The Elephant in the Room

Today started with a hiss and a roar with me again being stung by the time change trick. With the clock beside the  bed reading 0800hrs I woke everyone up and leaped from the bed  to the bathroom in a mad dash that we had slept in only to be told on my return from the shower that our dodgy highway side motel had not changed the clocks and it was only 0700hrs. Nothing lost though as by the time we had organised the washing,  dressed, eaten and packed the car we needed the extra 30mins, well Vickie did anyway.

Our first port of call was the Natchez visitors centre who were able to give us advise and sell us tickets to couple of historic Mansions which Natchez was known for. Having escaped being burned like many other cities during the civil war, Natchez is home to some of the largest Mansions in America. We selected a couple of Historical Mansions the first being Roselie. A large home near the water front of the river which was used as a Union meeting place during the civil war. The Tour showed us through the first and second stories of the house which was set up for tourist guests and featured many original furniture pieces. It wasn't as extreme as I was expecting for a Mansion but impressive anyway. The most interesting of his tour was meeting a woman who said she had lived in New Zealand for a while, when asked where she lived she reported Palmerston North, and much to our shock and disbelief said she 'loved it'.

The next tour was Longwood just out of town on a 90 acre section and home to the largest octagonal house in America. It was  designed as a mid-nineteenth century "Oriental Villa" style, and today is a true snap shot of history. Building begun in 1860 for a wealthy cotton planter Haller Nutt and his wife Julia.  Work progressed very quickly until 1861 when the civil war begun the work men dropped their tools and headed north. With some local work, Haller was able to complete the basement level of the building. Haller died in 1864 taken ill with pneumonia leaving Julia to raise their eight children in the basement level. This sounds grim but this space alone was 10,000 square feet. The design of the house featured a six story octagonal rotunda through the centre of the house and crowning the whole is a Byzantine-Moorish dome with a 24 foot finial. It was truly stunning. Most of the exterior was complete and you can see in the photos below the internal plans were beginning to take shape. The design intention included several floors of bedrooms  all of which had external access to balconies. It would have been a master piece had it been finished. The tour guide said Julia had several times made enquires about having the house finished, however with the war continuing longer than expected and the abolishment of slavery the cotton trade was not as lucrative as it was and she could not afford it.  Longwood is maintained in its unfinished state by the Pilgrimage Garden Club as a reminder of past glories and tragedies.

At the completion of this tour we did note that both tours we had been on particularly this one failed to mention the wealth of these families was primarily gained through the use of slaves in the cotton fields (hence the title of this post). The tour guide mentioned the obvious wealth of the family and the 'servants' who served them daily with cooking, cleaning and caring for the children, which left you to assume they were paid employees. No mention on the fact that this wealth was undoubtedly accumulated through the exploitation of slaves working in the cotton fields. While we valued the historical significance of keeping the house in its current state for more reasons than the sheer cost by Vickie and I couldn't help but feel it would be so nice if the house was complete and people would have the opportunity to see it in all its glory and believe me it would be glorious.

We pushed on from here still having a long drive to Memphis. We were hoping to have lunch at Plantation Mansion on the way however the only one offering this wasn't open for lunch. The ladies at Longwood had told us about a restaurant on the interstate which we were planning to eat at. Once on the Natchez Trace Parkway road the GPS was unable to locate the exact address so we missed the place and decided to continue onto Port Gibson to get something to eat. Easier said than done after having found a place recommended in the guidebook the GPS again failed on the directions, after a near miss with a nasty chain restaurant we agreed to continue on and hold out for some home style southern food. Which is what we found in Vicksburg about another hour up the road at Goldies Trail Bar-b-que. We selected the most Southern items on the ranging from bbq chicken, ribs and double meat dishes. It was all pretty d-lish and worth the wait. The service was also good with Fraser generously tipping 25% as they asked him for a verbal tip to be added to the credit card, defo on the higher end of the scale for us tight Kiwi's foreign to the tipping system. Piling back into the Yukon we were on the road North bound for Memphis with an arrival time of 6.30pm. A little over an hour later I woke (following my afternoon nap in the car which was becoming somewhat of a daily ritual, don't judge me I'm on holiday) to the sound of Elvis Presley blasting through the speakers and figured we must be over the border into the state of  Tennessee nearing Memphis. Another several uneventful hours of driving past with it becoming dark outside and some rain showers.

We found our accommodation at the Econolodge with no hassle and shipped in, finally making our way to the 7th floor of a very poorly designed parking building. Near the carpark entrance to the hotel was a rolled out mat of grass on the concrete ground of the parking lot. After some confusion and further inspection we learnt that it was a place for guests to bring their pets to go to the toilet...gross. Only in America. The room was clean and tidy and had the basics.  It didn't take long for us to realise that the person next door had a couple of dogs that sounded like yappy little handbag dogs and were very annoying and only moment later Vickie was on the phone to reception advising that we may need to change rooms.

We were all pretty tired after the huge drive and wanted a small bite after our huge southern lunch. We walked down to Beale street where we ate at Dyers, a place which was reviewed as being in the top 5 best burger joints in America. The food wasn't amazing but it could have been that we weren't all that hungry anyway. I splashed out on a root beer float which was made with proper IBC Root Beer which is nicer than the syrup soda mix we've been having. Then it was back to the hotel and bed to recover and prepare for exploration Memphis.

Beer of the Day:
Something pretty shitty, it could have been a bud light, maybe a coors variety. Nothing to write home about obviously.

Muddy River

We were blessed with another free hour this morning as daylight savings ended this morning. This meant we were able to get our gear together and were ready to hit the road again by 9am while still having a bit of a lie in. Amy and I made a beeline through the balmy morning air to Cafe Beignet to pick up some Chicory coffee and their supposedly world famous Beignets (square French doughnuts). The cafe certainly was popular and we lost just about all of the hour we have just gained in the line. We took our pastries and made a track to the Lower 9th Ward, one of the suburbs worst hit during hurricane Katrina. 7 years on the destruction was still evident, the roads pot holed and many houses boarded up and abandoned. A few of the houses still bore the marks of the search parties who spray painted a hieroglyphic symbol to denote houses as clear. It was reasonably haunting, some of them reading messages such as K-9 dead in living or 1 dead in attic. The closer we got to the point where the levee was breached by the storm surge the more complete the destruction. Some folks had rebuilt and new houses were scattered in amongst overgrown lots and bare foundations but it was at least 6 blocks back from the river until the first original homes stood. It was a very sombre experience, and took me back to the helplessness we felt during the earthquakes back in Christchurch when you a shown you aren't in control of nature. The encroaching storm clouds cast a melancholic mood over the ward, in a strange way it seemed fitting for a city that will always bear the scars of the hurricane.

One of the Levee's that breached in 2005, since repaired

As the clouds rolled in we began to make our way across the longest continuous bridge over water in the world out of New Orleans to continue the adventure. At 38km long the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway certainly was lengthy, cutting a direct path from New Orleans to Mandeville on the opposite shore. When we made it again to dry land we need to make a bathroom stop. We pulled into a cluster of shops to find a suitable facility and found we had parked with a river separating us from the shops with the bridge crossing locked. Unleashing our inner ninjas we nimbly shimmied along the edge of the walkway to the other side where we found a little Italian Cafe. Only really intending to use the bathroom and maybe buy a coffee if forced, I was well under dressed in shorts and a beater for the very tidy establishment. After some assurance from the waiter that shorts were fine (he didn't mention my lack of sleeves) we were fed some unexpectedly good food and about 15 cups of decent coffee.

Soon enough it was time to hit the road again, this time Highway 61, a nice rolling road running roughly along the side of the Mississippi. A couple of uneventful but enjoyable hours later we arrived at our overnight stop of Natchez. Being one of the oldest settlements on the Mississippi, Natchez has been run by the French, English, Spanish, Confederate and American governments during its existence. It is a fairly sleepy town but due it once having the highest concentration of Millionaires in the entire country it has an abundance of huge mansions dating back to the cotton picking days. We checked in and asked the receptionist if he had any suggestions for a place to eat. His recommendation of Ruby Tuesdays was ignored as we were looking for something a bit more local so we headed downtown. Upon arrival riverside we were greeted with a spectacular view of the Mississippi from the bluffs that the town is perched upon.

The river boat in shot is a casino, Mississippi state law dictates that all casinos must be floating. As we wandered down the road to check out the riverboat it soon became apparent why the town was so deserted. With a courtesy vehicle to ferry even the most obese slot-junkies 25 metres from their cars to the entrance, the casino was humming. It is disappointing to see so many people literally throwing their money away while the town looked to be struggling to keep it's head above water. Next stop was a riverside bar with a beer on my mind. Any thoughts of sticking around were lost in the thick haze of cigarette smoke we were greeted by. The 5, heavy smoking, patrons obviously hadn't had much contact with out-of-towners as even a midget was staring like we had 2 heads. Down the street we found a nice enough looking restaurant, the Magnolia Grill, which was thankfully non-smoking where we setted in for a meal. We all took the opportunity to get a salad while we could before getting any deeper into fried chicken country. All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening spent on the beautiful banks of the Muddy River.

Beer of the Day:
Southern Pecan - The nutty pecans came through strongly in the nose but were overwhelmed slightly by the sweet caramel flavours. Nice full body which was a pleasant change from the watery rubbish I've been having lately. 

The Big Easy

We rose a little later than we would normally due to the festivities of the night before,  some of us a little slower than others.  After a breakfast of waffles we hit the streets of New Orleans.  The major attractions of the Big Easy are centred around the French Quarter, so that's where we headed.

We headed down Royal Street, all the shops along here were either antique shops full of chandeliers or jewellery shops so Vickie really enjoyed the window shopping.  The next stop was to head to the river, here we saw some people laying down some lino and doing stretches, which I assume was in preparation to do some break dancing.  I was pretty keen to stay and watch, but Vickie had other ideas, she had spotted people gathering for a wedding so that's what we went and watched.

We thought we were just going to see the wedding party arrive before going into the church but it turned out they were actually having the ceremony in the park.  I couldn't think of anything worse, not only was it about 30 degrees there was also about 100 strangers watching, not to mention a marching band going past.  They seemed to be enjoying it though so I guess that's the main thing.  After Vickie had her fill, we thought it was time to have a coffee.

New Orleans is known for it's chicory coffee and the number one spot for it is Cafe du Monde, so we got in line.  After 5 minutes and the line not moving we gave up and continued down the street, based on all my previous USA coffees I'm confident we didn't miss anything.  We were getting hungry though so the quest for lunch began.

On the way to find a suitable establishment we came across a shop selling hot sauce,  there was loads of different types and you could try them all before you purchased.   Near the entrance there was one claiming to be the hottest sauce in the world and you had to be at least 18 years old, being the inquisitive person I am I gave it a go, and my god it was hot.  I would have literally only had one drop and within seconds my entire mouth was on fire, it was okay because in a couple minutes my mouth had gone numb so I couldn't feel the pain any more. I bought a couple less painful sauces with amusing names and once I had regained some feeling in my mouth we found a place to eat.

The local must eat is something called a Po Boy, which is just a jazzed up sandwich really but it would have been rude not to have one so I went for a fried shrimp version.  It was good, but I have had better sandwiches.  The place we ate at was near the French Market so we had a look around in here, before heading back to the hotel via Bourbon Street.

I expected it to be fairly quiet during the day, but I was wrong.  All the clubs and bars were as full as the night before, and in the full light of day it was not pretty.   We had a quick drink at what the guidebook said was a must do, Lafitte's Blacksmith bar.

The plan for the evening was to find a restaurant playing some jazz, our friend Goggle told me that there was a place nearby that okay food and also had some jazz playing so that's where we went.  It turned out the food wasn't that great and although there was some jazz they didn't play for very long.  Unsatisfied with the Jazz we went looking for a lounge bar that might have some. The problem was that the local university was playing football and it turns out that college football is a pretty big deal, so even where jazz was advertised it wasn't playing.

After a martini and some college football action it was back to the hotel and bed in preparation for our drive up the Mississippi tomorrow.

Beer of the Day:
Crescent City Brewing Wiess Beer - Pint Draft - Really light in all areas, underwhelming example of hefeweizen and a bit musty on the finish.

Bourbon faced on sh*t street

We woke up pretty early in our Panama City Beach motel so that we could get on the road. We took the advice of the waiter from the night before and turned onto the 30A Highway which ran along the Gulf of Mexico for a short while to find a place for breakfast. We came across a settlement that looked pretty wealthy with big fancy houses. We found a place for breakfast which looks liked the local bar at night, but at least they served eggs for breakfast which we hadn't had much on this trip. Unfortunately the food wasn't as good as we had hoped, and Sam's bread that was served with breakfast was mouldy. He did complain, but one of the only times that we haven't found the service up to scratch, the waitress didn't really do much to rectify the mouldy bread situation, she didn't even offer to get him some more.

So after the rather grim breakfast, and a little walk along the white sandy beach, we carried on. After consulting the guidebooks we were informed that the town that we had passed through was purpose built and was the set for the movie, The Truman Show. It was from looking at the maps that we realised that we would be in four states that day, Florida, where we had stayed, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisana, our destination. We knew that we would be reentering Mississippi when we followed the Mississippi river up to Memphis, so we decided we needed to stop in Alabama for lunch. We got off the highway into a small town called Grand Bay just before the Mississippi state border, and came across a place called Nana's Country Kitchen. It looked very small and authentic from the road, sort of like a tea rooms, and there were tables outside. We had a surprise when we opened the door, because there was just a counter and kitchen, no tables and upon asking, we were informed, no bathrooms. It had looked larger from the outside. We placed our orders which consisted largely of fried chicken, which is the speciality of the south, and walked to Walgreens where we were told we could find public toilets. I don't think the toilets were public as such, probably for Walgreens customers, but as we'd been directed there we assumed that they were probably used to non-customers walking in to use the restrooms.

We returned to Nana's to wait for our lunch, and we read the story of the start of the business, how the two lady owners wanted to bring healthy, hearty, southern country cooking to the area. It amazed us that food like fried chicken tenders, fried chicken burgers and fries could be considered healthy options for a family, but this is how it is in the south. We ate our food and got back on the road, we were all excited about getting into New Orleans. We made good time on the trip to New Orleans, but unfortunately we encountered traffic in the centre of the city where we were staying so travelled about 2 miles in 45 minutes.

After checking into the hotel, I was looking at the window at the view and we were reminded to pull our curtains when getting naked, as a woman across the road in another hotel was obviously getting ready to go out, preparing her hair and make up butt-naked in full view of the open curtains.

Bourbon street is the famous party street in New Orleans and we were keen to check it out, so we got dressed for dancing and headed that way, which was only about 5 minutes from our accommodation. Along the route of the entire trip Fraser has always been keen to see if there are any restaurants where the guy from the American show, Man vs Food has been, but New Orleans is the only place so far that we have actually been to one of the restaurants where the guy went, apparently he ate 150 oysters. Normally a restaurant would give you bread to start on the table, this place gave us small red skinned potatoes. At first we thought that it was pretty weird, but if you ask any of us at the end of this trip what the most memorable foods were, these potatoes would rank pretty high. They were new potatoes, but lightly spicy and salted, absolutely delicious!

All of our dinners were lovely, but Fraser's is most note worthy, as he had ordered the half platter of seafood. The pile of food that came out was astonishingly large, and all one colour, as even though there was four different types of seafood on the plate, they had all been battered and deep fried. Needless to say that Fraser could not eat it all and he asked it to be packed up to take away and potentially give away to a homeless person, even though we hadn't actually seen any in our short few hours in New Orleans.

So with dinner done we excitedly walked the few more blocks (enroute Fraser ditched his leftovers, as we didn't come across any homeless people) to Bourbon Street and the scene that greeted us was madness, a complete assault of the senses. Firstly we could hear music from the clubs competing with each other, some live music and some djs. The street is closed off to traffic, so the multitudes of people are just walking down the street, and the big neon lights on the front of every club are flashing and blinking. We walked up the street a bit, taking it all in, before finding a place for a drink. On this short walk, Fraser was sleezed over by one woman trying to get him to go into the nearest bar, we saw strippers standing in the doorways of the strip bars 'enticing' people in and tried to avoid the drunk and debausorous people around us.

We chose a bar with a band playing live music and bought some drinks, red bull and vodkas, and the drinks were so strong, we realised that they had split one can of red bull between three glasses and the rest was topped up with ice and vodka. The band playing was great, but we weren't quite ready to hit the dancefloor. We moved on to walk further down the street and some beads were thrown down to us by a girl on the balcony above, I thought this was great, just wave to them and they threw them down. It wasn't until we continued walking down that we realised women on the street were lifting their shirts to flash their boobs and the men on the balconies would throw down strings of beads to them. Amy and I were quite pleased that we managed to get some beads without having to show our boobs. The strings of beads littered the street, some broken, but so many women walking down the street had loads around their necks. It seems this practice originates from the Mardi Gras culture and has grown into being infamously accepted on this street, you can even buy merchandise that says 'Boobs for Beads'.

It's the boob flashing and the huge number of titty bars on this street that give it the reputation of being a meat market. We spent a bit of time on the balcony of one bar watching the interesting scenes below, and then after a few more places where we danced to all sorts of music, we rolled into our hotel room at about 1am. Bourbon Street was definitely an interesting experience, but we all agreed we couldn't have done it again the following night.

Yukon Time Machine

Suprise Suprise I was first up this morning. Coffee and a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon was in order to prepare us for the long day of driving ahead. It was a novelty having a kitchen that was fully equiped for cooking including a dishwasher. We were out the door by 10am and went for a perv at the beach. It was a lovely morning to dip our toes in the freezing water of the Gulf of Mexico. Though I need to note that while the beach was quite nice with white sand, there was also a lot of gross seaweed that came in with the water line. It gets caught between your toes and if you are Vickie and I, it's a deal breaker.

Once in the car we headed North West on State highway 19 missing out Tampa itself choosing what was meant to be the more scenic route along the Gulf. However for the first few hours of the trip the highway was some distance from the ocean making it a rather boring ride with little scenery. I did what I do best in times of boredom and took a nap. We stopped for lunch at Weeki Wachee where we shopped for a few goodies at Winn Dixie and borrowed their facilities (an activity that was becoming a regular event, I have used more public toilets in the last month then I have in the past year). We ate salad and boneless chicken wing fresh buns in the car followed by yummy sweet strawberries before hitting the road again. It would have been nice to have a wee break from the car but there wasn't much to see in Weeki Wachee and we still had a lot of driving to do today.

We stopped again in Perry after State highway 19 had turned into state highway 98. We just chose a service station in Perry for ice creams and drink refreshments. I went for a Snickers brownie icecream which was vanilla icecream with caramel through it between to brownie like square biscuits which had nuts in them. Very tasty would totally recommend (thought I would add this because not much happened today and this icecream is worth noting for my future reference). Also while in the Servo we saw a distressed 20 something guy who was asking Fraser for help to withdraw $9 from the atm machine. He explained he had $19 in his account and couldn't understand why it wasn't working. He looked gutted when the attendant explained it was a minimum of $20. After leaving I wished I had just given him $10 but then we agreed it was probably to buy weed anyway.

We continued along State highway 98 stopping at Alligator Harbour for some fresh air and a stretch. It was a lovely view across an oyster farm to some beach side homes perched on stilts. We checked out the hurricane marker which was a pole about 9m high out of the ground and had coloured lines indicating the water level during a hurricane. There was a mark about two thirds of the way up that marked Hurricane David in 2005.

We continued in the same direction the road now following the coast and having a great view. This stretch of road was described as "the 'Forgotten Coast', where laid back fishing villages and sugar-white beaches kiss the Gulf of Mexico". There were several holiday homes lining the water from, unfortunately I wasn't able to get a very good photo from the car but all of them new and old were high set on stilts to prevent flooding from the seasonal high tides and hurricanes. We next stopped in a little village settlement called Apalachicola (try pronouncing it). It had a great ocean front dock where we got some photos of a pelican and fish were jumping out of the water along the dock.

Our watches told us was 6.45pm so we decided to grab a bite here before continuing onto Panama City. We found a restaurant called Ira's at Gibson which had old people sitting outside (something Kedar said was a sure sign of good grub "Old people don waste no money on rubbish") and was advertising seafood. It also appealed as an old Southern Mansion. We were seated and noted there were very few people in the dinning room.We had expected the place to be more popular considering the waiter informed us the annual Seafood festival was starting tomorrow and they expected some 30,000 people in be attending. We all ordered seafood and had a really yummy meal with Sam winning the dinner choice with a spicy pan seared swordfish. As we were eating the dinning room became more and more full with people.

With Sam behind the wheel we hit the road again. The GPS informing us that we would be arriving at our accommodation in Panama City Beach at 8.39pm. we continued along State highway 98 passing through some small seaside communities. As we were arriving into Panama City the time on the centre console was reading 8.39pm yet the distance on the GPS continued to read that we had more than 55 miles left to drive. It was then that it occurred to us that without knowing we may have passed through a time change, our consultant Google confirmed our suspicions and despite still being in the state of Florida we had gained an hour.  This revelation also explained why the restaurant was so quiet as we were in fact dining at 5.45pm. We had a little chuckle but were pleased to have unexpectedly scored an extra hour on a long day of driving.

Arriving at our accommodation the Sugar Sands in Panama City Beach we had high expectations. We had scored a 50% discount for a late booking and it was $84 for the night for what was listed as a two bedroom unit with full kitchen. We thought we were in for much the same as we had last night. We were wrong. It was beach front, it had a stove if that constitutes a full kitchen. The beds were separated by a bathroom but no doors. The room was small but clean and considering we would be there no more than 12 hours it was good enough. I would have been very disappointed to have paid the full price. We didn't muck around before getting into bed as tomorrow is another long day of driving. Fingers crossed there are no bed bugs.

Beer of the Day:
Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA - Bottle - Orange, grapefruit with nice sweet malt nose. Delicious and smooth with plenty of well balanced flavour. Far too easy to drink giving its 9% ethanol content.

Gator Fest

Happy Halloween Everyone.

Feeling a bit scratchy after the second night on the couch in Maimi we got ready to hit the road again. The decision was made to forego the drive down to the Keys and continue as planned through the Everglades to see some 'Gators. Chances are we would be back in Miami or the Caribean at some stage to do the drive. After a quick pit stop for fuel and some very strong Cuban coffee we entered the Everglades National Park. Highway 41 was slow going due to roadworks but soon enough we pulled into Shark Valley Visitors Centre to find out the best way to get up close with some wildlife. Any questions we answered immediately by the 2m alligator lying on the side of the road getting some sun.

We were amazed by the variety of critters we saw in the short walk form the visitors centre, gators, snakes, huge Herons and crickets all unperturbed by their human observers. It was a beautiful day to wander around such a pristine environment. We set out in search of an authentic Glades airboat experience. Abritrarilly we settled on "Tippy's Airboats" despite the slightly concerning name for a boat that travels through gator and python infested swamp. We certianly we not interested in any potential excersions into the drink. Our very friendly captain greet us and asked if it was our first time on an airboat and informed us it was his too. He the proceded to very competently guide us through the Cypress trees and jumping gators, although there was a noticable thump when he ran one over. The Everglades really is a place that deserves protecting as it is a truely unique environment. We all had a brilliant time during the ultra smooth ride, it is certainly the best way to explore the national park.

The ride over it was back on the road again for the reasonably long haul through to Tampa. We had accommodation booked in the seaside settlement of Treasure Island, part of St Pietersburg just outside Tampa City. At $87 a night for a two bedroom studio right on the beach we weren't expecting big things. The drive to Tampa was fairly uneventful save for numerous gator sightings up and down the sides of the highway. As we approached Tampa Bay we hit the Skyway bridge, an spectacular suspension bridge centred on an 11 mile causeway across the mouth of the bay.



Arriving in Treasure Island was remincent of Miami's houses on the harbour, only scaled back a few notches. The place had the feel of an off season beaside resort town, which is probably what it was. We pulled to the nearly empty car park of the Crystal Palms, our bed for the night and checked in. We were pleasantly surprised to find a huge studio room with ensuites, full kitchen and lounge. We felt a bit bad only paying $87 for the night.

This was quickly forgotten as we headed out to the Middle Ground, a seafood resaurant, for dinner. The food and service was top notch and luckily enough for us all wine was half price on Wednesdays. Next port of call was Mickey T's bar for a beer and some very low key Halloween celebrations. It was relieving to see that most of the locals weren't bothered enough to dress up so we didn't stick out any more than usual. A couple of good Tampa beers and some entertaining live Hendrix later it was time to call it a night. It's a long leg through to Panama City tomorrow.

Beer of the Day:
Cigar City Jai Alai IPA  7.5% abv - Draft Plastic Cup - Strong pineapple/passionfruit nose. Nice caramel malts to balance with a bitter finish. Just like my credit card bill; Outstanding.

Say Hello to my Little Friend

The nights sleep wasn't the most comfortable but it was certainly the cheapest to date.   After a breakfast of cereal, peanut butter and Sam going to the gym to throw some tin about we decided the day should be spent looking at fancy houses in the harbour and then sitting on the beach.

The harbour tour left from the port in the city so we piled into the Yukon and off we went.  On the way there we encountered the street flooding caused by the "ice caps" again, however I think it was more to do with the nearby hurricane Sandy. It doesn't bode well for this place though when the ice caps eventually disappear.

The tour was for 90 minutes and went around the entire harbour looking at all the man made islands with all their massive houses.

The  houses were amazing, the first island we came across was Fisher Island.  It was built, just like most of the islands in the harbour, by Carl Fisher this earned him about $100m which was a lot of money back in the 1920's.  Unfortunately he invested all his money in the stock market so when it crashed in 1929 he lost every penny.  Some of the houses we saw once belonged to Madonna, Sly Stallone, P Diddy (I think this was the biggest one) and the house used in Scarface.

The houses all looked great (and super expensive) with pools etc out front, but you could never use them for what they are intended as you have absolutely zero privacy. After the boat tour we had some lunch at the marina, we also had to pay a visit to Victoria Secret where Amy got some new Bikini bottoms so that we could hit the beach.

The beach was white sand and the water was almost as warm as a bath, the other good thing was that it was pretty much devoid of people as the only way you could get to it was via the apartment complexes.  We had bought some cigars in Savannah but had not had a chance to smoke them, we were determined to do it today though, so when we got back to the apartment we sparked them up.

Tonight we were going to have the second home cooked meal of the trip so supermarket trip was needed, and Sam cooked a rather tasty seafood risotto.  After a small debate of whether we should stay in Miami for another night or travel on it was decided to continue on with our journey, so tomorrow is the everglades and up to Tampa.

Cigar of the Day - Drew Estate Java - Rich chocolate and coffee smells before lighting. Nice sweet taste when inserted in mouth. Flavours become more smokey when open flame applied to end, some chocolate aroma remained. Emitted smoke for the next 45 minutes, some of which ended up in my lungs causing mild coughing.