Miami - warm again!

The first thing we noticed about Miami was that it was warm, something we haven't felt since we left Los Angeles 6 weeks ago. We stayed at a Holiday Inn right on the beach at Miami Beach, about 1 mile north of the famous area of South Beach. The second thing we noticed is that we seemed to be the only English speakers here - for example, at breakfast in the hotel we cast our directional ears at every table, and without exception, everyone was speaking Spanish, or what we took to be Spanish. All the waiters were bilingual. We had cause to ask to speak to the Manager at the hotel. He was one of the very few "English as a first language" speakers we encountered in Miami.

Beachside photography under leaden skies at Miami.

We only had one full day in Miami, since we had to stay an extra day in New Orleans to cope with the state of emergency. It was good to see this part of Miami for a second time - last time we only drove through on the way to Key West. Under intermittent rain, we did the big walk (about 7km) into South Beach and all the way down to entrance to Miami Harbour with the express purpose of looking at some of the area's famed art deco buildings. These are truly exquisite, and most appear to be freshly painted and very well maintained. We took a hundred pics, only a sampling is included. We walked all day and into the night, counting the return journey.

Art Deco example in South Beach, Miami.

Manicured palm tree forest at Loews Hotel, South Beach Miami

Palm in a gilded pot at The Villa along Ocean Drive, South Beach Miami

Art Deco detail in Ocean Dr, Miami South Beach.

Restaurant umbrellas (needed - it was raining!) with matching art deco car.

Sculpted palms at a beach side park in Miami

The entire beach is protected by regularly spaced lifeguard stations, painted in lurid colours and patterns.

In Miami Beach itself, the main street next to an parallel to the beach, Collins, appears to be one huge construction site. Every second building seems to be being gutted and renovated, or completely rebuilt. Maybe this is a concrete sign (pun intended) of the recovery of the American recovery after the GFC. Down in South Beach, the main area of art deco buildings seems to have been saved from this redevelopment, probably by zoning requirements, and just as well. The district is a delight!

Gigantic monolithic apartment block at the southern tip of South Beach, South Pointe.

Lighthouse in the channel to Miami Harbour.

Up the Middle of Florida

In the spirit of trying to avoid Interstates as much as possible, we followed US27 North from Miami up to Gainesville Florida. This route proved to be interesting, although not terribly photogenic. US27 is an excellent road all the way, and was very quiet down south, but progressively got busier and busier.

For the first several hours, US27 looked to be going through the Everglades, with swamps and canals the main thing in view. The swamps gave way to massive development work to drain them and clear them, and then we saw massive sugar farms, and a lot of turf (lawn) growing as well. For a while, much of the traffic on the US27 was very large sugar trucks and machines which look like cane cutters. Full sugar trucks were headed towards occasional large sugar mills, with empty ones going in the opposite direction.

The Lake Okeechobee region and the busy town of Clewiston (where we stayed) seemed to be the centre of the sugar industry. US27 through Clewiston is called the Sugarland Highway, and the town proclaims itself as the "sweetest in America". There was a fishing tournament going on in Clewiston, banners welcoming the participants, and the town was full of enthusiastic boaters. The RV parks were full, but it was pretty quiet in the town's hotels.

Clewiston is rather "off the beaten track" (meaning any town not very close to an Interstate!) and as such, should not have to put up with intolerant and demanding city slickers like ourselves. We walked out of one restaurant which was so overwhelmed with its clientele that night that no waiter came to attend to us (it had just opened a few days earlier, and everyone in town was trying it out, we think). The next restaurant we tried had already been recommended to us as "excellent", but the food was nothing special, the service was charming but naive, and the billing system was primitive. The truth is, legendary American efficiency does not always extend far outside the cities, and it doesn't in Australia either, so we shouldn't be so critical!

Lake Okeechobee is a large natural lake, about 40km square, which once flooded causing massive loss of life and property, so it has since been surrounded by a large levy bank and intensive water management (which gets blamed for water shortages in the Everglades downstream). The lake is only 14ft above sea level, quite amazing given that it drains to the Everglades and is nowhere near the sea. The levy bank itself provides great recreational opportunities (biking, picnicing etc), and incorporates many boat launching facilities to accommodate the fishermen. The lake is strange in that inside the levy is an artificial channel of deep water, and inside that is a lot of shallow or marshy areas, and then inside that, the lake proper, linked to the outer channel by radial channels [photo].

North of Okeechobee along the US27, the sugar industry gives way to oranges (we passed a town with a massive juicing factory), and the countryside becomes what could be called "the Lakes District". The road passes literally dozens of small to large lakes (including Lake Placid), many of which are mostly built up around the edges by holiday homes and boat sheds. Many of these look charming and are very picturesque. The towns around these lakes are obviously very popular with recreational boaters and RV campers. We have never seen so many large and exquisite RVs and fifth-wheeler caravans as we have in this part of Florida, and the state is particularly popular with Harley Davidson riders too, who patrol around usually in small to medium groups, mostly grey power, some couples.

The photo shows a cooperative specimen of local fauna (species unknown to us) which met us in the grounds of a very quiet Visitors' Centre near Leesburg.

From the lakes district north, as the US27 bypasses Orlando to the west, the path of this highway is almost 100% built up and urbanised. The towns look to be not so significant on the map, but on the ground they seem to link together to become a huge (or long) suburban sprawl. In some areas, the development is very new and affluent, other parts look to be older and maybe a little bit jaded. We are impressed that the new developments appear to incorporate excellent roads and to gain their commercial infrastructure at the same time as if not before the bulk of the residential development. This forward planning does not seem to occur in Australia. We are not so sure about public transport, trains or buses. The planning paradigm in the USA seems to revolve around motor vehicles, and often even sidewalks (footpaths) are overlooked. We see very few pedestrians except in very poor areas, or "retirement" suburbs, or along beach paths. We normally wish to walk to restaurants at night if they are within a kilometer or so, but often we cannot due to lack of sidewalks or lights.


By the time the US27 arrived in Gainesville, the weather was again cool but sunny, and we realised that it was now looking like what we remember of Georgia, especially Savannah, lots of very large trees with Spanish Moss hanging in them. We have at last left the swamps of the Everglades!

Gainesville itself is a delightful university town (University of Florida), leafy and low rise. Most streets have marked cycleways, and although these are not safely separated from cars, their very presence shows a refreshingly different planning attitude prevailing in this town. We looked at an intriguing geographic feature known as the Devil's Millhopper, a very large sinkhole which supposedly resembles a mill hopper. This deep hole is traversed with walking trails where we took the photo.

The Florida Keys

We made the long trip south west from Miami to the Florida Keys, and to the very end at Key West. It was worth the effort, even though you have to come back exactly the same way, something which we are normally philosophically opposed to. The Keys are unbelievably beautiful, although possibly developed beyond their capacity. They consist of 700 islands, according to the guide books, many of which are linked together by the southermost part of Route US1 (a pretty good road) and dozens of bridges, many large, and one seven miles long.

As you pass down US1, the major towns are Key Largo, Islamorada, Marathon and then Key West, with plenty of lesser towns in between. You can see the Gulf of Mexico on the right, and the Atlantic Ocean on the left. Lots of the Keys are reserved as State Parks, thank heavens, but where developed, there are whole suburbs of beautiful waterfront houses, and many very cute marinas. The crystal blue water on both sides is a haven for all forms of recreation, boating, sailing, fishing, kayaking and diving. It's just like paradise, but maybe a bit too crowded. US1 is just a two lane road much of the way, and it's steady heavy traffic in both directions.

Stunningly, the Atlantic coast of the Keys was quite calm during our visit, and judging from the look of buildings and seawalls etc, it is calm most of the time. Maybe it is protected by some offshore reef, but we were quite surprised to see a total lack of surf on this ocean side.

The "African Queen", the boat which starred in the movie of the same name, is in the marina at Key Largo. It seems to be available for cruises, but it doesn't look very seaworthy to us.

Key West itself is a very pleasant town which effectively fills up its island. There are streets and streets of historic and beautiful old wooden houses, some very grand (such as Ernest Hemingway's old house, and the "little White House" used by quite a string of US Presidents). There are also some very beautiful public buildings, such as the old Customs House [photo].

Key West proves to be the epitome with Florida's contact with the Cuba and the West Indies. The town seems to have a lot of Caribbean people and culture, voodoo and the works! We ate one night at Kelly's, a very nice restaurant (in Pan Am's original offices, apparently) which supposedly specialises in exotic islander tastes (but not that much on the menu reflecting this, and our waiter didn't know much about it either, he came from Argentina).

Key West is only 90 miles from Cuba, and is the southermost point in the continental USA (even though it's actually not on the mainland). A marker to this effect is a popular tourist attraction [photo]. Key West developed and grew at least partly because of the profits from "wrecking", the salvage of valuables from the numerous shipwrecks in the area: there an excellent sculpture commemorating this.

During our visit, Key West was hosting a major sail race week, so the town is full of yachties who seem to know how to enjoy themselves in the bars and restaurants in the evening. Luckily, a sponsor of this event was a Barbados rum company, so cheap Caribbean cocktails were available all over town.

The port area of Key West is very beautiful, being next door to the little White House area, and enjoying a marvellous redevelopment by a resort hotel, and an interesting market area. While we were there, there were two cruise liners disgorging their guests into the town for a day visit. We noted an exquisite luxury yacht from the George Town in the Cayman Islands, "Meteor", moored in the marina. The older part of the marina is more down to earth, and features many rustic restaurants and bars. The last photo shows a developed island off Key West, as seen through the ropes of a moored cruise ship.

The Florida Coast and Everglades

Our southerly journey through Florida was down State Route A1A wherever that was possible. This is the road which follows the Atlantic Coast all the way to Key West. The road is sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal waterway, all the way. (North-south highways on the eastern side of Florida are firstly the Interstate 95, used by anyone needing to get anywhere, then, mostly closer to the coast, US1 which was the main road before the interstates were invented, then A1A, which follows the very coast as much as possible.)

The weather began to get hotter as we came further south, so now we have exchanged our winter uniform for the Floridian clothing of shorts and t-shirt.

Most of the road is built up on either side by a variety of holiday housing. It seems like hundreds of miles of holiday houses. As we neared Fort Lauderdale and Miami, we began to see some very palatial houses, complete with gate house, studios, and pool houses, which allowed no access to the beach at all for the public. In fact most of the actual coast, especially outside the towns, has very limited public areas, and it is very hard to actually get to the beach, and when you do, there may be nowhere to park. Trying to find the beach, we detoured into a couple of little areas, of modest looking houses and trailer parks, they were a rabbit warren of tiny streets, and looked as though they had just popped up there. Still no parking in these areas, we parked illegally to have a quick walk onto the sand.

As you approach major towns and cities, the upmarket houses on the Atlantic beachfront give way to rows and rows of high rise buildings, some of them still under construction, about 50 stories high, which were amazing. On the other side of the road, the intracoastal is often there, and alongside it there were lovely islands of houses, some gated, many with big boats parked in the water, and complete with pools and sometimes beaches [photo]. In what you might call the "village centre", most Cities have provided for public parking and public access to the beach. Maybe the best example of this was Fort Lauderdale which, while it had its full compliment of high rise with private beach access, also had extensive areas of public parking and beach access.

The Florida experience has certainly has been an eye opener for us, and it has put us in a place which is very busy, unlike most of the places when we visit them. For example, the Outer Banks were almost closed when we were there, but now we are in peak season in Florida (and the hotel prices reflect this too!).

We visited Naples to visit some old friends, Ange and Lucia, who hosted us overnight, and we are very grateful for their generous hospitality.

We made two passes through the Everglades, once on the I75, and once on Route 41. The Everglades are a threatened area (too much housing development and golf courses), and a long drought, are taking a toll. Even the water supply to the Everglades, Lake Okeechobee, has been largely cut off by the construction of a levy around the lake. Nevertheless we were amazed to see lots of alligators, sunning themselves on the banks of the swampy waterways. The bird life is really plentiful, quite stunning, but extremely difficult to photograph, and we saw lots of different species of egrets, other water birds, many banded kingfishers, rare ruby spoonbills [photo], and pelicans. Lots of people take advantage of the several viewing areas along the sides of these roads.

A ride on one of the Everglades air boats was a must for us. We took a private boat and we sped through the grasses, just like in the movies [photo of our "captain"]. Many of our wildlife observations were during this ride. We had an excellent guide, a native of Argentina, who gave us good descriptions of the flora and fauna of the beautiful Everglades, and even showed us an alligators' nest.

We didn't see many other critters which inhabit the swamp. These include black bears, deer, snakes and a rare species of panther, with a tawny coat. The Florida Panther is highly endangered - there are thought to be less than 100 left, and unfortunately, quite a few of these get killed by traffic despite "Panther Crossing" signs, and specially reduced speed limits, which most drivers seem to ignore. Breeding programs in a refuge have been successful, but nevertheless the future for this precious species must be most precarious indeed.

Kennedy Space Centre

We spent two most fascinating days at the NASA base at Cape Canaveral Florida, specifically at the Kennedy Space Centre and the Astronauts Hall of Fame. This sounds like a long visit for two baby boomer adults, but it is a most awesome place, and it is very moving to be at and view the actual site of most of the action of the space age. The most advanced technology in the world is developed and employed here, and for technologist Mike, Cape Canaveral is thus a holy place.

Visits to the NASA facilities are managed from the Kennedy Space Centre, and the whole place has the touch and feel of a theme park (which is unfortunate but probably the best way of managing the crowds of visitors), and as one bus driver put it, Cape Canaveral is not a theme park, it is the real thing!

Buses are used to move visitors around the huge NASA base - these are driven and hosted by enthusiastic and knowledgable guides, at least some of whom were previously engineers or technicians at the site. You can get off the buses at several locations and then get back on any following bus at your leisure. This process works quite well, but the queues and waits to get on the buses are quite irritating, and take up a lot of time.

We took a stop at a visitors gantry where we could see the gigantic building (the tallest single story building in the world?) where the rockets and shuttles are assembled before being moved on huge crawlers (along dirt roads) to the launch pad. We saw the shuttle Atlantis at the launchpad being readied for its next launch on 7 February [photo].

Possibly the highlight of the bus tour was the stop at the Apollo/Saturn V Centre (well, they spell it "center") which includes a visit to the actual control room used for Apollo missions to the moon, and there is a stunning simulation of a launch in this very room. In an adjacent huge hangar type building, we got a very close look at the one complete spare Saturn V rocket left over from this project. Everyone is gobsmacked at this, it is so, so big [photo].The NASA people have done a fantastic job with this display.

Looking at this rocket close up, and the examples of various Apollo, Gemini, Mercury etc modules etc which proliferate at the Kennedy Space Centre makes you realise what a tremendous undertaking these missions were, how complicated and vulnerable everything looks. It made us truly appreciate the miracle that these things worked at all - what a testament to the skills and persistence of everyone involved, and a tribute to the bravery of the astronauts who put their faith and their lives in the hands of everyone who worked in these projects.

A lower key visit on the bus tour is a visit to the facility where assembly of the International Space Station takes place. We could see, through double glazing, the clean area where the various bits and pieces are assembled and tested.

The Kennedy Space Centre itself, where these bus trips start from, really is just a theme park, with activities for children, rides (simulators), and junk food on sale. But there is interesting stuff there, such as the "rocket garden" [photo], and whole buildings devoted to early space exploration, and how robots pave the way for manned missions to Mars. At the Imax theatre, we saw a 3D movie actually taken at the International Space Centre, and it was just fantastic to see those scientists and engineers working and playing in genuine zero gravity.

While the whole place is undeniably upbeat, the planners here did not shy away from the highlighting the risks of space travel and the tragedies which have occurred. There are sombre reminders and memorials to the astronauts who have died in space travel accidents.

The Astronaut's Hall of Fame was particularly interesting but despite the theme being to honour those people who have gone into space, we found it disappointing that Yuri Gargarin, the first man into space (but not an American), was omitted. If there was any reference to him in the Hall of Fame, it's pretty subtle and we missed it. American patriotism is justifiable and understandable, but we really felt that this was an omission in the Hall of Fame. The role of the Russians in the early days of the space race is however covered in the historical exhibits elsewhere, and the role of other countries in the International Space Station is also recognised.

At the end of our visit to the Kennedy Space Centre, we sat in the shade (it was cold on our first day's visit, and hot on the next) consuming hot dogs and coffee, and we looked at all the young people visiting with their parents. We realised that all the space race and the moon landing program is ancient history to them, often having taken place before they were born. The visit to the Space Centre cannot mean the same to these people as it does to us. We have lived through this most exciting period of history - we remember peering in the sky at the Sputnik as it circled overhead, and (at a local shopping centre once lunchtime) we watched grainy black and white TV images of Neil Armstrong taking that step onto the moon live, as he actually did it; we held our breath with the rest of the world as Apollo 13 (not actually commanded by Tom Hanks) limped back to earth.

We earnestly hope that younger generations have and take the same opportunities to marvel and be excited if not enthralled at the advances in space exploration that the International Space Station, the renewed moon program and proposed future missions to Mars promise.

During our visit to Cape Canaveral, it was particularly gratifying to realise that the whole NASA installation is in the middle of a giant wildlife refuge, and to see this celebrated at the Centre. We saw numerous alligators as we drove to and from the Centre, and also had the chance to glimpse at a bald eagle guarding its nest.

Into Florida

Leaving Georgia, we have now ventured further south into Florida. Having followed the coast down the intriguingly numbered route A1A, our first stopping place was Saint Augustine, said to be the oldest permanent settlement in the USA, a community having been established there in the 1600's by the Spanish. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, but the town has (since the 1800's) reinvented itself by foresighted citizens building and maintaining the Spanish style [photo] and the old town has turned itself into a neat and popular theme park exploiting the Spanish history.

Then to Daytona Beach, passing the famous speedway, thankfully quiet at this time, or we would have never found accommodation! We stayed at a beachfront hotel and splurged on a full oceanside room. We had a delightful walk along the beach, but you have to dodge the traffic which is allowed to drive along the beach here [photo]. During dinner, the heavens opened, and we got quite wet getting home. The TV then issued "tornado warnings" for our area - this didn't eventuate but there was a spectacular thunderstorm, and, later, very strong winds which persisted until about 10am. These winds blew up such a surf that Mike could not jog along the beach in the morning as he was looking forward to (the previous day it rained, preventing the same activity).

We visited the Ponce Inlet Light Station [photo] which is at the very southern end of the spit that is Daytona Beach. This very pretty terra cotta painted lighthouse is the tallest in Florida, and the 2nd tallest in the USA.

So far, a pleasant first few days in Florida, but it's been bitingly cold here, and it's apparent that neither the locals nor the tourists are expecting or prepared for it. Many people are inappropriately dressed, and are obviously uncomfortable. We're lucky, we are travelling with Paddy Pallin's warmest clothing, and can get well rugged up.