Getting Close...
Dec. 18th, 2024 07:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ateolfAfter...Robert Is Here we went on down further south and finished our last full day at the Everglades again. This time we went all the day down to the very tip of the Florida mainland to Flamingo. There's a little harbor and marina and you're supposed to be able to see manatees there. And we saw manatees! There were three hanging out by the boats. One we saw and were like, hm, no that's too still that's gotta be a rock...but it turned out to be a manatee! They don't move a lot! It was funny 'cuz when we first got there I saw a fish jump up for a second and thought it might be a manatee flipping its flippers around and swimming...when I realized how they actually behave and JUST how slow they are it's pretty comical I thought that. The manatees weren't together but we saw them at different points. There was also a crocodile floating out there for a while. The one manatee was super-super duper still and just kinda floated, coming up every several minutes to breathe and you'd see its nose and then it'd dip back down. One was hanging out in the middle of the harbor but it came in closer. It went under this boat. And the boat's one that has a gap in the middle underneath it and at a point I could see it floating under the boat. Also the boat moved around a couple times and maybe one would think the wind had blown it about but I'm pretty sure it was the manatee swimming underneath it and bumping it a little bit. Then there was one over on the far end of the dock slurping up on some barnacles. Someone commented that it was eating them, but I think they only eat that "manatee grass" and Mary Beth thought maybe it was drinking from them because mollusks act as filters (and manatees, though they swim in the ocean, drink only freshwater...which is why they like hanging around marinas, because of people washing their boats etc. with the freshwater runoff). Anyway, it was cool and we looked at the manatees for a long time. At a point we went back over to the visitor center that was kind of next to the marina to look out at the more open ocean and maybe see the sunset. There's also a pipe down there where the water runs off from the visitor center that the manatees reportedly like to be at. We saw one but only for a half second as it kept going underwater. Anyway, pretty cool and relaxing time! And it gave us the chance to just drive through the Everglades and see it again. Coming back into town we once again were in Wynwood but this time for a restaurant that was really good. It's called Bakan and it specializes in authentic Mexican food. It is a bit bougified and all fine dining but the food was really good. And thanks to Mary Beth we got real fucking adventurous. We ate ant eggs! Yeah, I wouldn't have made that jump myself without following her lead. And get this...they were really fucking delicious. I'm not going to think about that too much but yeah. Also, she had a mezcal pairing and with it came a few worms (outside the drink, not like they came from floating in the bottle or anything). It was with some flavored salt and I think slices of some citrus (lime probably? but I don't quite remember as I wasn't drinking it). So since she had a few of the worms, I ate one of them too. They weren't wriggly squishy worms but small and seemed like maybe they had something of a shell-like exterior but it wasn't actually a shell. I dunno, describing this poorly but they don't look like what you'd immediately imagine hearing the word "worm." I picked up way too much of the salt with it so I really mostly tasted salt (totally my bad) but I can say I did that too. Then back to the hotel to pack for our return home and figure out how the fuck to tetris all our shit and get it all back! (Not really from picking up very much stuff there, just from having it so tightly packed to begin with.)
Monday:
Now for the end! Monday, the day we went back. We had a very late flight so we were still pretty much able to treat it like a regular day. First thing was checking out and I pulled the car back around to the front so we could load it and then take it right back to the garage for just a little bit. Figured this was the best way to proceed as we wanted to have breakfast at this place nearby and though the garage was pretty near the hotel around the corner, it would've been a pain to schlep all our luggage. So we parked again and went back to Puerto Sagua (I missed talking about it the first time we went so more on that later!). Our last meal in Miami Beach. We went back because it had the best thing I'd eaten the whole trip (tongue stew) and so went back. I'd wanted to try something else to expand my horizons but wouldn't have been able to get it again anyway as it was a daily special. So I tried the beef stew which was good (but not nearly as good as the tongue...no diss on the beef stew, just the tongue was so sublime...wasn't expecting it to be as good, but it was nice to try it again). Oh yeah, and should mention that Puerto Sagua is a Cuban place (we had a lot of Cuban if I didn't say so earlier and you'll hear more about it when I fill in my terrible gaps!). We were going to a museum next but it wouldn't open for a little while so we spent some time on the sidewalk in the park on the opposite side of Ocean Drive across from our hotel just people watching and talking and being in that sun but trying to be in it not TOO MUCH. Then we went across to the mainland to the Museum of Sex (two sex-related museums in one trip!). It was pretty good. First it was kind of a history museum about censorship and toys and such. Then there was an exhibit upstairs by this one artist Hajime Sorayama who mostly does sexual paintings of androids and humans mixing it up. Then the last exhibit (it all runs in sequence and you have to go through the exhibits in series) was more of an interactive extravaganza thing set up like an old school carnival. They had lots of games and stuff. They had a weird system where you had to scan your qr code on your phone to play the games. The phones didn't have anything to do with it when you played, it was just like to start the game but didn't make a lot of sense. Anyway, first I did this one where it takes a picture of your face and transplants it on a short loop of a gay porn. Then we competed together in this one where you're in bathroom stalls with a bunch of holes in the walls and it's kinda like whack-a-mole but you tug as much as you can instead of whack. I totally won with...not making this up...a score of 60 to 9. We did another one where we kissed and held onto a "biometric" thing and stayed that way for an awkward amount of time and then the wheel of fortune spun and told us to or rated us as "all the way." We also renewed our vows in a generic, robotic booth. Oh, I won a condom at the glory hole game. And we got cheap plastic rings in the wedding vow one (as well as some kind of certificate printout). Mary Beth did a Ru Paul fortune telling machine but I think it was out of the fortunes and didn't dispense anything. Well, we did that! And we had a little bit of time to kill so we tried one more record store: Technique Records. It's hipper and has a specialization more in like electronic and dance stuff. The two I went to are really the only ones that seemed like they'd have cds at all. They had some cds and I went through them (there were a lot more in another section but she said they weren't organized at all and I wouldn't have had the time to go through any of them...and from a glance it's obvious they try to put the better or more desirable stuff out in the organized section). I picked up a few: A Place to Bury Strangers: Pinned, Superpitcher: Today, Philip Glass: Glassworks, Tim Hecker: Love Streams, Forest Swords: Compassion, Miles Davis: Porgy and Bess, and Software: Chip-Meditation. Then off to the airport! I dropped Mary Beth off by the gate so we wouldn't have to haul all our luggage from the rental car area (I forgot to mention the whole ordeal of picking up the rental car when we arrived, so more about that soon!). Then the key wouldn't turn in the ignition when I tried to start it. I thought the steering wheel maybe got locked but I wasn't able to fix it and was starting to freak out and trying all these things. Maybe the doors, the trunk weren't shut right? Then when getting out to recheck the trunk, I pulled out my keychain and remembered that I was carrying two identical key fobs (the rental and my own car's fobs were identical...more on this soon as well, of course!). So I realized I was just being an absolute idiot and trying to start it with the wrong key! So I was able to get it done and drive back to the rental car area and drop it off. And then make it back over to the entrance where Mary Beth was waiting for me. Okay, breaking this up again...but almost there. At least until I have to start filling in the gaps.
Monday:
Now for the end! Monday, the day we went back. We had a very late flight so we were still pretty much able to treat it like a regular day. First thing was checking out and I pulled the car back around to the front so we could load it and then take it right back to the garage for just a little bit. Figured this was the best way to proceed as we wanted to have breakfast at this place nearby and though the garage was pretty near the hotel around the corner, it would've been a pain to schlep all our luggage. So we parked again and went back to Puerto Sagua (I missed talking about it the first time we went so more on that later!). Our last meal in Miami Beach. We went back because it had the best thing I'd eaten the whole trip (tongue stew) and so went back. I'd wanted to try something else to expand my horizons but wouldn't have been able to get it again anyway as it was a daily special. So I tried the beef stew which was good (but not nearly as good as the tongue...no diss on the beef stew, just the tongue was so sublime...wasn't expecting it to be as good, but it was nice to try it again). Oh yeah, and should mention that Puerto Sagua is a Cuban place (we had a lot of Cuban if I didn't say so earlier and you'll hear more about it when I fill in my terrible gaps!). We were going to a museum next but it wouldn't open for a little while so we spent some time on the sidewalk in the park on the opposite side of Ocean Drive across from our hotel just people watching and talking and being in that sun but trying to be in it not TOO MUCH. Then we went across to the mainland to the Museum of Sex (two sex-related museums in one trip!). It was pretty good. First it was kind of a history museum about censorship and toys and such. Then there was an exhibit upstairs by this one artist Hajime Sorayama who mostly does sexual paintings of androids and humans mixing it up. Then the last exhibit (it all runs in sequence and you have to go through the exhibits in series) was more of an interactive extravaganza thing set up like an old school carnival. They had lots of games and stuff. They had a weird system where you had to scan your qr code on your phone to play the games. The phones didn't have anything to do with it when you played, it was just like to start the game but didn't make a lot of sense. Anyway, first I did this one where it takes a picture of your face and transplants it on a short loop of a gay porn. Then we competed together in this one where you're in bathroom stalls with a bunch of holes in the walls and it's kinda like whack-a-mole but you tug as much as you can instead of whack. I totally won with...not making this up...a score of 60 to 9. We did another one where we kissed and held onto a "biometric" thing and stayed that way for an awkward amount of time and then the wheel of fortune spun and told us to or rated us as "all the way." We also renewed our vows in a generic, robotic booth. Oh, I won a condom at the glory hole game. And we got cheap plastic rings in the wedding vow one (as well as some kind of certificate printout). Mary Beth did a Ru Paul fortune telling machine but I think it was out of the fortunes and didn't dispense anything. Well, we did that! And we had a little bit of time to kill so we tried one more record store: Technique Records. It's hipper and has a specialization more in like electronic and dance stuff. The two I went to are really the only ones that seemed like they'd have cds at all. They had some cds and I went through them (there were a lot more in another section but she said they weren't organized at all and I wouldn't have had the time to go through any of them...and from a glance it's obvious they try to put the better or more desirable stuff out in the organized section). I picked up a few: A Place to Bury Strangers: Pinned, Superpitcher: Today, Philip Glass: Glassworks, Tim Hecker: Love Streams, Forest Swords: Compassion, Miles Davis: Porgy and Bess, and Software: Chip-Meditation. Then off to the airport! I dropped Mary Beth off by the gate so we wouldn't have to haul all our luggage from the rental car area (I forgot to mention the whole ordeal of picking up the rental car when we arrived, so more about that soon!). Then the key wouldn't turn in the ignition when I tried to start it. I thought the steering wheel maybe got locked but I wasn't able to fix it and was starting to freak out and trying all these things. Maybe the doors, the trunk weren't shut right? Then when getting out to recheck the trunk, I pulled out my keychain and remembered that I was carrying two identical key fobs (the rental and my own car's fobs were identical...more on this soon as well, of course!). So I realized I was just being an absolute idiot and trying to start it with the wrong key! So I was able to get it done and drive back to the rental car area and drop it off. And then make it back over to the entrance where Mary Beth was waiting for me. Okay, breaking this up again...but almost there. At least until I have to start filling in the gaps.
