Miami, Florida

We drove to Miami from Tampa and along part of the drive it started down-pouring. It was a crazy amount of rain, and not too fun to drive in. Luckily, it only lasted a couple of hours. 

 

The weather cleared up nicely by the time we got into Miami around 5 or 6 that evening. There was a little bit of craziness with the GPS...as in we got confused and took a few wrong turns. We nicknamed our GPS Patrice and were quite ready to be through with it after the last day. The phrase, "Nobody asked you Patrice!" may have been used once or twice. After multiple U-turns and Patrice's rerouting we made it to our hotel.

We stayed in the Crowne Plaza near the airport. It was nice enough and we had to use our key card to get in and out of the parking lot. After unloading the car, plugging the phones in and getting their data uploading, we headed to South Beach to do some relaxing. 

There was a great view of the city as we crossed over to South Beach. I know my photography skills leave a lot to be desired, but when you're the navigator and have a stressed out husband behind the wheel (not quite to the point of white knuckle grips on the wheel; he hates driving) and a noisy GPS barking at you, you don't have much time to perfect your shots. I'm just happy that they're not blurry!

South Beach is located on the southern portion of Miami Beach, which is separated from Miami by Biscayne Bay. During our two days in Miami, we ended up driving across the MacArthur Causeway (one of the roads connecting the two places) multiple times. The first drive over was cool. The road is lined with palm trees and you can look out and see the cities on either side of the bay.

So, South Beach is really small. It's less than one mile wide. Combine this with construction and detours and tons of traffic and you can imagine the chaos we experienced while finding a parking place. After a few attempts, (we only tried out two or three spots) we paid the parking meter and headed off to have some fun in the sand. Not so much the sun, because it was slightly overcast and the sun was well on its way to setting.

It was still really warm, probably at least 80 degrees. The sand was white and the water blue...and WARM! It was so weird, to feel warm ocean water. We loved it. Brian jumped right in and I swear turned into a fish. He was so funny, and I had a hard time getting him to come out when it was time to leave a few hours later. I enjoyed the water a lot too. I waded in quite a ways and then spent some time sitting in the shallows as the waves crashed against me. I haven't had too many experiences with oceans, as there aren't any in the middle of Idaho. I could probably count the number of times I've been to the ocean on one, okay maybe two, hands. It was so much fun and I even saw a little sand colored fish. I have no idea what kind, but it surprised me when I saw it.

The hotels in South Beach are a stone's throw away from the beach. They look really nice and I'm sure super expensive.

The sunset was beautiful, but seeing as we were on the east side of things, we didn't get to see the whole grand view of it.

We've now been to the four corners of the U.S. together. Ahhhh.....love.

Soon it was dark and we packed up and headed back to the hotel. The heel of my left foot had been hurting me since the day after Kennedy Space Center. I don't know if the shoes I was wearing were causing trouble or if I had hurt it somehow. I couldn't think of anything that I had done to it. It hurt really badly after our time at the beach, to the point that I could barely put my weight on it. I was limping severely. I think using that foot to brace myself against the waves while I was wading in the water aggravated it even more.

The next day we woke up and headed out for our last testing day. My foot was still hurting and I looked ridiculous hobbling along. Luckily, we got to spend most of the day in the car, so I didn't have to walk so much. We stopped by a bakery in Little Havana during to get some pastries for breakfast. They looked amazing and it was difficult trying to order because they didn't speak English very well. With lots of pointing and waving and repeating (I think Brian and I might have a future in miming) we got what we wanted and headed back to the car. We took our first bites and the pastries deflated! They were very buttery/fried and weren't that great, but we ate them anyways.

Miami was fun to see. It had its own unique flair.

Along with some amazing views.

We parked near midtown Miami and went to walk around a bit and find a Christmas ornament. We walked by this community park/center area where this giant art installation caught our eye. It's of a bowl of apple slices breaking.

I wasn't having the best of time, because pain shot through my heel every time I stepped on it, and then my foot ached when I didn't have any weight on it. We didn't walk around for very long before continuing our testing.

During one of our later stops, I spotted this tree. It was gorgeous. I walked closer so I could get a picture. The individual flowers looked a lot like azalea flowers, and they grew together in giant clusters. It was pretty awesome. I don't know what kind of tree this is and have been searching for it online, but haven't found it yet.

After all of our testing was done, we stopped by The Pasta Factory for dinner. It's housed in a very pink building. By this time the rain was pouring again and we had to hurry across the parking lot so as not to get drenched. The food was delicious. I chose manicotti and Brian ordered spinach linguini with shrimp.

It rained the rest of the day and all through the night, so we didn't get a chance to go back to the beach. The storm dropped 9 inches of rain during that period. It was a lot of rain. We were sad that we were stuck in the hotel for the evening, but it was good in the end because I don't know if my foot could have taken any more walking. After resting it overnight, my foot felt a bit better in the morning. 

We dropped of the car at a fast park parking lot near the airport then caught a shuttle to our terminal. We had some time to wait for our flight so we spent it taking goofy pictures of ourselves. We were so sad to leave!

We had a great time during our week-long trip driving back and forth across Florida. We definitely would like to go back sometime, maybe for a real vacation.

P.S. I never knew what was causing my foot to hurt so much. After a few days rest at home, it was back to normal. Weird.