Miami Beach

[Michael Tee]

Just got back last night and had a blast but . . .

On the plane back this guy was talking about Lincoln Road, Lincoln Boulevard?  WTF?  Did we miss something?  We hung out around Ocean Drive and 7th with our kids - - Great restaurants, bars, beaches.  What else is there?  Their hotel was next to a Latin nightclub, lots of great music.  Stayed in a condo right on the Intracoastal for most of the stay and before that in a small hotel on the beach in Sunny Isles, near the Rascal House.

Anyone know Miami well?  XO?  What's Lincoln Blvd?  Road?  all about?

[Amianthus]

Anyone know Miami well?  XO?  What's Lincoln Blvd?  Road?  all about?

Lincoln Road is a several block long pedestrian mall. Similar to Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis.

[Michael Tee]

Thanks, Ami.  Glad I missed it.  I hate pedestrian malls.  Gimme a crowded sidewalk with people spilling out onto the street, low-riders with industrial-quality sound systems cruising up and down all night under the palm trees and past the discos and motorcycles contributing their own dying-muffler sounds to the general din anytime.  And my wife can't irritate me by running into all those over-priced shops to buy more crap that she already has.  Ocean Drive was good enough for the likes of me.

[kimba1]

over-priced shops

you mean shoes don`t you

I don`t know why
no matter what the majority of purchases from my ex has always been shoes and some of them she admits thier ugly or don`t fit at all
i always end up returning them for her.
I`m only there  as a adhok pack mule to haul stuff

[Michael Tee]

Shoes.  And purses.  I can't really complain.  With me, it's books.  And magazines.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Lincoln Road was turned into a Mall promenade back in the 1950's. in the 1970's and 80's, I found it a delightful place to go on a Friday evening, as there were lots of bookstores, used clothes stores and a nice park on Lincoln Road.It is between 16th and 18th Street, First street being at the very tip of the sandspit that MB is located on. In the 1990's Miami Beach once more became trendy and there was no longer anywhere to park without paying a bunch of money, and I only go there once a year, when the South Florida Mercedes-Benz Club meets on the opening day of the SF Auto Show in the MB Convention Center. We eat at the Carnavale Restaurant and then proceed to the auto show.

The book stores and the used clothing stores and art galleries have been replaced with high-end super yuppy stores and snobbish clerks with unknown foreign accents. The public park is now mostly outdoor restaurants and the music and rollerbladers make it a less than restful place to spend the afternoon or evening.

There is no parking in Miami Beach, except hideously expensive valet parking. if you prepay at city hall (open 9AM-5M M-F), you can use one of a very few parking meters. They won't take coins anymore. Miami Beach used to be great, but prosperity has caused it to suck.

You can sit along the beach in Lauderdale and have a beer at an outdoor cafe, but if you buy a beer at the convenience store and drink it ten feet away in front of an openair restaurant, some smartass cop will find you $50 for "drinking in public". Apparently if you are stiing at the table of an open air restaurant, you are invisible to smartass cops.

Should you come to Miami, let me know. There are a lot of interesting places here that tourists never hear about.

If you buy anything within ten blocks of the ocean, you will pay at least double.

[Michael Tee]

<<Should you come to Miami, let me know. There are a lot of interesting places here that tourists never hear about.>>

Thanks, XO, I'll take you up on that.  We usually come to MB for the South Beach Wine and Food Festival.  Our daughter and her husband are journalists who come to cover the Festival, and we come in a few days ahead of them for some private time and then wind up baby-sitting our grandchildren during the festival.

<<There is no parking in Miami Beach, except hideously expensive valet parking. if you prepay at city hall (open 9AM-5M M-F), you can use one of a very few parking meters. >>

We used to stay at the Ramada in Hollywood Beach and drive down A1A to South Beach every morning  after the kids arrived.  This year for the first time, we didn't rent a car.  We stayed in Sunny Isles, and figured on taking the bus down Collins Avenue to South Beach and back every day.  $1.50 each way for seniors.  Gotta be nuts to rent a car for that.  As it happened, as soon as he arrived, our son-in-law got us a free condo right on the Intracoastal about a $6 cab ride from their hotel, so everything worked out pretty well.

<<Miami Beach used to be great, but prosperity has caused it to suck.>>

Tell me about it.  I was there in 1948 when the Fountainebleau was still under construction and everyone was raving about how it was going to be the greatest hotel of the century.   I can remember eating "kiechelech" from Hoffman's Cafeteria on Collins Avenue, across the street from our hotel, "The Shorecrest."  The side yards between the hotels on the beach were full of little lizards and jellyfish were always washing up on the beach or floating just offshore, including the big "Portuguese Man of War."

[Xavier_Onassis]

The side yards between the hotels on the beach were full of little lizards and jellyfish were always washing up on the beach or floating just offshore, including the big "Portuguese Man of War."

My yard is full of little lizards. They sneak into my house and tease my cat.  I suspect that the lizards secretly own the place, and we are just visitors.

[Michael Tee]

<<My yard is full of little lizards.>>

Glad to hear it.  We didn't see even one, and I really wanted to show them to our little grandson.  I thought they had gone the way of the dodo, at least in Miami Beach.

[Plane]

<<My yard is full of little lizards.>>

Glad to hear it.  We didn't see even one, and I really wanted to show them to our little grandson.  I thought they had gone the way of the dodo, at least in Miami Beach.

Is this the lizard ?




http://www.anapsid.org/anole.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychrotidae
http://www.anole.net/Anoles/Welcome.html


I love these, Georgia has them too.

[Michael Tee]

Looks like them.  If you catch them by the tail, they pull away and the tail breaks off in the middle, then they can grow another one from the  point of breakage.  I saw one once on the wall of our hotel room in Acapulco, and they lived against the stone wall separating the yard of our rented home from our neighbour's in the south of France.  Ontario is way too cold for them.  I am SO sorry that I wasn't able to show any to my grandson, I know he would have loved them too.

[Michael Tee]

Took another look at the top lizard - - thought before there was a pink fruit or flower behind it, but that's its throat, which has swelled out like a ball.  I never saw the lizards in Florida do that.  Not to say they couldn't, but I saw a lot of them when I was a kid and I never saw any of 'em like that.

[Plane]

Took another look at the top lizard - - thought before there was a pink fruit or flower behind it, but that's its throat, which has swelled out like a ball.  I never saw the lizards in Florida do that.  Not to say they couldn't, but I saw a lot of them when I was a kid and I never saw any of 'em like that.

That is the mateing display of the Male , while he fans this ruff he moves his body up and down like a Marine doing push-ups.

If you go further south these Lizards get bigger and bigger. by the time you get to Panama there are five foot Iguana loungeing in the branches of the trees even in down town areas. At Georgias lattitude they are five inches and called Anoles.

Perhaps they are present in Canada , but that far north they are microscopic?

[Michael Tee]

It's been a long time but I would guess the ones we saw in Florida, nose-tip to tail-tip were 8 to 10 inches, the one on the wall of our hotel room in Acapulco was maybe 5 or 6 inches, same green colour and general appearance as the Florida tribe.  The ones in the south-west of France (La Rochelle area) were like the Florida and Acapulco ones.  The big ones in Mexico were iguanas, they had no resemblance at all to the others.  Canada doesn't have any lizards like those, at least not in the Great Lakes and Atlantic regions.

[Xavier_Onassis]

These are cold-blooded reptiles, and they find Canada inhospitable because of the climate. eptiles do not fare well in the Great White North, because they tend to freeze solid and fail to rescusitate in the Spring.

It is probable that they spray for bugs on the Beach and this kills the lizards.