Miami Day Trip

Bidding Chris goodbye at the Miami airport after four months of cohabitation at the Folly dramatically increased the utility of Thom's two-seater.  He picked me up at the Tri Rail station a little after noon.

We headed to the Plaza Seafood Market in Little Santo Domingo.  I expected it to be on the scale of the Fulton Fish Market, where I spent one of the happiest mornings of my childhood with my father.

From the storefront, it appeared to be little more than a take-out restaurant.

Fortunately, the man in the coral shirt encouraged me to take a peek inside.

Thom ordered the seafood rice; I got the butterfly fish special.  Both came with fried plantains.

After lunch, we followed our sweet tooth to Azucar in Little Havana.

I pigged out on a scoop of the Girl Scout Cookies flavor.  Way more memorable than the butterfly fish.

"The Father" was playing at an Art Deco theater across the street.  I haven't bought a movie ticket since seeing "Parasite" in February 2020.

Domino Park remains closed.

But that doesn't prevent the locals from enjoying a masked game.  Life definitely goes on in South Florida.

What would I do without the New York Times?  An article last week recommended visiting the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens which occupies 83 acres in Coral Gables, a densely vegetated neighborhood just south of Miami.

If you read between the lines of the Wikipedia entry, you get the sense that the Price Waterhouse founder who established the garden in 1938 named it after a plant lover who may have been his boyfriend.  What an amazing tribute.

Frederick Law Olmsted, one of my heroes, influenced the garden's design, which emphasizes three principles:  variety, consistency and contrast.

Misters keep the rainforest content.

You'd never know orchid season already has peaked.

Butterfly gardens can be as depressing as they are beautiful.  Somehow it seems cruel to trap the winged creatures indoors.

Banana splits offer some degree of compensation.

Chihuly glass shapes and colors can't compete with Mother Nature's.

Even bled of color, plant leaves can astonish.  Polka dots!  Who knew?

I'm reading The Overstory by Richard Powers.  I'll never take trees for granted again. Misters Montgomery and Fairchild would have approved.

Truth be told, I enjoyed driving through the condo canyons of downtown Miami in a convertible as much as anything we did, even though the afternoon sun made us feel like a couple of chickens in a rotisserie oven.

A floral bike on US 1.

Our perfect day ended in Wilton Manors where we dined al fresco with Andrew & Steven. Go for the happy hour, stay for the food.