I’m off tomorrow morning for an all-too-brief visit to your sunny neck of the woods. Most of my time will be taken up with family stuff (Rosh Hashanah, etc.), but I will get to spend Friday and/or Saturday with my oldest childhood friend, who lives in Miami. The kids will be at school, and hubby will be at work, so it’ll be just the two of us for the day (until 6:00 or so, when the kids need to be picked up).
So if you had a day to just blow doing fun stuff in the Miami area, what would you do? What neighborhoods would you go to? (I’m thinking Calle Ocho may play a role in this – believe it or not, in all my years of visiting Florida, I’ve never made it there.) If you have any favorite little neighborhood places, particularly Cuban or other Latin ones, please post them; I’m thinking we won’t end up doing anything terribly goal-oriented.
Specific location is up in the air – that’s part of why I’m asking. My friend, with her husband, 2 small children, full-time job, part-time job, and full-time graduate program, hasn’t gotten out much lately, except to the grocery store. So we want to do something purely fun and frivolous.
(And relatively cheap. Probably no spa days or fancy-schmancy shopping, but lunch would be do-able.)
Graduate program. That probably puts her in Miami proper, then, based on the schools there with programs.
Viz is cheap (a few bucks) … for nice places for lunch down there, I’m not sure. I know that we visited Miami Beach a few months back during the weekend, just parked near 42nd? and strolled onto the beach and board walk and into the Fontainbluea Hotel pool area (kiddy pool, 100foot octupus scuplture) to catch some sun and drink some fruity drinks. They have a regular pool too … just enter beachside and they shouldn’t have a problem with you being there.
Bayside is … interesting but it’s just an outdoor mall stuck in the Miami Vice eighties. On the weekends I’d seen birds and snakes on display from the zoo (as in here, hold this gigantic albino snake and smile!).
My friend does live in Miami proper, but we’d be willing to take a bit of a drive if we had a specific purpose in mind. The Keys are probably a bit far, unfortunately – last time we went, but by the time we got where we were going, we pretty much had to turn around and go home. (Her brother is, to put it politely, not an early riser.) So I vowed not to go back to the Keys unless I have at least a couple of days to spend, even though I love it there, because it’s too frustrating.
“Havana Harry’s” for a good Cuban lunch off Calle Ocho, it is on LeJeune just north of Dixie Highway, on the left as you head north. For lunch ON Calle Ocho, “Versailles” (yeah, I know, that’s French) in on SW 8th just east of Douglas, on the left as you head east on SW 8th. ALL the best Cuban Mafia go there. Breakfast on South Beach can be cool, there is a spot on the nortthern part of Ocean Drive, called the “Front Porch”, very good eats. Watching the wildlife on O.D. is always interesting, and FREE! Lotsa shops to browse at CocoWalk in the Grove, take Grand Ave east from Dixie Highway eastbound. Lincoln Road on South Beach is also a people watching mecca, with neat shops and restaurants. The Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables is gorgeous, and free to walk around in. The Coral Castle (WARNING BAD MIDI ON FIRST PAGE, SKIP INTRO!) is a small drive south, off of Dixie Highway (28655 South Dixie, in Homestead). Kinda neat and quirky. Everglades Alligator Park is down that way, too. You could head out US 41 into the Everglades to Shark Valley and rent bikes to go around the loop there and see alligators and whatnot. Or head up US 27 to Evergaldes Holiday Park and take an airboat ride (not too pricey).
Exit 13a or b off of i-75 you can do a couple hours in the everglades on an airboat.
There is a kids museum off of 595.
There is an IMAX theatre in downtown Ft Lauderdale.
There is Jaxons, like I said, in Dania off of us1 and Sheridan.
There is the drive through wedding chapel off of 595 … not that I htink you’re gonna go get married or renew vows …
Um …
There is an ice skating rink off of Flamingo … between Griffin and Taft but I’m not sure exactly where.
There are places to rent and ride horses in Sunshine Ranches
There is a big regional park at South Post and ? (Just go west until you run out of road) but there isn’t a lot there the YMCA isn’t done yet.
Skip Dolphin Mall in Miami. really.
What else what else … I dunno. If you go to sawgrass park near target. Not a lot of people park near the garden center and there is a food court close by (as well as cool bungee jumping).
