250 Miles Car Trip
I set our alarm for the ungodly hour of 5:55 a.m. to meet AC and Jim for our trip to the Miami Boat Show leaving at 6:30 to be there by 10:00 a.m. The bagel shop opened at 6:30, so we made that our first stop to grab something for the road. The good news of getting up so early ... we were able to see the sun rise.
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| Sunrise in the Florida Keys photo taken from Route 1 Highway |
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Miami has some interesting sights that are not seen in many other places. For example, we saw a 303' yacht owned by Paul Allen of Microsoft fame. The boat is named Tatoosh and is registered in Georgetown in the Cayman Islands. The vessel has a 14' depth requirement and has room to carry two helicopters and a 50+' tender.
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| Tatoosh Cayman Islands 303' long |
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| 50' Tender with bow thruster |
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| Covered Helicopter on Upper Deck |
In addition to smaller craft, we saw multiple-story cruise ships in port. As we checked out the scenery, we spied a cruise ship life boat out cruising around presumably for safety drill purposes.
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| Cruise ship lifeboat out for maneuvers |
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| Cruise ship looks like a big building! |
From the parking area we could see the Freedom Tower. This building finished being constructed in 1925 and first held The Miami News newspaper. In 1997 it became a monument to the refugees that fled Cuba and came to the U.S., and in current times this building serves as an art museum. We noticed it because of its unique construction.
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| Miami Freedom Tower Cupola on top of a 255' tall building National Historic Building |
Just after 10:00 we arrived at the boat show, took a few minutes to sort out the map and our current location, and then headed to the electronics booth to track down the vendors Clark wanted to talk with. AC and Jim had their own agenda, so we split up and agreed to touch base at 3:00 to see how we were each doing.
Clark really likes going to boat shows on Friday's to avoid weekend crowds and get better opportunities to talk with the techs at the booths for longer periods of time. I found a park bench near one booth and sat while Clark did his research, but for the most part, I ended up standing for long stretches of time listening with one ear while waiting to move on to another booth. It is amazing how tiring it can be just standing around!
Finally at 1:00 I could take no more without lunch and practically dragged Clark to the food court area. We had brought our own food, and thank goodness for that. People were stacked up multiple rows deep waiting to get to the sandwich counter. Luckily I spotted some folks leaving a premium-seating, i.e. shady, area just as we came to sat down, so we grabbed it quickly.
As we took our seats a woman sat across from us and proceeded to ask if she could clean the bottom of our boat for us. Clark groaned as he thought, "someone's trying to sell us something while we eat!" Then she said, "Don't you recognize me?" She turned out to be the diver, Crystal, that is frequently seen at Faro Blanco, and Clark had talked to her at our marina. I had seen her there and replied to her question, "Not without your wet suit on!"
We had a very pleasant time talking with Crystal over lunch. She told us her sad Hurricane Irma story and showed us before and after pictures of her boat. It was not a pretty sight. Her daughter, Ariel, sat with us but was not in a talkative mood, so we did not really get to know her.
After lunch, Clark and I headed back into the electronics tent to check out all the booths we missed prior to eating. Heaven forbid we should miss one! When we finally left the "techy" tent, we went to the vendor tent where we could actually make purchases. Clark bought us some new electronics, an AIS unit, as well as some much-needed boat shoes. I came away empty handed!
When we checked in with AC and Jim at 3:00, they said they needed more time. With that in mind we decided to stroll some of the docks where the boats were on show. Of course we had to traverse the whole length of the marina to get to Dock 8 for trawlers of interest, e.g. Kadey-Krogens. With so many people on the docks, we found it hard to move any faster than a snail's pace. The docks seemed narrow to me in places, and with so many people on them, I feared being knocked into the water. I hung tight to Clark's arm to feel more secure.
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| Crowded docks at Miami Boat Show |
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| Thank goodness we did not come on the weekend! |
As we stood on the docks waiting to move along, I overheard two people talking about the decrepit stadium next to the site. I asked about its history and was told that these stands used to hold people there to watch boat races and aquatics shows. They said people often talk of restoring the stands, but the cost is prohibitive.
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| Old Water sports stadium in Miamit |
At 4:00 we met AC and Jim at the Water Taxi station and found a mob scene of people waiting to board. Fortunately the line moved much faster than I thought it would. Once again we got to see the cruise ships and Tatoosh as we traveled back to the American Airlines Arena parking area.
When we boarded, few seats remained in the shaded section of the taxi. I saw four seats together and practically ran to claim them. It was not until after I went to sit down that I realized that I had the honor of sitting next to the toilet on board. Thankfully I had a chair and did not end up sitting on the toilet lid for the ride back! Even being in such close proximity made me with I had hand sanitizer with me!
Traffic had been unpleasant coming into Miami but was downright dismal getting out. We hit the road just before 5:00 with a lot of others leaving the boat show and merging into the rush-hour traffic of the city. As we inched our way out of town, we realized that we better come up with a plan for dinner. We would not be seeing Marathon any time soon.
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| It's going to be a long drive home! |
During a portion of our drive, we had dueling GPS as Jim had both the GPS of the car and the one on his cell phone giving directions. They were slightly out of sync as they told of turns to be made to avoid traffic from an accident on the Ronald Reagan Highway. As we made our way onto U.S. Highway 1, the car GPS suddenly announced, "Merge onto Overseas Highway. After 100 miles, make a U-turn." This seemed so ridiculous that we all burst out laughing. Perhaps the GPS knew we needed comic relief from the stress of the drive!?
We decided to stop at a restaurant in Homestead. As we tried to look at our phones to see options, Jim pointed out the Longhorn Steakhouse and made a quick exit, so we could eat there as we all agreed it was a very fine choice for dinner. We ate our steaks and afterwards Clark ordered an apple tart a la mode. When the waitress brought it, she brought four spoons. Everyone except AC dug into the sweet treat. With all that sugar, Clark came out of the restaurant bouncing up and down. No wonder I sometimes refer to him as "the energizer bunny"! No one should have that much energy!
When we left the restaurant full of steak and sugar, we still had a long way to go to get back to Marathon. Jim did not bother to set up the car GPS for directions. I wonder why? Jim did a great job with the driving, and we arrived back at the docks of Faro Blanco sometime after 10:00 p.m. With such a long day, we all craved our beds, said goodnight, and headed our separate ways.
Clark did not capture a sunset picture on the trip home from the boat show. However, Captain Jen on Fat-n-Sassy took one and sent it to us via Facebook.
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| Sunset Picture Taken by "Captain Jen" on Fat-n-Sassy from the docks near her boat. |
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