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Miami Beach, Florida
I made enough money to buy Miami but I pissed it away so fast
This past June, during south Florida's rainy season when it was just downright unpleasant to be outside, I spent a week and a half in and around Miami Beach. My purpose there was not to see just how quick I could get disgustingly sweaty (that's just under five minutes for anyone keeping statistics) but rather to attend the poorly scheduled annual convention for the American Institute of Architects or, as they're more commonly known, the AIA. The conventions are held in different cities every year and always offer a mind numbing tradeshow (that I generally skip) and boring ass seminars (that I generally skip) and a wide array of continuing education tours (that I generally enjoy). These continuing education tours cover some standard sites but also get you into buildings and places that are otherwise impossible to see on your own and are (for me at least) the only reason to ever even think about attending one of these conventions, especially when the humidity and heat are damn near impossible to bear.
We'll start things off at Miami Beach, on Ocean Drive deep in the Art Deco District, where the buildings look great during the day and even better at night, all color and neon and fun.
For reasons that almost seemed to make sense at the time, I split my time in Miami Beach at two different completely different hotels. First up was The National, a high rise hotel with a faded glory feel in an “I used to be carried in the arms of cheerleaders” kind of way (if you're one of the possibly two people who just understood that reference, I thoroughly congratulate you). The (Hotwire) hotel did have its good points. First off it was in a great location, right on the beach, right near Lincoln Road, right near the convention center, right near the far more popular Delano. It also had rooms with really strong air conditioning (always a plus in such otherwise awful conditions) and an infinity pool (pictured below) that seemed to go on forever, but obviously didn't.
After the fake empire feel of The National, it was a welcome change to my second Miami Beach hotel, The Penguin, right on Ocean Drive and right on the beach. An actual art deco hotel in an actual Art Deco District, the hotel had a cantankerous employee at the front desk and a decidedly European feel, although that could have something to do with all of the other hotel guests I guess. What it did have (and what I paid a little extra for) was a spectacular second floor suite, complete with generous cantilevered window bays that you could actually climb into and spend a lifetime staring down Ocean Drive. A great little hotel, highly recommended if you think like me when you travel.
Before, after and during my time at Miami Beach I did what I could (record heat wave be damned) to get off the beach and get around that part of the state. One such trip was a long day trip out to Everglades National Park, one of the last great national parks I have yet to visit and one I had always wanted to see.
One day at the Everglades isn't enough time, but in the rainy season it just might be. The extra water creates extra areas for a lot of the wildlife to explore, so unlike winter where multiple alligator sightings are expected, I was able to see only one. Additionally the few trails I walked (Anhinga, Gumbo Limbo, a little bit of Shark Valley) were not fun to walk in such heat and humidity. I did manage to avoid all of the severe thunderstorms and drive all the way down to Flamingo and all the way up to Shark Valley, stopping everywhere I could, driving the empty roads, walking the empty trails, wondering where all of the animals and visitors were, or, more accurately, wondering why I was where I was and not (like all of the wildlife and visitors) spending my time somewhere else.
A historic home in (or near) Miami, Vizcaya is famous for its stone ship breakwater or historic main building, but it also has a fine, sprawling garden, complete with fountains and plants and views of Biscayne Bay and lots and lots of mosquitoes. The gardens were impressive (far more impressive than the historic main building) and the reason I went all the way out there. As part of the AIA Convention, I went on a guided tour by a local landscape architect that somehow qualified for HSW credits. As someone who is qualified as a CEU provider for my local AIA chapter, I am happy to get the credits but realize that there was nothing on the tour to qualify it for HSW CEUs. Maybe we got it as a reward because we had to brave all of the mosquitoes.
Oh, and if you're one of the people reading this who doesn't know or care what HSW, CEU or even AIA stands for, consider yourself lucky.
The first thing I did when I got to Florida was to drive across the overseas highway (not nearly over as much sea as I imagined) and drive all the way out to Key West. Before the trip I spent way too much time trying to decide if it was worth it. It was a long drive, but a drive I had always wanted to try. There's nothing I really want to do when I get out there, but why do I always need something to do, can't I just try and relax for once? With all of these competing arguments in my head I decided to just go see it, primarily so I didn't have to deal with this internal dialogue again the next time I went down to Miami.
What I found when I was out there was almost what I expected. Despite the heat I walked the length of Duval Street and back, saw a tourist attraction or two and did what I could to try and just enjoy the place. But the best memory I have is actually from my hotel room, where a balcony overlooked the ocean with a faded sunset on one side and the other side had a neighboring hotel pool with a live soundtrack by a bad Jimmy Buffett cover band, or quite possibly the real Jimmy Buffett, who could really tell the difference anyway at this point. A rare chance for me to just stop and actually try and enjoy the sea and the sky and the blistering heat. Changes in latitude, changes in attitude indeed.
