toward the beach on our way back to town, so I guess they park on the street at parking meters, or maybe they were coming from one of the many hotels.

The colorful and famous town of South Beach is beautiful even in the daylight. Must be something to see at night. We did part of the Art Deco walk. All the hotels were serving breakfast and lunch at tables set-up on their front sidewalks. It was really hot and humid for el fresco dining in Paul's opinion.

One of the most photographed Art Deco Hotels.

A 79-room art-deco gem.

1936 art-deco beauty.

Ocean Drive is the main drag in South Beach. One side of the Drive has a sidewalk. On the other side, pedestrians have to walk through all the outside eating areas. We must have been asked 15 times if we would like to eat breakfast.

What would Florida be without Flamingos?

After walking the streets for a couple miles and admiring the famous South Beach architecture and stopping at a couple touristy shops, we returned to the truck and headed to the Little Havana district.

We were headed to one of the famous Cuban restaurants Marsha found on the Internet. It comes highly rated on TripAdvisor. We stopped at La Carreta restaurant. Yep, we even had a waitress that spoke pretty-good English.

 

We started out with their famous Sangria Mojitos. We never had a Mojito with a sugar cane in it. Yummy!

We had “Picadillo a la Cubana” and “Ropa Vieja”. Both were recommended. We rarely take photos of our food. But since Cuban food isn’t what many of our readers eat, we thought we would show you what it looks like. The yellow items are Sweet Plantains. They are a small bananas. We had these in Mission, TX. Awesome.

After a delicious lunch, we decided to head back to the campground to beat rush-hour and to relax in the AC for the remainder of the day.

On Friday, we are headed for the Keys. We will be staying at the Elks in Tavernier, FL.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

FABULOUS DAY IN THE EVERGLADES

Tuesday, September 29 – We had a super adventure this morning in the Everglades National Park. We reached the Everglades after a short 30-minute drive from our campground on the Western edge of Miami, Florida. Up FL-997 North (The route we missed yesterday when driving to Miami.) and then west across the Tamiami Trail to the Shark Valley entrance. Admission was free with our America the Beautiful pass – what an amazing program!

We arrived for the first scheduled tram tour through the saw-grass prairie. This 2-hour tour ranks among our “Top Ten” experiences for the year. It cost $17.75 for seniors. We were one of two couples on the tram. The other couple was from Poland. We were lead by two charming tour guides who did a fabulous job pointing out wildlife the entire trip.

We spotted dozens of alligators, birds, turtles, and an unusual sighting in this part of the Everglades, a crocodile, the only one in this part of the park.

Our tour guide taught us how to till how long an alligator is…measure from the
eyes to the end of the nose. That number of inches equals the number of
feet long the alligator is. She guessed this one to be 12 FEET!

Most alligators have there babies the end of August-September. We saw
lots of babies. They are so dang cute.

Our guide counted 11 babies in this area.

Alligator nest.

Soft Shell turtle.

Anhinga drying his wings.

Great Blue Heron showing off for us.

We learned how to identify some the birds in the Everglades.

Little Blue Heron…yellow/green legs

Snowy Egret…yellow feet, black legs

Midway through the tram tour, we stopped at the 65-foot tower for spectacular views of the area. This is really the only area where we were swarmed with mosquitoes. The other times were fairly free of those pesky bitters due to the breeze of the moving tram.

String Lily

Oh yeah, and hundreds of mosquito – don't forget your spray if you decide to take this tour!

All the park employees we talked to complimented us for arriving early to take the first tour. They said that this is the best time to see the wildlife before the heat of the day.

Even though we felt we saw a great deal of alligators and birds, they did say that the migratory bird population is significantly higher during the winter.

The only crocodile this park of the Everglades.

We truly enjoyed today's adventure and highly recommend to others contemplating a stop in Southern Florida.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

MISSED EXIT….YUCK!

Monday, September 28 – Before heading to our next destination, we took a few hikes around the Jonathan Dickinson SP. Most of the trails are sand and sea shells. Much different than the trails out west. We recommend this park to anyone staying in the area. Everyone is so nice and there are activities for every age group.

Some of the roads in this area are just so lovely.

Tiger Woods and Michael Jordon both have houses here. We took at drive and found them, but you guessed it….tall hedges to protect their privacy.

Monday morning we headed South out of Hobe Sound, Florida, around 8 a.m. heading to Miami, FL. We had a stop along the way in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, to meet up with an old friend, Harry,  from our teaching days. We arranged to meet him at a strip shopping center near his home. Harry was there waiting for us when we pulled in. We went out for a bite to eat and to rehash old times.

It's funny how you can go years since seeing an old friend, and in a matter of minutes it seems like it was only yesterday that you were together. We enjoyed our time with him but unfortunately, Bella, our cat, was locked in the car, and it was getting HOT outside. We checked on her several times and she was doing fine, but eventually we felt it best to call an end to the visit for her sake. It was so awesome seeing Harry again.

Harry, Marsha, the shrimp,  and Paul

We continued on toward Miami, FL, but missed our exit and ended up in bumper to bumper traffic on a 3-lane road that was only wide enough for two lanes to travel safely. What's wrong with this city. The only way to get around is on expensive toll roads or clogged city streets.....JEESH! After traveling about three hours we arrived at Larry and Penny Thompson Park. It should have taken less than two hours to travel from Ft. Lauderdale, but we took the scenic route. We don’t recommend it!!!

Larry and Penny Thompson Park has paved streets and campsites. The campsites are in a circular configuration they call pods with 15 campsites in each pod. It does provide for more space between the sites, but unfortunately the sites aren't very deep. Paul was concerned because he could not find anywhere but the street to park the truck. The host told him to simply pull on the grass and drive over behind our 5^th wheel. Well, that was a simple solution!

That little guy in the upper left-hand corner is real. Marsha
didn’t even see him until after she took the photo.

We have a 50 amp, full hook-up site, with shade trees and a picnic table. The bigger sites are on the outside of the each pod. There is a pool, laundry, shower rooms, and some athletic courts and fields, but we won't be using any of them. Marsha did do the laundry. She said the dryers are great! We are also permitted to wash your vehicle.

Pod 6 Site #13.

Looking right.

Looking left.

We had a little frustration on the drive in but that quickly disappears once we got set up and relaxed a little.  While out exploring, we found the correct highway for missing Miami traffic.  We'll be here at least four days.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day.