We were in Miami a few years ago for a Photoshop convention… well, I was in for a Photoshop convention. Brandy was there because the hotel was already paid for and she wanted to go to the beach.

Since I was busy the whole time we were there we didn’t have much time to get out and do anything interesting, but we did plan one little trip out to Key Largo or someplace to take a little SCUBA diving trip. We are both certified divers (or we were, I’m not sure how long these things last when you don’t do anything with it for 9 years). But the only diving either of us had done was for our certification tests in Balmorhea State Park in Balmorhea, TX featuring 3 different species of aquatic life.

Halfway there I called to double check our reservation and was told that it was canceled because not enough people were going. So we did what anyone would do.
We followed the Monkey Jungle signs.

Monkey Jungle: “Where Humans are Caged and Monkeys Run Wild!” is an experience to be had. Despite the tagline, the monkeys are actually enclosed in a much larger cage. Presumably to prevent them from being run over by cars or from giving people Ebola.

After signing over the lease to your car and purchasing a box of raisins you enter the path and, true to the motto you are surrounded side-and-top by cages and there are monkeys climbing everywhere. Hanging from the ceiling cages are tiny chains holding little cat dishes in which you place a raisin… then a monkey pulls the chain up hand-over-hand, takes the treat, and is bitten by a larger monkey and forced to forfeit the prize.

Here’s a little bit of advice: Do not stand directly beneath one of these monkey fights. They have very few tools with which to express their distaste and they use what they have to great effect.

There are also monkey shows where a monkey wrangler gathers all of his monkey minions to him from all around the park like some sort of primate Cinderella and throws fruit in a little pool so we can see them swim.

Afterwards we hit the strawberry farm that was on the way out of town and headed back to Miami Beach.

Not feeling particularly creative on this trip I decided to head back that way… I figured a Monkey Jungle (Where Humans are Caged and Monkeys Run Wild!) souvenir would have to be cooler than some beach trinket for Zane and we haven’t been able to locate this strawberry farm online to order more of their jam.

I arrived at Monkey Jungle (Where Humans are Caged and Monkeys Run Wild) and found a little stuffed monkey with a ‘Monkey Jungle’ t-shirt.
The t-shirt did not have the tag-line on it, but it was a very small t-shirt, so I let it slide.

I asked where the restroom was and the cashier told me it was on the other side of the gate and would I like to speak to a loan officer, but since I was making a purchase she allowed me to use the employee bathroom.
As I was using the restroom I glanced out the window to find two monkeys watching me. At first that made me very uncomfortable, but then I decided that people must watch them pee all day, so I guess turnabout is fair play.

Following the Monkey Jungle: Where Humans are Caged and Monkeys Run Wild! I proceeded to the strawberry patch where I bought some jam, some jelly, some strawberries, a strawberry milkshake, a strawberry cupcake, and a hot dog.

The day was over surprisingly early… before noon. Then again I left my hotel room at 5:30 in the morning, so I guess you could call it a full day. I stayed in the room the rest of the day reading my books and waiting to hear word on when the pictures will be taken.

You had better hope it’s soon, because I obviously have no problem writing very lengthy blogs about very mundane events when I’m bored. I haven’t really done anything else other than eat pizza tonight, but it was Dominos, and they do have that new recipe… just… hope…

(posted on automatic timer at noon on 2/6/2010. written on 2/1/2010)

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(posted on an automatic timer. written 2/1/2010)

“If I owned both Miami and Hell, I’d get rid of Miami and live in Hell.”
-soldier of the Spanish-American war writing home. 1898

It’s raining in Miami. The upside of this is that our Super Bowl contacts didn’t even try to keep me around for twelve hours in order to determine the best overnight storage spot for my trailer on the stadium grounds. That’s how it usually goes… we get to town two days early, we get inside the day before and we just stand around all day while more urgent jobs are being done until finally we set the risers in their final resting place and watch the sun set. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. We travel thousands of miles for what essentially amounts to a couple of hours of work.
It’s not as if we have anything better to do than wait, so we don’t mind.

This morning, though, was a speedy anomaly. The security protocols which normally would take an entire morning were completed in under 40 minutes, most of that was spent driving across town. 20 minutes later I unhooked my trailer and was dismissed for the day.

Unfortunately my schedule for setting up risers went from a definite, “Tuesday at nine,” to an uncertain, “anytime between now and Saturday.”

So I went exploring in Miami.

There’s not a lot to do in tropical beach town when it’s raining without stopping, but I’m resourceful.

My first stop was a little book store called Books & Books. I like the idea of independent book stores, especially in a place I’ve never been. Usually, though, they’re done so poorly that they’re not worth the trouble. There are so many book stores that are organized so badly that you don’t know where to start looking for something that might interest you. This was a clean place that was well organized. It was definitely smaller than a mega book store, but large enough by far to hold its stock with ample room to move around. It smelled like paper and saw dust and it even had one of those ladders. Yeah… ones of those ladders. It didn’t have an ‘Employees Only’ sign on it, either.

Now, I’m not saying all of this to make the point that I’m some sort of eclectic-indie-bookstore-snob and these big heartless corporations are putting book-lovers out business. I love Barnes & Noble and Borders and boy do I love me some Amazon. You’re looking at an Amazon ‘Prime’ member and the owner of a Kindle. The big boys have two things going for them: selection and price. You can find anything and you can find it crazy cheap.

I wouldn’t recommend getting the latest James Patterson at an independent book store. There’s no reason to pay $30 for a book you already know you want… I’m just saying that these places have something to offer from time to time.

The problem with the big places is that it’s too much selection. If I know exactly what I’m looking for then no problem… but browsing is a chore.

This little place was the kind of place that had just enough in each section that you could actually see what they had. The books that were there were chosen by somebody who was there… the people there had possibly even read some of the books. This in itself is not wholly an experience worth the ‘indie tax’ in my opinion. Though it is nice to ask somebody for something and instead of them turning to a computer they will actually walk over to a shelf, pick something up, and start talking about it… at least it’s nice when you’ve got all day and nowhere to go.

Now you may say, “But Amazon has customer reviews. You can read all sorts of opinions about books and make your decision from those.” True. But you never know what kinds of weirdos are writing those reviews.

At an independent book store (especially this one) you know exactly what kind of weirdo you’re talking to.

Having enjoyed my drive so much yesterday I asked about local stuff and the guy directed me to the local stuff shelf and, foregoing the ‘Miami-scene’ looking books about the best places to get hammered he pulled off a couple of short history books and a book of stories of things that happened in Florida.

The guy was good… I gotta give him that. In fact, I did give him that. I overpaid for a couple of books and went happily on my way.

Before heading back to the truck, I stopped in at the Barnes & Noble a couple of blocks away and took advantage of their great selection and low, low prices.

Next, the monkey portion of our story…

I’m aware that I’ve written waaayyyyy too much. I hope for your sakes that I don’t have to stay too long… because I could obviously write forever about nothing. If you read this far I apologize.

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If you’ve never driven through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and North Florida let me save you the trouble.

Don’t.

Perhaps I will take a picture of the road on my way back to show you. One picture will do. It’s ugly, wet, and green for a thousand miles. There is absolutely no deviation from this. I noted the other day that there are no songs out there about the joy derived from cruising through Louisiana.

I don’t know if that’s actually true, but I doubt if there were any that they would be very popular. If the validity of such a song was ever tested by its hearers I’m confident that the artist would find himself the victim of mob violence.

It’s the endless miles of swamp that set me searching for another course. It turns out that an entire quarter of the country looks exactly like this. It didn’t occur to any of these states to have the decency to put in a desert where one was desperately needed. It’s reminiscent of a family trip we took to Oregon, on which my parents thought it would be a good idea to cruise around for a week. After a few days of adolescents’ complaining my mother happily suggested we play a car game like ‘I spy…’

Needless to say she did not make any further suggestions.

Once I was in the northern panhandle of Florida I took a look at my Google map to find that it had chosen a route to Miami that sent me through another 400 miles of swampland. This, for those of you who don’t know, is the area that Walt Disney was secretly snatching up bit-by-bit in the 60s for paltry sums of money because nobody in their right minds wanted anything to do with it.¹

So I found Florida State Road A1A on my map and knew right away that it was something special. I’ve never heard of it before but I’m certain it must be a big deal. People probably refer to it as “The A1A” as in, “It’s a nice day for an adventure, let’s go take a cruise down the A1A.” And of course, all the excited people in his crowd would know exactly what he was talking about, because they all have fond memories of cruising down the A1A in their childhoods… or they would, if there ever existed anybody in Florida who had not moved there from somewhere else.

The A1A (at least the distance I traveled on it), according to Google Maps, adds 39 miles to the original 1,384. According to my estimation it added at least two hours to the overall trip. An insignificant amount when you’ve already got a miserable 25 hours behind you. It was well worth it.

I’ve never actually traveled Route 66. I’ve probably been on it a few times when it’s convenient, and I’ve seen Cars and know a little something about Grapes of Wrath… but nevertheless I think it’s safe to say that the A1A shares some of its charm.

The A1A runs the entire length of Florida’s Eastern coastline. I took a highway from Jacksonville and joined up with the A1A, armed with a Gyro, in St. Augustine and got off at Titusville near Cape Canaveral about 100 miles later. While much of the journey was looking at high rise hotels and the backs of abandon beach property rentals, there are also quite a few stretches where your entire left side is filled with the open Atlantic and even if it wasn’t, every half mile or so gives you the opportunity to hop off the road and get your feet wet.

Which isn’t to deprive the right side of its due notice. All along the A1A you’ll find museums, lighthouses, extravagant miniature golf courses, small motels seemingly constructed from spare building materials, dolphin habitats, gift shops, alligator farms, fresh fruit stands and, of course, hot boiled peanut stands. Many of the more tempting attractions appeared closed, probably because it was before noon on a Sunday… or possibly because it’s January.

Most of the coastline that I traveled had a generally charmed feel to it… where I wasn’t in an overly touristed area the homes were small, the shops were unique, and the attractions were simple and usually had some sort of exotic quality to them. On the off chance that my gaze shifted to the road I noticed that the speed limit was 45 miles per hour and was reminded to speed up, but glancing in my side mirror the car that had been trailing me a quarter mile back was moving at the same pace I was. It’s just the way you drive on this road and everyone seems to know it instinctively.

The drive was so relaxing that I switched my iPhone from audiobook to music. Those of you who know me well may be surprised to learn that I have any music at all on my iPod. As it so happens I have a playlist which has been slowly building to its current state of containing the 189 greatest songs ever performed. Songs include Yellow by Coldplay, Hotel California by the Eagles, Country Roads by John Denver, Bohemian Rhapsody (both the Queen version and the definitive version), and I’m Lion-O by Relient K. This is a dynamic list, which acquires 7 or 8 new permanent members every year or so.

My phone also contains 42 children’s songs that I keep for Zane to listen to which includes two different versions of ‘Wheels on the Bus’. I did not listen to these while driving.

The charming part of the drive came to an end at Daytona Beach where even a fleeting peek at the ocean is denied the weary traveler (and hero of our tale.) And any town featuring a Bennigan’s isn’t really worth the trouble.

I stayed on the path for awhile after that through a few small towns, passed a bar that struck me as strangely inviting:

and once denied a drive through Cape Canaveral I was finished with my detour and got back on I-95.
Now I wouldn’t suggest taking such a trip just for the sake of the drive… nothing is worth  the trip. I daresay that the Proclaimers have never driven (much less walked) the preceding 1,000 miles and would rescind their lyrics if they ever did.² But if you have to drive to Miami this serves as an adequate reward at the end of a gruesome experience.

So I am here in Miami now with the risers to set up for the team photos. Of course, the rain has pushed back the team pictures from a definite ‘Tuesday at noon’ to ‘anytime between now and Saturday.’ So you may very well have to suffer through another lengthy blog post tomorrow about buying strawberry jelly and a visit to the gift shop of a monkey sanctuary because when you are in Miami there is nothing to do when it’s raining. For both of our sakes I hope it lets up soon.

¹ Google ‘homer simpson florida’ for a slightly less tasteful description of the Sunshine State
² ‘500 Miles’ by the Proclaimers is also featured on the world’s greatest playlist

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Chicken butt.

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it’s pretty big

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