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| Antoinette's XMas Tree |
We left you with a massive interval between entries last time and believe us when we say our days have been full on for most of the last three weeks. With Christmas, New Years and so much in between finding time to rest, let alone update you all on what we have been doing, has been hard. Christmas Day was amazing and we both got to chat with family, which was a boost we both really needed, as was the cocktail with vodka, juice and champagne poured into a novelty yard glass procured in Vegas. We had so much good food and were able to spend the day drifting in and out of sleep while watching movies and tv, which is something we have not been able to do since we left home all those months ago.
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| Prawns: Cuban Style |
Tampa is a city sharing a lot of similarities with Perth due to it’s size, population and proximity to the ocean and nearby porting facilities. The port of Tampa is still one of the most important and busiest in the USA as all goods must pass through Tampa from South America onwards up to the east coast and even further for Europe. One afternoon was spent on a cycling tour of downtown Tampa, which was thoroughly deserted because of school holidays and the Christmas break. The tour was a great way to get acquainted with some of the history of Tampa and how this city has evolved through the last century. What started as a small colony was not a destination until the railroad was installed and allowed a port to be established on the west coast of what would become the Florida peninsula. It then became a hotbed for immigrant populations and Cubans, Italians and Spanish peoples would settle and influence the areas food and culture over the coming years. Tampa was once home to the largest cigar manufacturing plants in the world and it was not until the 1930s that their economic influence could not overcome the depression, advances in cigar manufacturing production and subsequent downturn in demand for hand rolled cigars. Since then the plants have been permanently closed. The evening was finished with our first Cuban dining experience, which took place at the largest family owned restaurant in America, in a place capable of serving 1500 people for each meal. The food was good and plentiful and left us with a very satisfied feeling for downtown Tampa.
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| Our view from the mountains. |
Tampa had one last event in store for us and after freezing our asses off in the nosebleed section of Raymond James stadium watching the Buccaneers comprehensively beat the Seahawks, it was time to head west for St.Petersburg. St.Petersburg is billed as Tampa’s dysfunctional brother, but we did not really see the wild side we expected. The day we spent in St.Pete’s dissolved taking in the largest public display of works by the genius Salvadore Dali and chilling on the pier. The collection of Dali’s masterpieces is quite amazing and seeing the different stages this artist went through to achieve his ‘master’ status was intriguing and insightful to say the least. The magnitude of his bigger works is really something and the intricacies and illusions he places on canvas firmly cements his position as one of the most impressive and unique artists of recent history. Our detour through St.Pete’s was a welcome change from the ill managed RV park we found ourselves trapped in over the Christmas break, but with the east coast calling our names it was time to head south for Miami and some much needed sunshine.
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| The infamous Ocean Drive in South Beach, Miami. |
The drive to Miami was brilliant, purely because the temperature increased as every hour passed, and it was not long before we were in our dodgy motel room literally across the road from the airport. We can say, with great humility, WE DID IT! We have crossed the country from San Diego to Miami with everything in between and although the gravity of what we have accomplished has not fully sunk in we both know we will be very proud of what we have done when it does. Within two days of being in Miami we had our RV serviced, picked up genuine hand rolled Ecuadorian cigars and toured the art deco district of south beach leaving us just enough time to prepare ourselves to celebrate the year that was. We headed back to South Beach to enjoy the pedestrian heaven that was made possible by road blockages on Ocean Drive, the road running alongside Miami’s most famous beach, with bars and restaurants moving their al fresco areas right out onto the roadway. Most of the entertainment was compiled into a very compact area and the evening involved us having a drink inside one art deco hotel after another taking in the freak show that was unfolding in front of us on the foot path. Being in such an iconic location for New Years was really something special. The first day of 2011 was anything but classy with a serious sleep in, junk food and plenty of trashy television and, in all honesty, it probably was not much different from many we have spent at home previously.
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| Sleeping alligator. |
Another thing we had on our to do list in South Florida was checking out the everglades and cruising around in one of the airboats, pretty much just a dinghy with a massive fan on the back. This would happen at Billie’s Swamp Tours and Safari’s where we also saw a trainer put an alligator to sleep by rubbing its belly and were also taken on a slow drive in monster trucks through the reserve to see a variety of animals. We were able to see more animals, including some not native to the area, than we did on both of our previous swamp tours, but after seeing the everglades one swamp looks much like another. It was a nice relaxing day and was good to get out of the hotel after spending the previous day inside the confines of our small room. We have both decided to live in the moment a little more in 2011 and a spontaneous decision to take a cruise to the Bahamas was just what we needed to kick start our resolution.
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| Junkanoo Beach and clouds. :( |
The all-inclusive tour started with a 5am pickup and being the first people aboard the shuttle we also knew we would be the last dropped off much later that night. After picking up other passengers we were taken to the terminal and were on board the discovery cruise ship in no time. The breakfast was wicked, or more wicked than anything we have had in a while, and not having to do any dishes was a great bonus. The beverages were flowing freely by mid morning, although there was no matching to table of Germans across the room who looked like they had been enjoying the free booze since boarding the vessel, and we settled in for our five hour trip to the Bahamas. The weather was not fantastic and we were told we would need to purchase tours if we wanted to do anything on the island we were headed towards because the port area is isolated from any of the sights. This pissed us off a little as we thought an ‘all inclusive’ cruise would cover things like this, but alas we caved and organized to be transported to one of the islands best beach clubs. After an okish lunch and a few hours on a sandy beach covered by an endless patchwork of clouds it was time to head back to Miami. The time flew by really quickly this time, as we tipped the waiter a little more to make sure our glasses were rarely empty, and even the god awful tunes the “DJ” was playing all night couldn’t dampen our spirits. What did end up dampening our spirits was the bus ride home which saw us open our hotel room door two and a half hours after reaching shore in Miami at about 11:30pm.
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| Any higher and we would need oxygen. |
Like we have mentioned before we have been doing something pretty much every day and the following day was no different. On our last night in Miami we cruised back to South Beach to soak it all up one last time and give Antoinette a chance to get some photos of the brightly lit fluorescent signs adorning the classic art deco hotels in the area. Afterwards we headed for American Airline’s Arena to see the Miami Heat clash with the Milwaukee Bucks, host of fellow Australian Andrew Bogut. Seeing some really classy NBA players like Lebron James and Dwayne Wade make shots with such ease was really wicked and even Antoinette managed to stay interested right through to the end of the game. The game was surprisingly close right throughout until the last five minutes when the Heat rolled over the top of the Buck’s and forged ahead by a dozen or more points. Even after such an American experience the dilemmas awaiting us upon exiting the arena sum up Miami’s worst aspect. Traffic in Miami is $#@!&^! Drivers use their horns excessively and do nothing but put those around them on edge. We were abused a couple of times by very ugly women speeding around in SUV’s with no regard or care for road rules let alone the state of their bashed up faces. It seems like red lights are optional and seeing people rush through them at the last second or block a busy intersection because they don’t realize their car is not going to fit behind the one in front is frustrating to a point you would find hard to fathom without experiencing it. We now totally understand why people in the country have such big trucks. It is so if anyone pisses them off they can run right over the top of them. Every one seems in such a hurry here and perhaps if they made it compulsory for drivers to listen to 93.1 Easy FM, our favourite station while driving, the soothing sounds of the Beach Boys, Elton John and more would melt away at the tension rising on Miami’s roadways. This traffic is the one thing we are both glad to see behind us upon leaving Miami.
Leaving Miami left only one destination in Florida before saying goodbye to big cities until Washington DC in late January, Orlando. Of course if you haven’t already made the connection between Antoinette and Orlando we will give you a second to figure it out…
WALT DISNEY’S DISNEY WORLD!
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| Antoinette and her house. |
This is the other half of what we started in California a few months ago and we had quite a challenge of cramming four Disney Land size parks into one day. To do this we had to skip a few attractions, pump ourselves full of caffeine, eat on the run and spend time busing between parks, but we both had a really good time. A highlight for both of us was the first ride we went on, and Animal Kingdom’s newest ride, in Everest. The ride was nuts and was a great way to kick start the adrenaline we would undoubtedly need to keep firing all day to make sure we did not stop. After Animal Kingdom we headed straight for Disney’s Hollywood Studios and tackled the Tower of Terror and put up with Aerosmith’s freakishly wide face waiting in line for over an hour for a ride that lasted less than a minute. The rest of the day was spent wandering to Epcot and then the Magical Kingdom, waiting excessively long times for rides and scouring the souvenir places for a second time to make sure Antoinette did not miss anything. Disney World is a massive place and trying to cram so many worlds into one day really is not the way to go and we both would have loved another day or two to really experience it, but we now have a valid reason to come back to the US that does not involve BBQing animals. The lines were a real drawback and we spent somewhere between four and five hours of the day in lines waiting for rides and the fastpass system was impractical as the return times were past what we could afford for each park. We both agree that Disney Land is our preferred destination between the two for a couple of reasons, less people crowding the good stuff and more characters. The only character we saw all day was an ant from one of the animated movies, but we did catch a glimpse of Mickey, Donald, Minnie and Goofy’s head while on a monorail ride past one of the resort dining rooms.
We returned back to Phoenix, our RV in case you have forgotten, exhausted and crashing from a sugar high that lasted most of the day. Nothing a stiff drink couldn’t fix though. This was our last day in Florida and we now have only a handful of states and miles resting between us, Washington and then New York. The countdown to apartment living has definitely begun and we are both looking forward to having an oven, a bathroom we don’t have to walk outside to get to and somewhere we can unpack more than the cloths we are wearing that day. Florida really did deliver some pleasant and unexpected surprises and we cannot wait to go back to Miami and Orlando to experience it all again some day, alas we have plenty more ahead of us yet.
‘Till next time,
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