Miami for a day… + some

We did a quick run in to Coconut Grove Saturday night… pretty cool place. Walked around a bit but was an interesting evening… Burn Notice has a warehouse there where they do all their stage shooting. They also do most of their “on location” shooting in the Coconut Grove area.

Then Sunday we went to Miami Beach.. we walked and walked and walked.. Some fun observations, experiences and encounters during the day.

The beach is amazing!!!



Met a really great lady that was the bartender at the poolside bar and The Clevelander hotel. She has two beautiful daughters and she’s afraid of going in to the remote areas of Florida where there are not many lights. She has the same feelings that many people from my part of Texas have when they go in to a big city. I had 2 margaritas there… it was actually before noon….

Then had a cigar a little later while walking down Ocean dr.

Later as Hannah and I are standing outside the Ghirardelli's. chocolate store contemplating a hot fudge Sunday.. Donna walks up and says “what sin have you found now?” My favorite quote of the day from family.

Later on at the beach near the Key Biscayne lighthouse, a local asks Donna “Do you speak English or do you speak Spanish?” Just never thought Donna looked like a Spanish speaking person.

Coolest observation of the day: Donna says “You know, I’ve noticed something about the groups around here”. I said “There are no lines… not like the ones we normally think of .. color..”

We were also the minority as English speaking people in Miami beach.

We have also designated Miami as “Smokers Paradise”. Dang there are so many people that smoke there. I guess it’s all the Europeans. I’m not hating… since I had my cigar there..but still. Lots of cigarette smokers. Lots of scooters too.

About 10 percent of the people I saw in Miami look like models.

The lady at Key Biscayne was very nice too. She was very sociable .. asked Donna to take pics of her and her son. We had her take pics of us too.

Most everyone we ran across was very friendly and nice. Now Donna had us marching all over Miami beach..the a little driving to Key Biscayne..then walked all over Miami beach again to get pics of the art deco hotels with their neon on at night…put blisters on my left foot. Wore us out. Felt like boot camp. It was about 15 kilometers.. Donna and Hannah named our day the Donna Anderson’s Miami Beach, 15K pro am fun run race for the cure (a la The Office). Still recovering..

We’ll have more observations from Key West..mainly how may different ways you can eat Key Lime “whatever”..

Oh..yeah..

Forgot that the lady at Key Biscayne also asked Donna if we were from Northern Florida..because we sounded like her in-laws.

also...

A guy in an al fresco restaurant ..the cafe at Books and Books..had a dog that was slobbering all over Austin.... He was too timid to say anything to them so Donna asked if they could pull their dog back..in a very nice way. One of the guys asked us where in the south were we from..he then pointed at his SMU business school cap (with his Princeton t-shirt on too). We tried to bond a little by pointing out that our daughter was going to TCU but he would have none of it...