Miami Beach, Florida
Miami Beach, Florida
Lorraine Motel (National Civil Rights Museum) - Memphis
It's nearing Christmas, and we've had a cold and snowy winter so far. The bitter weather plays tricks on my mind and makes me recall almost fondly the sweltering steam of summer.
This trip was just a little getaway that kept growing and changing. Back in the spring I had booked an extremely cheap plane ticket to Memphis, where I planned to begin another of those baseball getaways, seeing my former student play minor league ball. The plan was to rent a car, drive over to Nashville (which was supposed to be Brad's home park), and catch a couple of games there. The Nashville Sounds then began a road trip by playing in Memphis, so I'd see them again there before flying home.
The plan sounded great in theory. Unfortunately, by midsummer [my former student] had been demoted (temporarily) to AA ball. The closest the Huntsville team would be to Memphis was Chattanooga--clear at the other end of Tennessee. They'd only have one game there, too, so making this into another baseball road trip seemed pretty pointless. What's more, spending four full days in Memphis--even with road trips--didn't really excite me.
The plans changed a bit in midsummer. I had gone on a quick getaway to Dallas and Oklahoma City, where I saw Brad right before he was demoted. My return flight from Dallas was overbooked, and I volunteered to be bumped onto the next flight. For that I earned a certificate redeemable for a roundtrip flight anywhere in the U.S. I chose to do a trip within a trip, redeeming the free flight for a ticket from Memphis to Miami, a city I'd never been to (except cruising through the distant suburbs on a tollway) and had always had some interest in. From the airline's point of view these were two entirely separate trips--but in fact I didn't even leave Memphis airport on the way down. The trip combined to make an interesting "last hurrah" before school started in the fall.
I spent most of the day today cleaning my apartment, something I had neglected most of the summer that was badly in need to doing. I had to wait until 2pm (twenty-four hours before my second flight departed) to check in. I logged onto the internet, checked in easily, and printed out my boarding passes for both flights. Then I set off on my way at about 2:10.
I stopped for gas in Ankeny, where I paid $2.399 a gallon, one of the highest prices I had ever paid-yet. No one could know in August that within a month Hurricane Katrina would push the price over $3. I had a meal best described as "lupper" (French onion soup and a danish) at the Panera café in Ankeny and bought some shoes for school at the Shoe Carnival store there. I then drove over to West Des Moines, where I bought some books and magazines at the huge Barnes & Noble store there.
I had made a reservation at the Quality Inn-Events Center, a downtown high rise that used to be seedy (when it was the Starlite Village Best Western) but has been renovated into a very nice place to stay. It's also a bit on the pricey side, but it was almost literally the only place in town available. I had wondered when I booked why everything was full, and as I checked in it became instantly clear. The people in front of me in line were asking for directions to the state fairgrounds. This hotel, like all the rest in town, was full of fairgoers.
I checked in, got settled into the room, and had a nice rest in a comfortable bed.
It rained quite a bit through the night and was still dripping this morning. I was more than a bit worried whether my car would start. I had experienced numerous problems starting the car in wet weather before (which have since had fixed-thank goodness), including twice having to push the car to start it at Margaret's house. Before I even showered this morning I went outside and made sure the car was okay. Fortunately, it started right up-a big relief.
The Quality Inn offers a free hot breakfast buffet (mostly scrambled eggs) in their restaurant, and I had a few bites before setting out.
I drove through downtown Des Moines and then headed west and south toward the airport. I was surprised when I got to the corner of Fleur and Grand, near the downtown technical high school. There used to be a really complicated intersection there with streets coming in at odd angles and traffic controlled by hard-to-see lights. Now there's a big interchange, as if Fleur Drive were an expressway.
I stopped briefly at a Walgreen's on Fleur Drive, where I mostly picked up juice that I'd drink through the day. Then I headed off to "Airport 2", the new discount parking lot on the east side of Fleur Drive, across the street from Des Moines International Airport. Parking in this lot costs $4 a day (the same price as in Mason City), as compared with $8 or $12 in the closer-in lot or ramp. I'm not sure I'd want to be in the open lot in winter, but in August it was the obvious choice.
They have circulator buses that serve all the airport parking areas. At "Airport 2" you're supposed to pick up a phone to request that a bus come get you, but one happened to be dropping someone else off just as I arrived. (Actually, it would be perfectly possible to walk from even the most distant part of Airport 2 to the terminal; I've walked farther in the parking lots of some malls. The bus is convenient with luggage, though.) I was the only passenger on the trip to the terminal, and I was amused that each time we made a turn the driver had to radio his exact location to a central controller. I'd think they'd have a global positioning device to take care of that--if there were any need for the information at all.
Since I was already checked in and had only carry-on luggage, I headed straight to security. I made it through there in no time and had about an hour to kill before the plane boarded. I began reading one of the most fascinating books I've read in a while. The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy may sound deadly dull, but it really was quite interesting. I'd read a review of the book in Time and picked it up on a whim. The title tells the "plot" of this non-fiction treatise. An economics professor traced the life of a "typical" T-shirt from its origins in a Texas cotton field to garment mills in China to a souvenir shop in Florida. She even follows the shirt into the afterlife-when it is rejected by a second hand store and sent on to a sorting firm in Brooklyn that fills container ships with used clothes that end up in the street markets of Africa. At each stage along the way the author interviews people (farmers, textile workers, importers, shopkeepers, etc.) who have contact with the shirt.
The book also gives a surprisingly balanced treatment of the "race to the bottom", where global industries have repeatedly moved their factories in search of ever cheaper labor-from England to Massachusetts to the South to Japan to Latin America and now to China. She notes that garment jobs have never been good, but they are always a step up from what was available before-particularly for rural women. It's also interesting that today even China is being abandoned by many clothing companies, who are finding even cheaper labor in places like Cambodia and central Africa.
The book would fill time nicely in airports and aboard planes on this trip. I had finished a couple of chapters when they finally announced boarding for my flight.
The plane (a 2-2 Canadair regional jet) boarded quickly. It was pouring rain as we left Des Moines, but we had an uneventful flight to Memphis. As we landed the pilot welcomed us to "America's #1 on-time airport"-which just happens to be Northwest's second largest hub. He also announced the gates for many transfers, but made no mention of Miami. That wasn't really a surprise, since my flight wasn't really a Northwest flight, but rather a codeshare flight actually operated by American. I was a little more concerned, though, when none of the TVs in the terminal said anything about the flight either. (It turns out that in Memphis each airline maintains separate TVs that show only their own flights.) A sign said American Airlines was located in Terminal C, so I made my way in that direction. MEM is a huge, sprawling airport, and it was quite a hike over there.
I shortened the trip a bit by using some really weird moving walkways. In Memphis these are elevated above the main part of the passageways. They also go very fast and bounce up and down as you move along them. I felt as if I were on an amusement park ride, rather than just going from one part of the airport to another.
All along the passageway they had doors that led out to the tarmac. Each door had a sign saying "CAUTION - DOOR ALARMED - 10 SECOND DELAY". I'm not sure if that meant there was a delay between your pushing on the door and its actually opening or between your opening the door and the alarm sounding.
It turned out that American had only a single gate (or perhaps it was better described as two mini-gates with the same waiting area), which was located right where the passageway between terminals entered concourse "C". The single TV by that gate had only two destinations: Dallas and Miami. I showed the woman at the gate my Northwest codeshare ticket, and she assured me I was in the right place.
There was still about an hour before the flight would depart. I had some overpriced Starbuck's coffee and read a bit more of the T-shirt book. About twenty minutes before the scheduled departure time they called boarding-one single call for everyone on the plane. When I got on board, I saw why. For a flight connecting two major cities, this was an extremely small plane (an Embraer regional jet with sixteen rows in a 1 - 2 configuration). Not only that, but it was barely half full-maybe twenty-five passengers total.
This was actually an American Eagle flight. American Eagle provides connecting service out of Miami to places like Key West, Mobile, and Savannah-as well as a host of Caribbean islands. Why Memphis is also one of their destinations, I don't know, but the schedule worked out great for me. Given the light load, it was also pretty obvious there wasn't much need for a larger plane to make this run.
I was the lone occupant of Row 16, quite a change from the jam-packed flight from Des Moines to Memphis. Row 15 was entirely empty, and in Row 14 the only occupant was a pilot wearing a Mesaba uniform. Mesaba is one of two companies that operates Northwest Airlink, the airline that is to Northwest as American Eagle is to American. I had an on-and-off conversation with the pilot, who was surprised I had ever heard of Mesaba (which serves places like Mason City). I was surprised that he lived in Miami but flew flights based in Memphis. He apparently flies from Miami to Memphis, spends four days on the job doing short hops around the South, and then flies back to Miami for three days off. He can apparently fly free on any airline, but only on a space-available basis. He usually ends up on this flight, because space is always available. This was the second time I'd encountered Northwest employees who "commuted" across the country (the other being a company executive who lived in Los Angles and worked in Minneapolis). That's a lifestyle it's hard for me to even imagine.
The stewardess on this flight was annoying. That was partly because she had far too little to do. With only a handful of passengers, it took her no time at all to serve drinks. Pretty much no one wanted the snack boxes she had for sale, so that left her idle for almost the entire flight. She filled the time by attempting to strike up a conversation with just about everybody on board. Not much of anyone cared to chat with her, but that just seemed to make her more talkative.
Except for the stewardess the flight was quite pleasant. This small plane flew at a comparatively low altitude, so we had a nice view below us most of the way. The pilot announced that due to thunderstorms we would have to fly down the west coast of Florida, instead of cutting across the peninsula. That made for a fascinating view out my window, as I saw the coastline and the Keys from above. On landing it seemed as if we flew just above the treetops in the Everglades. It amazed me just how abruptly metro Miami began, literally starting at the edge of the jungle.
Even with the diversion we landed almost half an hour ahead of schedule. Unfortunately we had to wait on the taxiway. The pilot informed us that due to thunderstorms in the distance "the ramp" was closed, and they wouldn't let the ground crew out onto the tarmac. It was not raining at the airport, but I could see lightning off in the distance. I suppose the rules with lightning are similar to what they do for sporting events.
The wait turned out to be about half an hour, getting us in almost exactly on time. We didn't actually reach a gate. Instead we went to the "Rainbow Parking Area", where we boarded a bus that took us to a remote part of the terminal. I honestly have no idea just where the bus arrived; I only know it was nowhere near where I'd depart from a few days later. Today I just followed the crowd to the exit.
I continued walking past baggage claim and outdoors to the airport bus stop, which happens to be just outside the U.S. Customs facility at MIA. I had planned to use public transportation exclusively on this trip, and while I'd researched things, I was still a bit apprehensive about doing so. Getting around Miami would require taking a number of buses, and buses are always much harder to deal with than trains. Fortunately the airport bus stop was well arranged, with signs indicating which bus stopped where and maps and schedules for all the buses clearly posted. There were also posters about the fare structure and explaining exactly how to use the bus. That was nice, and it's something other cities would do well to copy.
Before long a #42 bus pulled up. I got on board, put $2 in the farebox, and asked the driver for a transfer. The bus set off through a parking ramp and emerged on a freeway that was under construction. We crawled through the construction and then wandered on a most circuitous route through the Coral Gables area. I was pleased to find that an electronic voice on the bus announced every major intersection, which made it much easier to know where I was and when I would want to pull the cord to stop.
I had read several accounts ahead of time that implied that the area around MIA was unsafe. At least to the south and east (the area the bus went through) that didn't really seem true. It's a mostly Hispanic suburban area that reminded me a lot of Los Angeles. (Then again, lots of people say L.A. is unsafe, too--though I've never had any problems there.) Some of the older buildings are getting a bit seedy, but much of the area is really very nice. What I did notice, both here and throughout Miami, was how patchy the city is. I gather zoning laws are non-existent here. I saw a Ferrari dealership across the street from pawn shops, ratty warehouses mixed with hip night clubs, and luxury condos right next door to public housing. It's hard to tell good and bad when there's everything everywhere.
I couldn't help but remember the one big crime spree for which the area around MIA is famous. About ten years ago there were a string of carjackings involving British tourists in rental cars. Supposedly the tourists had gotten lost, and bandits had taken advantage of cars that were clearly marked with Hertz and Avis logos. Today most rental cars have no markings at all on them (except for a small bar code they use at check-in), so it would be harder for criminals to spot them. I wondered, though, just how all those tourists got lost to begin with. This is not a complicated neighborhood. The streets around here are all square, the freeways to downtown and the beach are obvious, and everything is quite well signed. It would be a lot easier to get lost around O'Hare.
Bus #42 terminated at Douglas Road station, one of the stops on the Miami metrorail line. Miami has a single elevated train line that was built around the time of the Bicentennial. It traverses the city in a reverse "C" shape, connecting neighborhoods to the southwest and northwest with a single station downtown. It's been criticized because it doesn't go to most of Miami's tourist attractions (like the airport and the beach), but it does a pretty good job of connecting workers with their jobs.
Most of Miami's metro stations are similar. While they're technically secure (you're supposed to go through a turnstile to enter), they're entirely open air and enclosed by little more than a chain-link fence. The turnstiles and ticket machines frequently malfunction, and the very bored looking guards seem to be there primarily to let people in through the handicap gate when the turnstile won't let them pass. The elevated platforms are entirely red tile, with steel and avocado enamel highlights. I saw entirely too much of them, because the trains ran rather infrequently on weekends.
Miami's metro trains look like poorly maintained castoffs from the Washington metro. Their surfaces are beige, and the seating was at one time upholstered in avocado and aqua. Much of the upholstery is tattered, soiled, or simply missing.
I took the train three stations south. The first stop south of Douglas Road was at the University of Miami. Nearby were the bars, bookstores, gyms, and coffee shops you'd expect to service a college. The school itself was fascinating, stucco buildings with ornate architecture set among palm trees. Beyond there was the extremely upscale neighborhood of South Miami (much of which is an independent city). Finally I came to my stop, Dadeland North. It was hard to see much of anything from the station, which is set among a sea of parking ramps that serve several nearby shopping malls. The main exit of the station is to what is probably best described as a "shopping arcade", a mostly pedestrian covered street with a number of unimaginative chain stores. At the far end is one of the few multi-story Target stores I've seen anywhere.
I walked down to ground level, bought some tokens for my later transit trips, and walked over to the shops. I made my way through a narrow passage and around to the back side of Target and then crossed an almost empty four-lane street and then an abandoned railroad track. Beyond there was my ultimate destination, the Hampton Inn-Dadeland. The walk from the station to the motel was confusing, but it made some sense after I'd done it. To this day, though, I don't know how cars get to the place.
I checked into the room, relaxed a bit, and then set off to explore the area. The Dadeland neighborhood (the north side of U.S. highway #1 in southwest Miami) was extremely dense, quite different from what I had imagined ahead of time. Most of the buildings around here are four to six stories, but there were several condo towers twenty or thirty floors high. They were all packed close together, with almost no space between anything. Much of Miami is surprisingly tall and dense-unlike the majority of Florida, which is sprawling and low-rise. I've heard people describe Miami as a European-feeling city, and it's that density probably has something to do with that.
South of U.S. 1, the neighborhood looked quite different. There things were still densely packed, but it was mostly an old commercial strip-again looking much like Los Angeles. I ate at a place along the strip called Pollo Tropical, a local fast food chain that serves chicken with Caribbean spices. I had a very spicy chicken sandwich, a bowl of beans, and a packaged "tres leches" cake for dessert. It was overpriced for fast food, but fairly tasty.
I was surprised that it was almost totally dark by 8pm. Miami is a lot further south than Iowa, so night comes faster in summer. I walked down to the end of the train line, Dadeland South, and toyed with the idea of taking the train downtown to see the city lit up at night. There were a number of quite drunk people on the train, though, so I decided it was wise to just get off at Dadeland North and walk back to the hotel. I was pleased to find the route quite well lit at night, not an unpleasant walk at all.
I called Margaret to tell of my adventures and then settled in for the night. Nothing horribly exciting today, but it was interesting nonetheless.
The Hampton Inn had a wonderful breakfast, including eggs, spicy sausage, and bacon. I enjoyed a few bites and then set out for the day.
I walked to the train station and caught a train toward downtown. The route paralleled U.S. 1 throughout the southwestern part of Miami. I passed mostly residential areas, with stucco bungalows and small apartment complexes not unlike the place I live. Mixed in were little strips of business. There was nothing particularly exciting about it, but it wasn't an unpleasant trip either.
I got off at Brickell station (pronounced like butter brickle ice cream), just south of downtown. This is a very wealthy area, combining mansion-like homes with luxury condo towers and foreign consulates. Just to the north is a sting of office towers housing the regional headquarters of various foreign banks and beyond that the endless construction that is transforming downtown Miami from a colonial backwater into a city of glass towers.
This part of Miami looks a lot like Cancun (or at least like Cancun looked before it endured this year's round of hurricanes) and also a lot like pictures I've seen of Sydney. It doesn't look much like any American city, though there is some resemblance to Chicago's Gold Coast-with palm trees mixed in.
More than anything else, central Miami is under construction. Supposedly a lot of that construction is financed by laundered drug money-funneled through those conveniently located foreign banks. I can't verify the source of the funding, but wherever the money came from, it does make for one of the most interesting and lively downtown areas I've seen.
In addition to Metrorail, Miami has a people mover system (Metromover) that most of the downtown area in three small loops. My intent today was to transfer at Brickell to the Metromover and take it to see just what was there. The mover line was obvious, elevated right above the street, and the mover station was directly connected to the rail station. However the mover station was gated shut, with a bored and rather unfriendly looking guard patrolling the entrance. He wasn't the sort of person I felt comfortable talking to, so I set off on foot. I followed the tracks to the next mover station, about two blocks away. That station was also locked up, though I could see one of the automatic mover cars whizzing by on the tracks above. I saw two more trains as I walked to yet another station, which was also locked up. Obviously there was no service today, but I couldn't help but wonder why.
Much later I found out that the service was cancelled because of some of that construction. This morning they were imploding an old hotel on the north fringe of downtown, right next to the mover tracks. They didn't want people going around right next to the explosives, so they closed the system. They apparently didn't bother shutting down the actual trains, though; they just continued shuttling from station to station with no one aboard.
Almost all the travel books I had read gave stern warnings about the dangers of downtown Miami. In fact, I had switched from staying at a downtown hotel to staying out in Dadeland (at a cost of about $15/night more) mostly due to those warnings. Given that the mover system wasn't running, that was probably a good decision-but at least by day it was clear safety wasn't something I needed to worry about. While I was just about the only white person downtown, I had plenty of companions-none of them scary. While there were a few homeless people, mostly I saw Hispanic families visiting the waterfront parks or window-shopping at the handful of stores.
I spent a bit of time exploring Claude and Mildred Pepper Bayfront Park, which mostly offers views of the condo towers three miles east in Miami Beach. I also snapped a picture of the Freedom Tower, a stately building modeled on the Giralda Tower in Seville that used to be the headquarters for a newspaper. Apparently it's now just an empty shell, but it's still an attractive landmark.
North of the tower they'd blocked off streets because of the implosion. The detour took me into a rather rough neighborhood of transient hotels, something more like what the guide books had led me to expect downtown would be like. Even this didn't really come across as dangerous, though. I might not want to linger here at night, but by day it wasn't hard to avoid the rather hung-over occupants of the neighborhood.
I made my way south to Government Center, the one metro station in the downtown area. A sign here explained that there was no Metromover service and also said that track construction was limiting rail service today to just every twenty minutes. I waited about fifteen minutes before a southbound train came along.
I was dripping with sweat, so I returned to the hotel to dry off. I showered again and used the hair dryer in my room to dry out my clothes. Then I set out again. I walked back to Dadeland North station and put a token in the turnstile. Unfortunately nothing happened. I kept jerking it, hoping it would unlock. The station guard, a young Hispanic man, gave me a look that said "what a rookie" and explained to me that all I needed to do was press a bar on the handicap gate and walk through there. Not being an expert in jumping turnstiles, that hadn't occurred to me. I'm sure a lot of people do that without bothering to put a token in, though.
I took the train back to Douglas Road and walked out to the busway outside the station. I transferred to bus J, which ran back to the airport, but by a much more direct route than the bus I'd taken yesterday. I didn't get off at the airport, but rather continued east down 36th Street. The route ran through a poor area of endless cement block apartments broken by the occasional dollar store, gas station, liquor store, or McDonalds. The most interesting sight en route was the Greater Miami Jai Alai Fronton, an ornately decorated arena where people go to watch and bet on the fast-moving handball-like sport.
Just north of downtown Miami the bus entered an interstate which became a causeway that joined mainland Florida with the barrier island of Miami Beach. The bus cut across the island, running past banks, drugstores, and supermarkets that serve the surprisingly large number of people who live here. I got off at the east end of the island, highway A1A.
A1A is shown on maps as a scenic route that pretty much runs the length of the east coast of Florida. Many years ago my friend Sandra and I drove along the northern part of this route from St. Augustine to Daytona. The part in Miami Beach looks a lot like that stretch. A driver along the route would be lucky to get an occasional glimpse of the ocean; the road is only "scenic" if you are looking for a view of condos and hotels. As a pedestrian, though, I could see the beach up close. While A1A runs along the west side of all the beachfront towers, to the east is a six-mile-long boardwalk that connects beach after beach. I walked south along it for a while, admiring the view and marveling at the thousands of people who seemed to find it pleasant to bake themselves in the 90+ degree heat.
I had lunch at a very seedy Burger King that seemed to be the hangout for all the homeless people in Miami Beach. I had a bit of a problem communicating with the black girl at the counter, who asked a question I couldn't identify. I had ordered a salad, and the question turned out to be about what kind of dressing I wanted. I hate to say it, but I can almost always understand Hispanic and Asian service workers more easily than black ones.
I paid for my lunch with Burger King gift certificates I'd gotten in the Garrigan scrip program. When I presented them, the counter girl looked at me as if I'd given her pesos. She'd obviously never dealt with gift certificates before, although surely they must get them with some frequency. A manager told her that she needed to enter them in the cash register just like cash and give me appropriate change. She did, but I don't think she was ever convinced they were genuine.
The salad was well past its prime, but at $5.49, I felt compelled to eat every bite. I also needed to use the restroom, but the place locked theirs and issued keys to customers only. While I was a customer, there was a long line at the counter that made it unlikely I would get the key soon. So I did as the homeless people do. I waited until someone went into the men's room, stood outside the door, and then walked in when they left.
I walked west from Burger King along Lincoln Road, a blocked-off street that serves as a pedestrian mall where the beautiful people go to shop. There were stores selling $1000 suits, $2000 dresses, and $500 workout attire. I can certainly be a clothes horse, but even I can't imagine spending hundreds of dollars for gym shorts.
I turned south near the west end of the island and walked through the South Beach area, where the people who shop on Lincoln Road live. About half of South Beach is made up of old stucco buildings with interesting art deco architecture, while the rest is the same condo towers I'd seen across the bay in Brickell. Books describe South Beach as beautiful, and the pictures certainly look that way. I must say, though, that it's the sort of place that looks better from a distance than it does up close.
South Beach is also supposed to be Miami's most "happening" area. There are bars and dance clubs everywhere, and apparently by night it's quite a swinging place. Walking through on a Sunday, though, reminded me of the many times I'd been to New Orleans on the Sabbath. Pretty much everything was closed, and those who frequent all the hip venues were spending the day sleeping it off. It would be hard to imagine a deader place than this "lively" neighborhood.
I found a bus stop outside an upscale grocery store and waited there for about fifteen minutes. Eventually I boarded bus "S" for downtown. The bus traveled across a different causeway, right past the huge cruise ship harbor. I never realized before just how enormous those cruise ships are; it's really unbelievable.
The bus dropped me off at the Omni bus terminal, which is next to an abandoned mall that is now a community college (not unlike the ILCC campus in Spencer) in the north fringe of downtown. Had Metromover been working, it would have been a short hop from there to Government Center. As it was, though, I had a long walk through the same seedy neighborhood I'd wandered through this morning. There were more homeless people out and about at midday, which made for an even less pleasant walk. As I always do, I walked with confidence, though, and I made it to Government Center safely.
Again my clothes were thoroughly soaked. Indeed, I probably looked as if I'd been swimming in them. So once again I headed back to the hotel to dry off. I showered yet again and this time used the iron in my room to dry off things, sending sweaty-smelling steam all through the room. I'd remembered heat and humidity from my summers in Mississippi, but this seemed worse than that.
After cooling off a bit I headed back to the train station. This time I went just a few stops north to Coconut Grove, a mostly wealthy palm-filled neighborhood near a harbor southwest of downtown. My first stop here was at a TCBY outlet right across U.S. 1 from the station. I had some gift certificates from the Garrigan scrip program and figured I'd use them to get a treat. That was easier said than done, though. First, the place combined TCBY with Subway, but all the employees seemed to mostly work for Subway; no one really wanted to take ice cream orders. Second the young man who eventually did reluctantly serve me had never seen a gift certificate before in his life. After a long delay another employee showed him how to enter it in the cash register, and I eventually got a cone with key lime yogurt. It basically tasted like lime sherbet and was definitely not worth the hassle.
I walked down 27th Street to the bayfront area and then walked past the posh Cocowalk shopping district. I found it strange as I sweltered in the heat that in this city of sauna-like weather, there are surprisingly many outdoor shopping centers. Indeed it seems as if enclosed malls are the exception rather than the rule. Cocowalk is designed to look like a small-town Main Street (though with more traffic and worse parking than most small towns would have), but it was all new construction built by the same developer and functions like a mall. The shops are different than in South Beach, but every bit as expensive. I could have spent thousands of dollars on jewels and furs (if I had that money to spend, of course) or as much as $10 for a cup of snooty coffee. Not having money to burn, I just walked along laughing in my head at those who wasted their money here.
At the west end of Coconut Grove, about a mile from 27th Street, is one of Miami's oldest buildings, Plymouth Congregational Church. Mind you, "old" in Miami means is actually newer than the old west. This is a very new city that was mostly jungle until the end of the 19th Century. (In 1900 Key West was still the largest place in Florida.) The historic church is barely a century old, but it is rather handsome. I must say, though, that Spanish colonial architecture looks a bit out of place on a Congregational church. Even more out of place was the pink cement block building next door (what Methodists call the "education wing" and Catholics call the "parish center"-I don't know what Congregationalists call it, even though we've got one in my church too).
Northwest of the church is a strange neighborhood of what might best be described as exclusive hideaways. These million-dollar homes are barely a step up from the tar paper shacks that hid in the woods all over Mississippi. In fact, apparently at one time they were literally "po folks" shacks on the edge of town. Just like old inner city rowhouses, these have been gentrified into trendy housing for the wealthy.
Almost every home in this area had a sign out front opposing Home Depot's plan to build a store in Coconut Grove. I found it amusing that while the "SAVE THE GROVE" advocates decried big box stores, they seem perfectly content with that fake downtown and all its snooty shops.
North of the yuppie shacks is an area of stucco apartments with a sign proclaiming the original Bahamian settlement in Miami. Bahamians Blacks were the first people to settle here; whites didn't come until Henry Flagler opened a railroad down the coast. Beyond the Bahamian settlement is an enormous public housing project. I walked past it to get to a Wendy's, where I cooled in the air conditioning and enjoyed chili and iced tea. Once again I had scrip gift certificates, and once again they were alien to the workers. That's weird, since I've never had a problem spending them in Iowa.
Wendy's was at the corner of U.S. 1 and Douglas Road. Across the highway was a Walgreens, where I bought some pop. At the northwest corner of the intersection was Douglas Road metro station. I got on a train and headed back to the Hampton Inn to dry off yet again.
It was now late afternoon, giving me enough time before nightfall to make one more train excursion. I took the train past downtown and into North Miami. Just north of downtown is Overtown, a neighborhood I mostly know from riots that took place there when I was in high school. While still mostly black, it's clear Overtown has gentrified quite a bit since the '70s. The place is full of new luxury apartment buildings, mostly facing the Miami River. North of there things rapidly get seedier, essentially the same area I had gone through on the bus this morning. The train crawled through here, stopping numerous times as we waited for signals that were changed due to track construction. My original plan was to go all the way to the end of the line, but there really wasn't much of anything to see. I decided to get off at Northside station, where I waited on a platform overlooking a place called "Flea Market USA". I think I had just missed a southbound train, because the platform was empty when I got off and it was a long wait. Gradually the platform filled up with people, mostly Hispanic couples who had been shopping at the flea market. The one other Anglo person on the platform (a portly young man with a bike who would best be described as white trash) felt compelled to complain to me about how long the wait for a train was. I grunted something sympathetic, but mostly ignored him.
I had an uneventful ride back to Dadeland. A long ride on the air conditioned train meant that this time I wasn't even soaking wet. It was dark when I got back, but I made my way across U.S. 1 to a Dairy Queen on the strip. This was yet another place where the employees acted like they'd never seen their chain's nationwide gift certificates. In fact, I think the only reason they girl at the counter did take them was that she'd already made my blizzard.
I made my way back to the motel, watched some TV, and had a very relaxing evening. While I can't say I did anything all that exciting today, it really was an interesting day.
Breakfast at the hotel today was different than yesterday's, but still very good. I ate quickly, finished packing my bags, checked out of the hotel, and was on my way right at rush hour.
I took a jam-packed train northward to Brickell station. There I transferred to the Metromover, which today was running-with people in it. Metromover is similar to Detroit's people mover and sort of like an older version of the Airtrain I'd taken at JFK earlier this summer. The cars are quite small and have almost no seating (just a ledge at each end that functions as a bench). They operate entirely automatically, with no drivers, conductors, or other employees. While they're actually newer than the Metrorail cars, the mover vehicles seem to be showing their age even more. The car I was had cracked windows and a leaky air conditioner that "rained" on almost everyone inside. Still it made an interesting trip. I whisked around the downtown loop and back to Brickell-more a novelty than real transportation, but fun.
Outside Brickell station I boarded the #8 bus, which is numbered after Calle Ocho, the street its eastbound route follows through the famous Little Havana neighborhood. I was headed westbound, so I'd have to just catch glimpses of the more famous street as I headed down Calle Siete (7th Street). I'd bet Little Havana would be a fun place to walk through, not unlike the Hispanic parts of Chicago and Los Angeles I've explored. By bus, though, it was a pretty boring neighborhood. It's different from much of Miami in that it's mostly single family homes (rather than condo towers or small apartment buildings), but they're mostly stucco bungalows that aren't exactly architectural treasures. The neighborhood is broken up by the same strip business you'd see in any city anywhere. What's more, there's probably fewer people who speak Spanish than in the "ethnic" part of most American cities these days.
I got off bus 8 at LeJune Road, which is also known as 42nd Avenue. This is a major business strip that runs north/south the length of the city just east of the airport. I turned the corner and waited at another bus stop in front of a Walgreen's that could have been in absolutely any American city. Before long a "J" bus arrived, and I used my last token to board it.
It was about a five-minute ride to the airport parking ramp, the same place I had first entered the Miami public transit system. I made my way to the departures level of the terminal and quickly checked in at a self-service machine. (There wasn't even an employee at the counter; I'm not sure what I would have done if I had luggage with me.) There was a long line at security, but before long an employee came by and announced that there was no line at Concourse C and that a passageway connected "C" right back to where we'd come out if we went through this security checkpoint.
I scurried over to Concourse C and was pleased to find the report was right; I was the first person in what ended up being a long line there. I went through quickly and had more than two hours to kill before my flight was scheduled to leave. I spent most of the time wandering the concourses, walking past every single gate in the airport-many of them three or four times. I must tell you MIA is a boring airport. There's very little business in the terminals (unlike Minneapolis or O'Hare, which might as well be shopping malls). It's also a very strange airport, with lots of little side passageways that seem to lead to nowhere. It reminded me in negative ways of Sheremetievo Airport in Moscow. The most interesting thing in the airport was an art exhibit featuring drawings done by high school students. Some had an aviation theme, while others portrayed life in Miami-both good and bad aspects of it.