Miami, Key West, The Everglades, and DisneyWorld!!, FL

I see this at a the beginning of a bunch
of movies!

Very big blog this go round. Sorry that I didn't keep on top of this more than I have. As a result I have a blog that is jammed back full of major stopping points on our journey. Shall we dive in? .. We shall

Maander with Monastery in background

Impressions of Miami are, international, bright colors, really busy, scooters, huge amounts of luxury/super cars, beach, nudity, sex, youth, and partying. I hope to dive into these things all but if not a few highlights and an observation while I was amidst these Miamians.

This is the Keys

Peacocking... This is what Miami is all about. What is Peacocking you say? Well when a man or woman wants to attract someone, usually of the opposite sex, they may engage in peacocking. The people of Miami take this to extremes. If they are wearing shirts they are bright colors and their shades are of a fluorescent color. Everyone is in shorts or in bikinis. Tons of people have their very expensive cars, seriously I have never seen so many Bentley's, Lamghorinis, or Ferrari's. In a sense these are the "bros" of Southern Florida. Everyone is desperate to be noticed and they are all trying to exude sex appeal, youth, and money. While I was entranced by all of the goings on, especially all the women walking around not gonna lie, I did not feel I was apart of this scene at all. I felt myself feeling defensive, like I didn't want to be apart of them. I would like to think it is because I am much more enlightened than them, or that I have realized much more important things. The reality is I cannot compete in this scene that is South Beach Miami. I do not have the ability to procure all the money to drive these cars and I don't have the six pack abs and unfortunately, I no longer am capable of exuding the youth. Now I am not sad that I cannot be part of this scene. I do understand the superficiality and destructive hedonism that is this culture. I am glad I am not like them but to say I do not want to be like them would be denying myself my true feelings. I feel like the top 1 or 2% in this society are enjoying themselves while the rest are desperately pretending and feeling a huge vacuum as they clamour for this fleeting attention.

Anna and I spent our first day in Miami in the North Beach part. We woke up and we met a gentleman named Alex who had a Eurovan, basically a more modern version of what we have. We made a connection because of the similar cars and we were both travelers. We were from Sacramento while he was from Chicago. He wanted to spend the day together and we were all for it but we had to take care of some business before hitting the beach. We did laundry then went across the street to this fast food joint that was Cuban called Pollo Tropical. Oh man was it so good. I had the grilled chicken with rice and beans and all the sauces you can get with it were so good. We ended up going there again before we left the area we liked that place so much.

Monastery walls

Before heading to the beach where we would meet Alex we went to a monastery that was imported in from Spain. the monastery was made in the 12th century! It was a beautiful building and it felt very old. It was going to be imported to Hearst's Castle but once it made it to Florida it had to be quarantined because of some disease breakout from it's origin and they burnt all the organic stuff it was packed in and they forgot to label the 30,000 bricks! Well due to the depression Hearst couldn't afford to bring it over to the west and figure it all out. It stayed in the east and in 1952 someone finally assembled it all. The statues were great not as refined as in some of the Missions we have seen but that is to be expected. We saw a girl getting her quincenera photos there too, however, Anna was too embarrassed to sneak a pic of her.

We went to the beach in North Miami named Halover and waited for Alex to make his way to the beach as well. We had some mis communication and he ended up at the far side of the beach from us which was too far for him to walk realistically and he wanted to be by the nude beach I suppose :). The beach was beautiful and the water was warm. We got some rays and played in the water it was a great rest of the day.

Hallway

We woke from our slumber at a nearby Walmart and decided that today we would discover what South Beach is all about. We meandered down A1A and got into the heart of Miami Beach. People everywhere loud noises and just a sensory overload. I felt like I was seeing characatures walk by. Stereotypes like two super muscular men holding hands, girls who looked like they had every conceivable plastic surgery done to them, and scooters weaving in and out of the cars. Taxis everywhere and just a sea of people. It was impossible to find parking and trying to find parking completely stressed Anna and I out. I almost hit another car when I cut them off and that was one of the things that just made Anna and I at each others throats. Before I had even walked around South Beach I was disenchanted with it because of the situation. We said eff it and lets go to north beach and if it is not too far to walk we will walk down there and check it out. We found a really great spot to park up there after probably an hour of bouncing around in South Beach. We headed to the beach with our supplies which included a platter of shrimp we got from Walmart :).

At the beach we were able to finally relax. This is where we noticed that the tops on girls were optional. Now don't think it was every girl. Out of all the people we saw, and there was a lot, there were probably 4 girls that were walking around without a top. You may think this was quite the coup by me being able to sneak a peek however in this context it was not very sexual. They weren't trying to be sexy and I wasn't taking it as sexy. None of the girls really had that much boobage to show off anyways :) Anna joked about going topless and I called her on her bluff by telling her to do it. I did warn her that she would probably break peoples' necks if she did because of all the bouncing they would have to endure looking at her goods :) It truly is a different culture down in Miami. This is a very international locale and I heard so many different languages being spoken while we were there.

Streets of Miami Beach
not the busiest in the
pic

Once we got enough sun we packed up and started walking down to the very busy part of South Beach. It is a street where they have a ton of restaurants and hotels then a park then the beach. This is where it is all going on. People trying to be seen and to be at the coolest places. I think I would have recognized some celebrities if I was more in tune with the NFL and NBA. I saw a lot of black guys in Lambos or Range Rovers with entourages that I assume they likely came into that money by way of sports. Is that racist of me? Well after walking for awhile we were overwhelmed and ready to head back to Maander and call it a day. We went to a 24 hour fitness south of Miami Beach which was in a busy part as well which had us stressed out again. The day ended with us exhausted and I just felt done with the whole experience.

Before the road to Key West
they had a bridge for trains to
Key West

Now to Key West, the southernmost part of the continental US which is an island.... OK. The trip down there is pretty long. About 120 miles from Homestead, the city furthest south on the mainland, to the island of Key West. We drove and drove and went across all these bridges. As soon as we hit water it was some of the most beautiful scenery we have seen on our trip. The water was such a light and lovely blue and the islands were green with white beaches. This is where Captain Jack Sparrow calls home. There were many people fishing and lots of boats all over. Every island on the trek has its own personality. Some spots are more for local business and others are more touristy. As I acclimated I got a sense that the locals had kind of a hick feeling to them and they had just happened to live in a place that became very touristy. They were like, "Oh, dang, I should try and make money off these people" so they have these hooky attempts at trying to attract people to whatever restaurant or scuba place or what have you. We made it down to Key West and walked around Duvall St. which is the main drag there. We made it to the southern most tip of the US with the marker. We walked around and saw the house used by presidents as a vacation home and where Kennedy stayed during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was cool had a little Miami feeling but with the volume turned down a couple notches. Instead of spending a good sum to spend the night in Key West we drove back at night and stayed in Homestead.

Can you see Cuba its out there!

No US south of here

Dessert we had in Key West called:
Better than Sex
(It wasn't)

Alex met up with us in Homestead and we talked about our experiences in Key West. He wanted to head down but he was worried about costs and he wanted to spend a couple days down there. I told him what I observed and everything and he hemmed and hawed as we got ready for the day. We had the intention of spending some time with Alex when we first met but now we were planning on going to the everglades then north and he still was going to keep his home base as Miami area. Without saying it we both understood we wouldn't be seeing each other again and we said good bye and we were on our ways.

It is official

Made it baby
and got a sticker :)

We heard of bad weather for the day and we figured if it was bad we would just drive around the Everglades and look and if it was alright then we wold possibly go on this bike ride. The Everglades is essential a massive swamp that everyone thinks of when they think of Florida. Instead of a delta like in Cali the water just leaks out of Lake Okeechobee and creates a huge wetlands. Essentially it is a shallow river that is 50 miles wide leading to the ocean. This is where the Alligators as well as a lot of birds, all kinds of wildlife. It was really interesting and I was glad we went. We couldn't afford an air boat ride which looked like a ton of fun but the bike ride we took was great/hard. We headed out on a 15 mile bike ride that went through the Everglades that brought us right next to Alligators. We were warned of potential rain and we understood that when we left. I put my phone in my backpack thinking it would be safe. Well it began to pour down rain when we were 6 miles into the ride and ... just watch the movie clip. My phone didn't make it and the next day I had to fork out a lot of $$$ to get going again. Good thing I have an iPhone 4 now! bad is I am much poorer now because of it.

She is having fun little did she know...

So um...
You think a storm is coming?

Yea thats real
Yea it was like 15ft away

After taking care of business (spending a ton of $). We headed to north made it back to Melbourne to spend the night and saw a movie. We saw Red Riding Hood and I cringed through most of the movie. Horrible dialogue and I suggest to all of you skip it.

We planned on going to Disney World! Being in Florida and not going there must be some kind of crime so we decided we would carve out the money necessary to enjoy a day at the Happiest place on earth. After spending the night in Melbourne we headed to Orlando. Disney World opens at 8am so we wanted to get there by then so after all was said and done we left at about 8:30am... wait what? Yea we can not get up early anymore :) we rolled into the park at about 10:30am and got going. The day was non stop going on rides. The park was so much fun and the 80 dollar per person price tag was worth it reflecting on it. I splurged and got a burger with fries with all the fixings. I nom nommed and we were on our way. Then I saw a guy munching on a turkey leg. Wow that looked amazing I want a turkey leg. I had to have it so about 1 hour after having a very good sized lunch I was chowing on a turkey leg. Do I regret it? Yes I do!

I will try and let the pictures tell most of the story from here. We probably sat down 3 times at most, we went on every ride we wanted to go on. The electrical parade was great, the Monsters Inc. Laugh Factory was great, Space Mountain was 10x better than I remembered. Lots of great times and Anna and I didn't get mad at each other really the whole day. It was a good time and we were completely beat. We ended the day at a Denny's

We just rolled into St. Augustine now, the first successful settlement in North America. We have already driven through the historic district and I look forward to checking it out tomorrow. We will be out of Florida finally here in the next couple days and I can't wait to make it all the way up the East Coast.

Peace