After posting my blog early yesterday, the rains came. It rained heavily until 8 PM when the clouds broke open and blue sky appeared. We took that as our window of opportunity to give Auggie his evening walk. The three of us took a walk over to the tent camping area where we saw one lone tent. Tenting in the rain is no fun! As we walked, Bob pointed to the sky and we saw a vivid rainbow. Too bad I didn’t have my camera with me. When we did get back to the campsite, I was able to get this picture before the rainbow completely faded. You might be able to see it to the right of the cloud….just barely.
It was nowhere near as bright, but pretty just the same. We also discovered on our walk that this campground is in an old mango orchard. There are mango trees all over the place and they are full of ripe mangoes. We picked a couple to have for breakfast this morning. They were sweet and juicy.
It rained heavily overnight and there was a lot of flash flooding being reported in surrounding areas, but none by us. In the morning, we woke to blue skies and sunshine, but they are forecasting more rain and thunderstorms later today. We took care of our morning business and made plans on how to spend our day. We took the 30 minute drive to Miami Beach and Ocean Boulevard. We wanted to see South Beach.
This is considered to be part of the infamous South Beach which is across from Lummas Park and the beach.
Traffic was slow going, but that was ok. It gave us a chance to get a good look around.
There is restaurant after restaurant along this strip with a shop or club mixed in. We decided to park the car and walk along Ocean Boulevard to get the full experience. The sidewalk takes you right through the outdoor dining area of each restaurant.
With that comes a hostess who will try to get you to eat there. They were very persistent as they “hawked” their food and drink specials. Everything looked delicious, but we kept walking.
We did decide to stop at the Clevelander for a beer ($6 each) or as it turned out–a pitcher for $12. You do the math. It was a hotel with three outdoor bars and dance floor around the pool.
We sat at the bar with Kayla, our bartender, from Indianapolis, IN.
Bob really liked the bartender’s outfits!
Kayla told us that this place, and South Beach in general, doesn’t get “hopping” until 11 or 12 midnight and then it’s jammed until 5 AM. It seems only the tourists are out in the daytime and in “slumberland” when things get “hot”! Oh well, we can only imagine. It would be interesting to check out all the glitter and glamor in the wee hours. Oh….to be young…..er! Farther down on Ocean Boulevard, we spotted Mangos Tropical Cafe and the beat of the music drew us inside to get a look.
Bob just had to get his picture taken with the hostess there. Who’s the tourist now?
From there, we continued our walk down Ocean Boulevard and then along the other side of the street along the beach.
The beach was pretty empty on this Tuesday afternoon. It reminded me a lot of Daytona Beach because of how wide it is.
Leaving South Beach we drove out of the city on Collins Ave (A1A) which runs parallel to Ocean Boulevard. Collins Ave. is the shopping district lined with brand-named stores.
In the window of one of the stores, we spotted this VW covered in seashells.
A lot of the buildings are very colorful.
On the ride back, we crossed over the ICW and got a good look at the marina we would have stayed in with the boat.
We drove over McArthur Causeway that crosses over the northern end of Biscayne Bay and spotted the Miami Marlins’ baseball field and cruise ship port.
There was a lot of road construction going on, but our trip bypassed the morning and afternoon rush hour so that made things less hectic. As we crossed the causeway back to the mainland, dark clouds were forming over the city.
There were some big yachts parked in front of some smaller homes on the canals. I guess they bought a small house to have somewhere to park their yacht. These were the “smaller” homes.
The anchorage in Biscayne Bay was packed full of boats of all sizes.
In driving through the outskirts of Miami, we noticed that many of the homes had bars on the windows and doors. The majority of the homes had serious fencing around them and there was a lot of graffiti everywhere. What a difference from back in Palmetto. We got back to the campsite around 3:00 and relaxed outside with Auggie. He was tortured by the squirrels who got close, but not close enough for him to reach them. We noticed this guy in our tree.
He had a red mouth and sticky pads on his feet. Auggie never even saw him.
Before cocktails, we did some cleaning and organizing of one of the trailer compartments and aired out our outdoor rug that we use in our campsite. The sky clouded up as we enjoyed our “happy hour”, but it didn’t really look like rain…yet. The campground was filling up a little bit more each day that we’ve been here. In fact, a HUGE bus came in last night at 10:00 in the heavy rain. I felt sorry for them having to set up in the dark and in the rain. Today more campers arrived. While Bob cooked shish kabob on the grill, I took Auggie for his walk before it rained. Auggie got his usual treat of a rawhide bone after his walk. I love the way he holds it in his two little paws to chew it. He never lets me forget to give it to him!
Dinner was excellent and we relaxed after a great day in South Beach.
