This blog continues with more of our time in Miami.  Even though it was Spring Break time for college students, we decided to drive to Miami Beach.  Rather than taking the interstate or turnpike, we took the scenic route Old Cutler Road.  The drive was beautiful with huge trees including banyan trees as well as azaleas in full bloom.  When we entered the Miami Beach city limits we began to see cruise ships and the traffic picked up.  We drove down Ocean Drive and as expected it was pretty crazy with throngs of scantily clad college students crowding the restaurants, roadways and beach.  We drove to the northern end of Miami Beach where it seemed a little calmer and after only a little time stalking for a spot, we found a parking space.  There was a very nice boardwalk sheltered from the sun and we found walking on it much more appealing than the crowded beach in the hot sun.  Pictures sometimes really are worth a thousand words so I will let the pictures do the talking.  One college student from Kentucky managed to get in Bill’s picture.  He told us he hated going back home to the cold weather the next day.  He said he had had a great time in Miami but had also made some bad decisions.  Sounds like stories I don’t want to know!  Along the boardwalk we passed big hotels including The Fountainebleau, featured in the 1964 James Bond movie “Goldfinger”.

On our last day in the Miami area we visited the Gold Coast Railroad Museum.  The museum is on the site of the former Naval Air Station Richmond, the largest coastline airship base built for World War II.  The museum featured exhibits of passenger cars, locomotives, freight cars and cabooses. Many of the trains were open to tour and some had exhibits inside on the history of train travel. Our main reason for wanting to visit the museum was to see the Ferdinand Magellan, a National Historic Landmark and the Pullman car built for President Franklin Roosevelt and used by the president beginning in December, 1942.  The train also carried Roosevelt’s body back to Washington after his death. The car has four bedrooms, a dining room and an observation lounge. There is 5/8 inch steel armor plating, three inch bullet proof glass and two escape hatches, one in the ceiling of the observation lounge and the other in the side wall of the shower in the presidential bathroom in the center of the train. At one time there was a special elevator installed on the platform for Roosevelt’s wheelchair but that was removed after his death.  This train was also the location where Truman held up the famous newspaper headline declaring “Dewey Defeats Truman”.  Four presidents used the train, with the last official use ending in 1954.  Ronald Reagan used the train for one day in 1984 during his presidential campaign as part of a whistle stop tour. Due to extreme deterioration of the interior, tours of the inside have been very limited.  But we asked about seeing the inside and the guide graciously offered to unlock the door and let us walk through.  It was amazing to walk through the car and imagine the history that unfolded there.  The guide told us Roosevelt’s casket was placed on the dining room table and we could visualize presidents waving from the platform. The inside smelled very old and much restoration still needs to be done to preserve this piece of history.  According to the museum’s brochure they are waiting for funding.

We ended our last day in Miami by having dinner at Casavana, an excellent Cuban restaurant.

From Bill Baggs State Park to Biscayne National Park to touring Miami Beach to historic Gold Coast Railroad Museum, we had a great time in Miami!!

Next stop: Fort Lauderdale

We reluctantly said farewell to our alligator friends at Big Cypress National Preserve and headed towards Miami.  Fortunately we moved the day before smoke from wildfires blanketed the Big Cypress National Preserve.  We encountered some road construction and then arrived at our destination for the next fifteen days, Larry and Penny Thompson Memorial Park located in South Miami Heights.  This is a large, popular county park located about twenty miles south of downtown Miami.  It is so popular that reservations are very hard to get, as are many parks in southern Florida in the winter.

Our campground, as is all of Miami, is located in a culturally diverse community.  One quickly feels like the minority in this area of south Florida.  Miami has changed quite a bit since it was once called “The Magic City” and was viewed as a winter playground for the rich and famous.  Between 1960 and 2000 the Miami metro area grew by 141%, with a large number being people from Cuba as well as Puerto Rico and many foreign countries.

On Wednesday we drove over to Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park.  We enjoyed the beautiful views located in the park.  Juan Ponce de Leon called the area Cape of Florida when he landed here on his first Spanish expedition to Florida in 1513.  The park is home to a lighthouse built in 1825 and reconstructed in 1846.  It is the oldest standing structure in Miami-Dade County.  Near the lighthouse is a reconstructed lighthouse keeper’s house, Bill and I enjoyed the nice water views from the rocking chairs on the front porch.

From the Biscayne Bay side of the park, we had views of the remains of what was once Stiltsville, a group of wood shacks built on stilts.  It is believed the first shack was built in 1933 toward the end of Prohibition by Crawfish Eddie Walker.  He built the shack for gambling which was legal a mile offshore.  A few years later two of Eddie’s friends built shacks on stilts and between shipwrecks and channel dredging, more people built stilt shacks.  Newspapers began calling the area “the shacks” or the “Shack Colony” and in the 1940’s and 1950’s it was a popular place for lawyers, bankers and politicians to drink and relax, including Florida Governor LeRoy Collins.  Various social clubs were built on stilts shacks and when rumors of gambling persisted, the clubs were raided in 1949 but no evidence of gambling was ever found.  Crawfish Eddie’s shack was destroyed by Hurricane King in 1950. Most of the remainder structures were damaged by Hurricane Donna in 1960.  In 1965 the state required shack owners to pay $100 annually to lease their “campsites”.  No new construction was permitted, no commercial leases, and no shacks more than 50% damaged could be rebuilt.  In 1980 the area fell within the boundary of Biscayne National Park.  The leases were still honored. At the beginning of 1992 there were fourteen shacks but after Hurricane Andrew struck that same year, only seven remained.  The Stiltsville Trust was formed in 2003 to save the remaining structures with caretakers doing periodic maintenance and park personnel installing hurricane strapping to try to prevent damage from major storms, all in an effort to save the historic structures.  Over the years Stiltsville has been the setting for movies, TV shows and books.

We enjoyed a nice picnic lunch where we were visited by some new friends.  We then went down to the beach and enjoyed dipping our toes in the Atlantic Ocean.  We enjoyed the views of Miami during the drive over and back.

Another day we drove to Biscayne National Park.  This park is located thirty-five miles south of Miami International Airport, twenty-one miles east of the Everglades, and is the northernmost part of the Florida Keys.  First established as a monument in 1968 and later as a national park in 1980, it is made up of 181,500 acres, with only 5% of the park land.  The other 95% of the park is submerged or made up of small islands only accessible by boat.  It is a paradise of crystal clear aquamarine waters and lush seabeds.  It is composed of the longest stretch of mangrove forest on Florida’s east coast and part of the world’s third longest coral reef tract.  We drove to the land part of the park at Convoy Point and visited the Dante Farrell Visitors Center where we saw an excellent film on the park’s ecosystems.  We walked along the boardwalk where we saw a stingray, barracuda, schools of fish and views of a distant Miami.

In the next blog we will continue our explorations of Miami.