Day Fourteen - 29th October 2016

The previous day, we’d had to check out of our hotel in the French quarter and look for new digs. The room rates skyrocket during the weekend, and although we were interested in trying to stay another day, the rate had doubled literally overnight, so discretion was the better part of valour, so after returning from our tour of the lower 9^th ward, we picked up our car and headed out of town.

Finding a place to stay though was a little more problematic; there seemed to be a festival on in N.O as well as the weekend, and the first place we found, about 10 minutes out of town on the I-10, charged $300 for a room per night! Onwards we went until we found a good room about 30 minutes out of town at a small settlement called La Place. Rooms were getting hard to find as many of the industries and plants around the area and we were lucky to get one for three nights. Based on the huge long line of traffic we saw heading into N.O, getting out of town seemed to be a good idea.

So Saturday, and today our planned activity was to go out to a plantation, the Whitney Plantation, for a tour. This tour is one with a difference though, because it focuses on the slaves themselves and the depredations they suffered under slavery, rather than the plantation owner’s life. After a rather nice hotel breakfast (and lifting up the Hotel sofa chairs as we liked them & wanted to try to see who they were made by) we jumped in the car and headed off into another stunning and hot day. The plantation is about 30 minutes away from our hotel here, and we crossed the mighty Mississippi over a huge & high bridge just before we get to our destination. There’s a lot of river traffic of large ships even this far up as there’s a large refinery (probably sugar based on the number of sugar cane fields around) so a high bridge is necessary to allow them to pass safely under.

We arrived at the plantation site well ahead of time, so looked around the gift shop before our tour started and picked up a couple of things before we began.

The Whitney plantation dates from around 1752, and the original owner, who’d emigrated from Germany with his mother and siblings, planted indigo (for blue dye), but after it was passed onto the next generation, the son changed the crop to sugar, and today there are still many sugar cane fields around the house (interestingly our guide kept referring to the area as the German coast).

The tour started at a large church on the grounds. This church wasn’t original to the site, but was actually built in Paulina just down the river on the opposite bank of the Mississippi. It was built just after the Civil war, in 1870, and had its origins when freed blacks joined together to form a society that could help out others, especially to bury their dead as until then , slaves had just been thrown into the swamp when they died. Members paid what they could and when they or a loved one died, the society took care of the funeral expenses. The name of the society was the “Anti-Yoke”, and in 1870 the society bought land in Paulina, and built the church which was the only church that African-Americans in the area could attend.  The church was soon named ‘Antioch’ church, which is a biblical reference, but close also to “Anti-Yoke” to get past any resentment the local whites might take! 

Inside the church, there are many statues of African-American children, and these represent the children who were slaves at the plantation when the Civil War ended and they were freed. Their oral histories had actually been recorded just before America entered WW2, when as part of Roosevelts public works program, an agency called the Federal Writers Project was charged with recording the oral stories of everyday Americans. As that work unfolded, it became apparent that there were many former slaves, children or teenagers when the civil war ended, who were living testimony to those times, and so their stories were fortunately recorded for posterity, including those from Louisiana. Seeing these children dotted around the church is a somewhat surreal and eerie experience as although they’re statues, they have a lifelike quality to them.

After a quick introductory video we were then taken to the Wall of Honour. This wall is a dedicated memorial to all those enslaved at Whitney, and the information has been gleaned from original archives. Around 350 slaves have been identified from original records and the names cover both sides of the wall. The names of the original slaves are first name only, mostly a given European name, and if their original region in Africa was known, that too is recorded.

What is interesting is that two slave names have surnames.  Victor Haydel & Marie Becnel, were the children of slave women made pregnant by the owner and a visiting relative (the rape and sexual abuse of both men and women was endemic, and any attempts at resistance harshly punished).

However, their story has a positive outcome, as their descendants would one day achieve public prominence with one becoming the mayor of N.O for two terms.

Also on this wall is a recording of a bill of sale for 65 slaves which makes sobering reading. Those with skills commanded a higher price and their individual description is one of property, not personage.

After this, we were taken to a large garden area where several large memorials were placed. The garden is named after the woman who has built the “Louisiana Slave Database”, Allées Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, where this information originates from.

These memorials have the names of 107,000 slaves kept in the Louisiana area and in addition to their names, there are also excerpts from the various oral histories which make for sobering reading. They speak of a time when these people were nothing more than chattels and property, having terrible punishments inflicted on them, having families torn apart, and leading a life of desperate hope. There were even places where women were kept to do nothing more than have children whose only destiny was to be sold into slavery.

After spending several minutes reading these testimonies, and feeling rather grim, we then went to a small memorial called the field of angels. This pays tribute to the 2,200 children born into slavery who never made it to their third birthday. The birth date of these children is not known, but tellingly their date of death is, and this is because their owner could claim insurance for the ‘loss of property’ after the child’s death. Unbelievable.

We then started to visit some of the buildings, stating with the slave cabins. These basic shacks housed several dozen people and were the most basic of dwellings. There are no original cabins on the site, and the ones we looked at were original but from other plantations.

Walking away from the cabins, we then were taken to a slave jail. This is an iron box, much like a small shipping container, with three narrow cells and doors which, incredibly, was built just after the civil war ended as slaves were still being seen as property and being kept in cells like this when being put up for auction.

Walking away from that, we then went towards the main house. The original overseer’s house still stands on the grounds, though in the process of restoration and not accessible to us as yet. The overseer was responsible for management & discipline of the slaves, and the tales of cruelty and violence we’d read about, and imparted by our guide, was hard to hear. It had shades of the German treatment of the Jews before and during ww2, the casual violence and dehumanisation towards these people only differing slightly in that there was no planned genocide by the state.

There was a separate building used as a kitchen, and this was apparently a mark of wealth and standing in the community. Good cooks were prized but also trusted by their owners, so had somewhat of a slightly better position (as much as an indentured person can be). 

Finally we got to the main house itself, in very good preserve. The difference in living standards is too great to even contemplate and we could only look and wonder what life must have been like for both sides, the Civil War ending a style of life taken for granted and, indeed, expected as holy writ. How good much emancipation have felt to the slaves when it happened, with the Jim Crow laws and segregation still to loom ahead. 

So ended our tour, and with it came a fresh appreciation of the horrors of slavery. The tour, despite its grim and dark nature, was actually very good and one we would highly recommend. I think the discussion around slavery is one many in the U.S still find hard to have, however I think tours like this help to better understand their life and in doing so we can appreciate why those racial divides are still hard to get past. Our guide also reminded us that much of the U.S wealth was built on slave labour, where millions worked without any wages or cost to their “employer”.

After this, it was late in the afternoon, so we decided not to head into N.O as it would be getting late, so retreated to the hotel for a quiet end to the afternoon.

Day Thirteen - Friday 28th October

Today we did a bike tour of the Lower 9^th Ward.  This was the area most devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  I’d had some doubts about whether to do this or not, I didn’t want to be a gawping tourist photographing others’ misfortune but we were both very interested in what happened and have watched the documentary “When the Levees Broke” so wanted to see it first hand.  My research had said that this tour was done by locals with the support of the local community, so that’s eventually what convinced me to do it.  We started not far from the French Quarter, today we had to check out of our motel as we’d only booked for two nights in the city with a view to staying somewhere on the outskirts of New Orleans which was a bit cheaper, prices rocket here for the weekend.  So we persuaded the very stressed valet to let us leave our car there until 2pm and walked to Café du Monde for another round of Beignets and café au lait.  They are hard to resist !!!  Then it was an easy 15 minute walk to the tour start and we were fitted out with bikes and seat heights adjusted accordingly.  Our guide was Nick, a very knowledgeable guy who had moved to N O about 5 and a half years ago and he’s been doing these tours ever since.  He was a great guide and had a very good local history and a love of the place as well.  As it turns out, he actually lives in the Lower 9^th himself and welcomed us into his home so we could get a first hand look at the type of house.  His house was right near the river, so was on slightly higher ground and survived the flood but had to be stripped back to studs.  Interestingly the house is made of barge board, and that’s it, no gib lining, just raw boards on the inside.  This combined with having quite small windows and shutters (presumably for hurricane protection) made it quite dark inside.  It was a typical shot-gun style of house, long and skinny so you open the front door and the back door to allow the breeze to flow right through to cool it in summer.  The shot gun style of the house, actually originated from west Africa as the slaves who were captured and transported to the south brought this cultural heritage with them.

We then moved on through the area, Nick was indeed well known and was waved to and greeted by many of the local residents. 

One of the common misconceptions of the Lower 9^th is that it is a very poor area.  This is actually not true, the Lower 9^th had/has (at the time of Katrina and now) the highest percentage of home ownership in all of the state of Louisiana.  So they were working class but not necessarily poor, mostly black/African American.

 The tour was about the area and it’s importance to Louisiana’s history, not just about Katrina.  It was initially settled by the French and the place was populated with convicts and prostitutes from France, then the Spanish took over for a while and rejuvenated the area.  The French got it back and sold it to America as part of the Louisiana Purchase, which effectively doubled the size of the USA with one pen-stroke.  America could not afford to pay for the purchase so they borrowed money from the Dutch and the English to pay the French, and the French used the money they received from the purchase to fight the Dutch and English.  At this point, Nick made a few jokes about American never again committing to something they could not fund financially J

The Lower 9^th was originally sugar plantations, but the land was eventually divided into lots and sold to the locals, who at the time happened to be Irish, German and free blacks (this was back when slavery was still legal).  So that’s why most of the land was owned by the people who lived here, it has been passed down through the generations.

Traders would pole down the Mississippi on barges loaded with wares for sale, once they got to N O they would sell their goods, and break up the barges and sell the wood (because you can’t get a barge back up-river again without power) and the wood was used to make the houses.  Then they would walk back home to wherever they came from (Oklahoma & Kansas) via the Natchez Trace Parkway, which follows the Mississippi up-stream (we plan to visit later on in the trip) and repeat the process.

We went past Fats Domino’s house – he was living here at the time of Katrina and refused to leave because his wife was in poor health.  When the levees broke, the water reached the soffits of his house and he & his wife were rescued by Coast Guard helicopter from his roof top.  The photos of his house and “man cave” next door (which was also his own recording studio) show how high the water got in this area. 

We went on to get lunch at a local eatery (Po boy sandwiches with hot sausage - yummo) and then on to the Museum “The House of Dance and Feathers”.  The museum is basically on the back yard of Ronald W Lewis.  He is a local icon that is the President of the Big 9 Social Aid and Pleasure Club.  This is effectively a community trust that was set up because black Americans could not get insurance.  The locals would contribute to the fund and the trust would pay out for things like funerals and care for the sick.  These days, the Big 9 is more of a social thing, and there is a yearly competition during Mardi Gras where the different “tribes” all get decorated and parade and are judged to see who is the best.  Hours and hours of work go into the costumes, intricate patterns are beaded onto panels that become part of the outfit and the final costume is incredibly ornate, not to mention heavy (sometimes up to 68 kgs).  Mr Lewis has written a book about the Big 9, which he signed and gifted to President Obama and received a nice little card signed by Barak and Michelle saying thanks very much Mr Lewis.  He was quite a character !  His book was for sale and he did quite well out of the tour group.

After lunch, we headed to the Bayou Bienvenue wetland triangle.  This area is significant because it was basically the cause of the devastation from Katrina.  Back in the 1960’s, the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) was created to allow ships easy access to N O instead of winding their way up the Mississippi.  All of the water experts at the time said don’t do this, it’s a terrible idea, but of course no notice was taken.  Sure enough just a few months after the MRGO’s completion, Hurricane Betsy struck in 1965 and the storm surge pushed water up the MRGO, the flood walls failed and the Lower 9^th was flooded.  Did they learn their lesson?  Of course not.  The MRGO remained open, the flood walls were re-built and waiting for the next major hurricane.  When Katrina struck, almost the exact same thing happened, only this time, the flood wall failed, the massive influx of water caused a barge to come adrift and it slammed into the flood wall further along, causing a 300 feet hole in the flood wall, and water surged in.  It flooded to about 15 feet of water in about 15 minutes.  The force of the water was enough to move houses off foundations, obviously those closest to the flood wall were the worst hit. In a tragic irony, the MRGO itself was in a long decline of use, and barely one ship a week used it.

Since Katrina, the MRGO has been closed off at the Gulf end, and the intrusion of salt water has stopped.  The Wetlands are gradually returning to their previous state as the water becomes less salty and more like the original fresh water state over time.

Today, 11 years on from the flood, less than half the homes in the worst affected area have been rebuilt.  So new homes stand amongst long lanes of unmown lots and tall weeds.  We saw one house standing as it did after Katrina, still with the emergency symbols spray painted on the entrance wall.

But the houses that have been rebuilt are well maintained, people are out mowing lawns, trimming edges and cleaning cars. We felt welcome in the area and not at all intrusive, they were just proudly going about their daily lives and giving us a wave and saying how y’all doin, all right ?  It’s a real shame that the perception is of an area that is bleak and something to be wary of, because the reality is completely different.

One thing that is noteworthy about N O is the state of the city’s infrastructure.  Even in the French Quarter, which relies heavily on the tourist dollar, the roads & footpaths are terrible.  Pot holes everywhere, and uneven slabs of concrete, on the road and on the pavements.  You literally have to watch your step, every step.  Drains are flooded and where we met for the tour, there was a huge puddle stretching pretty much the length of the street and halfway out onto the road.  According to Nick, it takes weeks to repair once reported.

Day Twelve - Thursday 27th Otober

The day started with Beignets and café au lait at Café Du Monde.  The place is always busy and you have to lurk to grab a table just as people are leaving. I was keen to see how beignets are made, so we headed outside to see if we could see into the kitchen area.  Success !  The beignet making process can be seen through the outside window.  There is a huge mixer full of magic beignet dough, which gets patted out on to a conveyor belt.  The conveyor feeds the dough through rollers which squish it out to an even thickness, and the dough is then fed onto another conveyor belt.  This one has a roller with a grid pattern, which cuts the dough into squares as passes underneath.  From here, the squares are picked up by hand, and literally flung into a vat of bubbling oil about 1-2 metres away.  Oil splashes up the back of the vat, all contained within a stainless steel structure, but I’m sure the floor must be pretty slick with whatever isn’t contained.  Once a whole batch has been dispatched to the oil, the guy makes sure they are not stuck together, then lowers a large grid onto the beignets, as they are floating on top of the oil at this point, and this submerges them below the surface.  Then he moves on to start processing the next batch.  After about 5 minutes in the oil, he scoops them all out into a basket and dumps them into a big tub by the icing sugar bin.  From here, the waiting staff pick them up with tongs and plate them, 3 to a saucer, and they are doused heavily with icing sugar using flour sifters.  The tub of icing sugar is probably the size of two kitchen sinks and about half as deep.  Everything is bigger in America !  And that’s it, a pretty simple dough, cooked in very hot fat and smothered in sugar, what could be more delicious?

Once I could drag myself away, we headed off to a shop selling Civil War memorabilia that we had seen on Royal Street the evening before.

We kept wandering along Royal Street to Canal Street, a big double wide boulevard with a tram running down the middle.  This is the more “regular” part of town, with Walgreens and CVS type stores, Shoe Warehouse, Footlocker and the like.  We went our separate ways at this point, Joe to the World War II museum and Deb to wander down to the river and walk along it.

I (Joe) had decided to go & see the National WW2 Museum, a few blocks (about 30 minutes’ walk). The museum was initially opened as the D-Day museum, and focused on the D-Day invasion of Normandy. New Orleans was the chosen location as the amphibious craft, Higgins boats, which were crucial to the invasion, were invented by a local manufacturer ( Andrew Higgins who also has a street named after him) , but also because a well-known American historian, Stephen Ambrose, lived in N.O and led the efforts to create the museum. Over time its brief has expanded and now focuses on the, primarily, U.S experiences in WW2.

The museum is easy to find, just head straight down Magazine St till you see the building. Its actually four separate buildings sectioned into significant campaigns, and one large hall housing some significant aircraft. The ticketing building is dominated by a C-47 Dakota & Spitfire hanging overhead, and a Higgins boat ( naturally) as well as some military equipment ( like artillery pieces and vehicles) dotted around the floor.

Overall the experience was very well done. Walking through the sections, there were dioramas and screen & overhead narration that talked the visitor through the campaigns as well as having oral histories from surviving veterans. The equipment and vehicles on display were well presented and thought out.

The aircraft hall was amazing, with the ceiling being dominated by a genuine B-17 Flying Fortress. The aircraft had crash landed in Iceland during a ferry flight across to the U.K. It was later recovered and restored and is now on display ( fully crewed as well) with other significant aircraft as well, like a P-51 Mustang, Avenger, B-25 and Dauntless.

After an hour or so there (forgoing the chance to buy two excellent but oh so heavy books (I have learned my lesson) I headed back down Camp St into town to meet up with Deb. Just outside the museum was a reasonably good fender bender with New Orleans’ finest in attendance, it looked like someone had gone straight ahead and t-boned a turning car, ouch.

Tonight we headed down to Frenchmen Street, which is supposedly the part of town to locals head to avoid Bourbon St.  We had a very average tasting but huge meal that felt overpriced for what it was.  I’m beginning to resent the 18% minimum tip required, it actually adds quite a lot to the bill for not very much value.  $15 tip which was earned in about an hour for one table, not a bad income really, especially when you add up the other tables being served at the same time.  Still it’s the custom here.  Sigh.

We made our way back to the hotel dodging very drunk people and very stinky homeless people, and were woken about 1am by a very noisy crowd who had settled in to socialise at the tables in the courtyard outside our room. 

Day Eleven - 26th October

So up and check out of our Pensacola Motel. All in all it had been a good spot – we couldn’t find one real central spot of Pensacola and it seemed pretty spread out, taking about 15 – 20 minutes to cross the city on the occasions we went out. However the location of our Motel, despite its vocation as a bacterial incubator, was an ideal spot for the museum and worked out pretty well.

We went across city again, mostly on the freeways this time, and found the rental car place without too much trouble (after a small detour to get fuel) and swapped our Mustang for a more conventional Ford Focus. Sadly we’ve also lost a bit of boot space as well and have to put our breakout bag (too much stuff already!) of the luggage on the back seat. We’d been hoping to try and put most of it in the boot to allow us to park in public areas without attracting unwanted attention, but we’ll just have to work around that.

The Focus is a bit easier to drive than the Mustang, lighter and less bonnet in front to obstruct the view, and after getting things adjusted we were on our way down the I-10 onto New Orleans.

The I-10 is much like the Interstates we’ve travelled so far , it’s wide open roads , lined with trees (all green , we miss the fall colours of the northern autumn) , easy driving and at 70mph ( plus change ;-) ) we eat up the miles.

The I-10 actually crosses both Alabama & Mississippi before getting into Louisiana however our first stop was the U.S.S Alabama memorial park, a short hour or so out of Pensacola.

The park is very easy to find, and we were soon there, after turning off the Interstate. It’s a very wide open space, and in addition to the ship parked up at the wharf, there’s also a number of military vehicles and aircraft dotted around. These include WW2 aircraft and post war aircraft including a huge Vietnam era B-52 Stratofortress. The park also has a hanger where they keep other aircraft as well.

However the main attraction here is the ship, and after paying our entry fee we were on board. There are three ‘tours’ you can take, red green and yellow (all self-guided), which focus on a different part of the ship. The Red & Green paths both focus on the ships internals all the way down to the engine bay. It’s a very well-constructed path and shows off the main parts of the ship very well. Its also slightly claustrophobic as you have to sometimes go through narrow doorways and passages, and contend with low ceilings and pipes & boxes protruding from the walls, The stairwells between decks are narrow and steep and take some care, but it doesn’t take long to go through, and you can appreciate what it took to serve on one of these machines. It’s essentially a floating city and they have to have everything on board to cater for the crew (including having all the right pay in safes for payday!). Every crew member has an assigned task or team and this even includes someone whose job it is to ensure the U.S Marines on board had suitably pressed trousers! However, the further into the ship I went, the more conscious I became of how hard it would have been to evacuate in an “abandon ship” scenario. Indeed, there were many watertight compartment doors intended to seal a flooded area and stop the ship sinking, and the thought of being caught on the wrong side of that door, as many sailors were, was too awful to contemplate.

The Yellow tour takes you into the upper decks and the fresh air, and after spending some time above and getting some wonderful expansive views of the Gulf, and checking out the weaponry ( those huge turrets are very confined inside) we retreated to the café and had a quiet bite there before getting into the car and carrying on. Another very hot, sunny day as well.

The drive into New Orleans was uneventful (we saw more than a few cops along the way apprehending unlucky motorists) and after a quick hop across Mississippi, we were in Louisiana.

Coming into the city, we had to cross a hugely long, low bridge across the lake (Lake Pontchartrain) that gave a real feel for how flat and low lying this area was. After going through the outer suburbs for about 5 minutes on the I-10, we were unerringly guided to our target by faithful Dora (redeemed after her Miami fiasco) and soon arrived at our Hotel, the Provincial in Chartres St. The streets are very narrow and rough, and has quite a ‘rough’ feel to it. The Hotel is an old one and divided up into three buildings, and for a change ours is on the ground floor. Quaintly , there are even banana trees growing in the courtyard.

The room wasn’t ready when we arrived, so we spent some time wandering the streets and getting oriented with the French Quarter of New Orleans (or NOLA, New Orleans, Louisiana). The French and Spanish influences are everywhere and this could almost, with the heat & humidity, be a French island in the pacific. A bit like Las Vegs, the main areas, especially the infamous Bourbon St, has a slightly seedy feel to it, but at the same time there’s a good vibe about the place, Brass jazz bands play in the street, and almost every bar or restaurant has a live act. We did a circuit of the main area, stopping at a café for our first New Orleans treat, Coffee and Beignets.

Beignets are like doughnuts, a doughy mixture deep fried till crispy then covered in icing sugar, oh so nice. The place we stopped at, Café du Mode, essentially only had Coffee & Beignets on the menu so it was a pretty easy order. The staff were buzzing around like blue-assed flies and the place was very busy with a high turnover. However the coffee and beignets were perfect.

We then carried on walking going as far as Canal St, a wide boulevard with a tram line running the length of the St in the center,  and walked back down Royal St to the Hotel. Surprisingly, this is where many art galleries and antique shops are located, and it made for a slow walk back.

Got back to the Hotel, picked up the room key and freshened up before going out. Most of the popular action seems to happen on Bourbon St, and the whole street is blocked off at night to allow people to wander freely. You’re allowed to carry a drink between bars, but it has to be in a plastic container, a glass one will earn you a $450 fine from the NOPD, who has a very visible presence in the city. The streets are crowded and it’s really an assault on the senses, with noise coming from bars, noise and street bands, rowdy crowds, the smell from the eateries and, well, various fluids and deposits lining the streets!  The New Orleans population is around 400,000 but the tourist market must swell those numbers hugely.

The streets were very crowded and we managed to negotiate our way to a place for dinner, which specialises in Bourbons. A bit like a scotch / Irish whisky bar, this place specialises in bourbons, and has about 200+ on offer. After a really pleasant meal, we tried what was called a “flight” – each flight consists of three small bourbons (though, being the U.S, small is a relative term) and we tried two flights, one of small batch bourbon, and one of single barrel bourbon. Bourbon is quite different to Whisky in that its primary ingredient is corn. It imparts quite a different taste and the bourbons we had varied between 90 & 100 proof. Needless to say after a large meal it took a while for the bourbons to filter down, and the general consensus was that it may take a few more to appreciate the taste.

Then it was back to the Hotel via Bourbon St. The crowds were noticeably larger now and this part of New Orleans seems to really come alive later at night. Loud music pumped from bars, drunk & tipsy individuals and groups wandered the streets, homeless begged for cash, and neon signs assaulted the eyes. The streets were awash with spilled drinks and water (hopefully mostly water) and cops everywhere keeping an eye on things. However we made it back OK, and called it quits for the night.   

Day Ten - 25th October

Today was Blue Angels Day.  The woman at the Museum had recommended to Joe that we get there by 9am as it was usually pretty busy.  Ever cautious and desperate not to miss out since we had come all this way, we arrived at 8:45, and were told that they wouldn’t start letting people into the viewing area until about 10:15.  Sigh.  So we waited.  I waited in the car and Joe went back for another look at the museum.  At 9:45 the queue had already started forming, so we joined and stood in the very hot sun until we were eventually let through the gate just before 10.30am.  It’s been about 28 degrees here, no cloud to speak of and so we baked.  My feet have tan marks through the holes in my sandals J  Eventually we were let air-side and after a cursory check of photo ID and peer inside my camera bag, we were let through (behind hordes of school kids) and made our way to the Bleachers – a row of aluminium stands set up for viewing.  We were “entertained” between then and when the show started at 11:30 by volunteers, who gave us snippets of information about the Blue Angels, and also introduced various veterans who were in attendance.  One vet from WWII, he was one of the survivors from the first Kamikaze attack during the battle of Leyte Gulf, and received a standing ovation from the crowd.  There were also several vets from the Korean and Vietnam wars.

The Blue Angels book out the airspace for 5 miles around the centre of the airfield and up to 10,000 feet, so even aircraft that are based here are not allowed to take-off or land during this “blue out”, which is from 11:30 to 12:30 each practice day.  We were reminded this was a practice day, so if the leader didn’t think moves were executed well enough, we might be lucky enough to see them repeated.  We were also reminded that these were highly skilled manoeuvres and the aircraft get as close as 18 inches apart.  Impressive.

The practice started pretty much on time at 11:30 and it was amazing.  There was a mix of 4 in formation with two opposing solos, who would sneak in and do amazing things while the other 4 were away forming up for the next display.  They did a high speed pass, (750 mph – phwoah !!) and a high angle of attack pass, where they flew as slow as possible without stalling.  Then towards the end all 6 planes came together in formation.  All too soon it was over and the crowd herded out the way we came in.  Pretty rubbish description of an amazing display, you really need to see the photos (which are on Facebook).

After that, Joe wanted to do the tour of the planes on the flight line, which required a trolley bus ride, so I left him to it and went to the Pensacola Lighthouse, just a few minutes away.  It’s still a functioning lighthouse, 150 feet high, 177 steps to climb and with stunning 27 mile views through 360 degrees.  I did have to stop and pant about ¾ of the way up, however a much younger fitter couple who breezed past me gasping were stopped at the next window space not much further up so that made me feel no-quite-so-fat-and-old.

I made my way back to the museum to collect J who had now finished, and we set off for a model shop he had found online.  So far this trip, he has not found or happened across ANY model shops.  I declare this a record.  However he was starting to go into withdrawal so it was time for a fix.  After about a 20 minute drive, we found the shop, typically in the back of beyond with nothing else of interest, except a Firehouse Subs – just as well because it was 2.30 by now and I was starving.  He came out of the shop a very happy camper, exclaiming about how much more he could have bought, picked-up-put-down etc etc.  We were feeling pretty tired by now after our day in the sun, so headed back to our flea pit to find the door had not been shut properly after our towels were replaced but obviously we had nothing of interest to anyone who had gotten in. 

We downloaded photos and had a passable coffee made by the coffee machine in our room and veged out until it was time for food.  We couldn’t get the door to stay locked from outside the room, so I stayed here while Joe drove down to collect dinner. Subway tonight, can’t be bothered showering/changing/going anywhere.  Spent the rest of the evening watching Trump/Clinton campaign stuff on tellie.

Another early-ish start tomorrow, we swap rental cars at 9am and will then head off to Mobile to visit the USS Alabama and then on to New Orleans.

Day Nine - 24th October

Today we set off from Tallahassee after breakfast provided by the hotel we stayed in.  The drive was uneventful and a little boring, the same old alley of trees that we’ve spent about the last 9 hours driving through.  We gained an hour due to crossing into Central time zone and headed straight for the Naval Aviation Museum and had a quick bite of lunch at the café there.  Super cheap, $20 for a BLT for me and Mach 1 (pulled pork bun with BBQ sauce) and two bottomless coffees.  Then it was time for a wander around the museum, J as expected, like a kid in a candy store.  I wandered aimlessly oblivious to the rareness of the aircraft around me, but did appreciate the 4D Blue Angels experience – a theatre in which you want 3D footage of the Blue Angels (the US Navy flight demonstration team) and sit on a platform that moves and tilts as if you are being hurtled through the sky.  Well not quite, but it was a fun thing to do and helped support the museum. 

We headed back to our motel – the Suburban Extended Stay hotel about 10 mins drive from the airforce base.  Less than half the cost for two nights as one night in Miami.  It feels a bit like a cross between an army barracks and a hostel, and you certainly wouldn’t want to blue-light the sheets.  But there are no roaches so far, and I’m reminding myself I’ve stayed in worse dives and survived to tell the tail. 

Tomorrow morning, we will be away early to get back to the air force base to watch the Blue Angels practice.  They start at 11.30am but the helpful woman advised us to get there by 9 as it’s pretty crowded.

Tonight we will escape the motel and brave the wilds of downtown Pensacola for dinner.

Day 8 - 23rd October

Today we awoke in St Petersburg, and were off to see the Chihuly exhibition as part of the twin Dali / Chihuly stop. Dale Chihuly is an American artist specialising in intricate glass blown structures and shapes, the intricacy of which is stunning. He was involved in a car accident in 1976 where he lost an eye, and in 1979 dislocated a shoulder in a body surfing accident which meant he could no longer hold the equipment necessary to create his sculptures. However he now directs and trains others in his style so his work can continue.

However, first stop was breakfast, and we’d scoped out a café, Kahwa, on 2^nd Ave Sth so decided to walk there. 

A brief word on street naming and numbering. It’s extremely logical (despite which both Deb and I lost our sense of direction a few times, it’s being in the wrong hemisphere that does it!), and while this may not apply to every city & town, certainly seems to be almost the norm from what we’ve seen so far. There’s a central avenue running through the city, and then avenues running parallel are numbered 1^st Ave Nth, 2^nd Ave Nth and so on, and in the opposite direction, 1^st Ave Sth , 2^nd Ave Sth etc, all radiating away from Central. Running perpendicular to these are streets, with 1^st street starting at one ‘end’ of Central and then all streets numbered in sequential order. Streets to the north of central are labelled accordingly ( 1^st St North) as are those to the south (1^st St South). It ends up being a fairly good grid pattern enabling one to get a good idea of where places are or how far away things are.

So back to breakfast and we wandered off from the hotel to the café. It was another superb day, and the streets were very quiet as we made our way. It was a Sunday so I guess there were not many people going to work in the CBD, and it made for a nice relaxed walk. We came across a huge building that was being demolished. Initially we thought it was a modern building that had been built over an older one, but looking a bit closer we could see that what we thought was a building exterior, was in fact huge pieces of cladding to prevent any debris from falling into the streets (and onto vehicles & pedestrians). A big guy was standing there directing traffic, so we asked him a bit about what was going on, and he said that as they were using old School techniques, like a wrecking ball, the demolition would probably take up to two months to complete, but it was being done very slowly & carefully. However it meant that some of the central streets had been blocked off and I imagine they’ll be blocked off for the duration thus cause a bit of havoc with city traffic (we had to follow a couple of detours on our subsequent travels around the city).

St. Petersburg seems to be a really ‘arty’ city with many galleries and boutiques dotted around the place, and sculptures dotting the streets. There seems to be a pretty vibrant ‘arts & café’ culture and I couldn’t help but equate it a bit to what we saw of either Seattle (though with nicer weather) or Wellington ( with different coffee, see below) and I think the city tries to promote itself as such. Hard to define, but it seems appropriate that the Dali & Chihuly exhibitions are here rather than, say, in Tampa or Miami.

We found our café without too much trouble and had a pretty light breakfast of coffee, croissant & fruit. It was quite a neat little café with tiled tables and a young, hip, staff. The way that coffee’s done in the US is quite a bit different from NZ, and there’s nothing approaching the classic flat white or long black. We tried to equate it, Deb by choosing a cafe latte and me by choosing an Americano (basically black coffee). We’d ordered large coffees and we’d forgotten that large in the US means Jumbo in NZ! So Deb had to get an extra shot of espresso for hers (and it could’ve used another shot), and I had to put a bucket of cream in mine. The coffee struggle shall continue, but I think the US is ready for Flat whites and long blacks.  

After breakfast we headed back to the Hotel to check out, collect our car, then drive to the Chihuly exhibit. Checkout and car collection was achieved without too much drama, however on arriving at the exhibition building, we found that they didn’t open until midday (we thought they opened at 11). In fact most of St Petersburg doesn’t open until midday on a Sunday, so we had some time to kill. We decided to head back to a neat design store near the waterfront which had some great sculptures we had our eye on (we’d been in the night before when we went out for dinner), and these guys opened at 11am! So a quick car trip down to the waterfront to visit the store and pick up our goodies and then back to the exhibition center which, by this time, was open.

The exhibit was stunning, and there were no barriers allowing people to get close and appreciate the detail in the sculptures. They’re displayed in low light with bright spotlights on the sculptures bringing out the detail and colour, except for a fully glass ceiling which is backlit. They’re stunning pieces and the larger pieces must be incredibly heavy (some are suspended on awfully thin wires from the ceiling). There aren’t as many items in the exhibit as we’d been able to see before, they provide a great cross section of his work.

After doing a little shopping in the museum store, we jumped in the car and headed back down Central Avenue to a bookshop, Haslam’s, that I’d seen advertised in a city map. It took several blocks to get to but fortunately was just in a straight line. The bookshop was pretty huge, and probably covered half a block on one level. The selection was great, and so I spent about half an hour or so rummaging around before coming away with a few treats (there was a lot of picking up and putting down). The store even had a cat which I managed to frighten off accidentally.

So with Joe duly satisfied, we jumped back in the car and bade farewell to St Petersburg and headed on our way towards Pensacola. The journey was planned for 6 hours, so we figured we’d get as far as we could then stop for the night.

The GPS (now behaving itself very well) took us slightly west of the main Interstate highway, and we went on US 19 all the way to just outside Tallahassee. The drive itself was pretty uneventful, although we had a rather unsettling moment when we stopped for fuel along the way. The station we stopped at was really busy, with people waiting patiently behind others who were filling up. The chap we were waiting behind, had obviously made some comment to another younger guy who was at the neighbouring set of pumps, probably to the effect he should move forward and let the person waiting fill up. Well this younger guy just exploded in a torrent of abuse and rage ( “you should f**ing just fill your own self up and not f**k with me. I’m still F**king filling up” – you get the drift) while the other guy, probably in his 60’s or so, was just waving his hand to say sorry and wishing he’d never opened his mouth. For one moment we thought this younger guy would walk over and start something, but fortunately he got into his pickup and screeched the tyres as he sped off. Phew!  Alas the post code trick of allzeros didn’t work and Deb had to go in and pre-pay.  This time though they did it for a pre-set amount and would refund the difference if we poured less.

The drive was through a lot of wooded areas and the roads straight and pretty much easy driving. We went through many small towns along the way that provided a slice of Americana we hadn’t seen up until now. The highway ran through the center of these towns, much like NZ, but the towns themselves seemed to be struggling to stay alive (as it were), with many closed shops and derelict malls lining the highways. Most of the businesses were gas stations, hotels and chain stores like fast food, Walgreens and the like. It must be a difficult life out here as it seemed quite off the beaten track and we wondered what the primary industries might be.

As we travelled, there were a lot of motor cycle groups coming in the other direction. We saw several bunches and all were riding big American road bikes like Harley’s. No room for the Japanese motor bikes here! We also saw a few pickups flying the confederate flag, and a few gun stores advertising “Get your guns before Hilary does”. We’ve seen more “Trump/Pence” signs than “Hilary/Kaine” signs, so I guess that sums up the preference of this part of the state.

We arrived just outside of Tallahassee early evening and settled on a Hotel just outside of town (far better room rates out here too) and then after settling in and doing some admin decided to try & get some food. We went back up the road (on US90, under the freeway we arrived on) but were snarled up in a huge traffic jam. Cops and cars everywhere, and there seemed to be a big car show that was emptying out, so the police were trying to direct traffic and pedestrians. After a slow crawl we ended up at the “Publix” supermarket, a chain of supermarkets there that carry a great range of food and we picked a couple of chicken meals and came back to the hotel to finish off the day. Tomorrow we might have a look around Tallahassee then head into Pensacola. 

Day seven - 22nd October

It was time to get on our way and leave the Florida Keys for the next destination, St. Petersburg.

We packed early and were on our way, bidding a sad farewell to Key West. We both loved the place, and reflected fondly on our short time there. It has a really pleasant vibe to it, and it’s a superb location for live acts, as almost every bar & restaurant had someone going from 10am. In fact even the night we went to photograph the Bahia Honda bridge, there was a country & western trio doing a small concert at the campsite.

In an effort to try & reduce eating out costs and not eat something fried every day for breakfast, we went to the local supermarket the previous night to get some breakfast supplies consisting on UHT milk and some packet rolled oats.  Alas this didn’t turn out to be particularly appetising so we may have to revisit this plan.  In fact it was down-right disgusting and a review of the ingredients in plain old quaker rolled oats was alarming, shudder to think what they have done to the milk.

The washing we had done the previous night was not yet fully dry, so showing a bit of lateral thinking, t-shirts got put against the back seat, undies on the back seat pan and socks on the dashboard. Probably the first time a Ford Mustang has been used as a mobile dryer. Duly configured, off we set.

The drive was going to be a long one, into Miami skirting the city and then up and across the pan handle on US 75 (Alligator Alley) to arrive at St. Pete’s – about 6 hours’ drive in total. Fortunately we had great weather and once we had got out of the Keys, we could get up to 70mph on the Interstate which saved us quite a bit of time. With an appropriate sense of dread we re-negotiated the Miami interstate system, but this time we were able to come out unscathed and on the right track. The sheer amount of road works going on around Miami is staggering, from what we saw it seems to be a significant rework of the whole freeway network around the city. 

Once on US75, we were basically cruising for most of the day at a good clip. The stretch of US75 that crosses the Panhandle is called Alligator Alley, and crosses a big chunk of the Everglades system.  I once again appreciated how huge and vast this country is (I think our Airboat guide said the Everglades was about 4 million acres in size) because in a full 360 degree view the land was flat all around as far as the eye could see. As we went further the landscape changed though and eventually gave way to other reserves and protected areas, including one for the Florida Panther. I think the impression of the U.S freeway system is one of a concrete jungle covered in gas fumes, but the reality couldn’t be more different. The country driving was really good with lots of vegetation and trees lining the road ways providing some pleasant

We stopped for lunch at a fairly standard roadside fuel & food place, and filled ourselves with chips and the car with premium, and then got on the way again. They have a stupid system where you have to pre-pay at the bowser, but they make you type in a post code.  Of course we don’t have one, so if you want to fill up you have to leave your credit card with the cashier.  We’ve since googled this and apparently if you enter post code 5 0’s it will accept at 80% of places.  We’ll try that next time.

The plan was, as we were making good time, to head into the Dali museum first and then find a place to stay, and our GPS guided us unerringly to target, she has redeemed herself! Entering St Petersburg, the traveller from the south is guided in over a huge and spectacular bridge which provides a grand entrance to the city.

We arrived at our destination (co-incidentally next to a small urban airport!) and went in.

The Dali Museum is housed in a spectacular building with a circular staircase leading up to the exhibits. It houses a collection of original Dali works from his early years, through his surrealist period into the later post-surrealism works. You can get an audio tour that allows you to view a painting in any particular order and hear more about it which was a pretty good way of appreciating a painting more, and the paintings can be viewed in any order you like.

We left the display and I went across to the airport (surprise) to take some pictures of the aircraft there, and then we headed into town to our Hotel. We are using mobile data to view & book hotels online and it’s been very handy.

However arriving at the Hotel, we were greeted by a Valet system for parking the car (either that or try to park somewhere on the street), so we frantically cleared the socks and undies from the seats and dashboard while the valet waited patiently for us to finish and took the car away. We schlepped our bags up to our room and after doing a bit of research, headed into town for dinner, after a brief freshen up.

The place we chose to go was on the waterfront, and it’s a really lively area, with lots of places to eat, some design stores and attractions like horse & buggy rides. We had picked what was classified as ‘English’ but really offered a mix of English ( eg fish & chips, shepherd’s pie) and Indian ( Tikka Masala).  We both went for the Tikka Masala and I washed mine down with a nice U.S IPS, Smuttynose. Afterwards we treated ourselves to a scotch to round off the day and that was that. The weather’s a bit chillier here and after the heat of Miami and the Keys is taking a bit of getting used to.

Day Six - 21st October 2016

Checked out of the motel and caught the shuttle back into town for another look at a photo in a gallery we had seen the day before, and a final taste of Key West life.  Wandered to the Mile 0 marker, where State Highway #1 begins/ends and took the obligatory tourist photos.  Stopped in at Sloppy Joe’s (frequented by Ernest) and got a touristy t-shirt and then wandered back to catch the shuttle, via the Key Lime Pie shop.  Key Lime pie …….literally a slice of pie complete with biscuit base …… shoved onto a stick ….. dipped in dark chocolate …… divine. 

We left Key West about 1-ish and headed north.  We met a convoy of super cars coming towards us, escorted by about a dozen cops on bikes, and followed by a helicopter.  There was a guy hanging out the window of a pickup with a camera, photographing the cars strung out behind him.  Madness !!  We assumed they were headed to town for the parade. 

We’d set out with the roof down, determined to enjoy the convertible, but after about an hour we admitted defeat once again, and pulled into a rest stop to put the roof up and the air con on full blast.  It turned out to be a good spot to stop, just before the Bahia Honda bridge, which is no longer in use and crumbling into the sea.  We came across a very co-operative iguana who seemed to like the attention and sat still for me while I faffed with camera settings and took his photo.  We spent about an hour snapping pix and then headed on, across the seven mile bridge (yup, it’s 7 miles long, right out there in the middle of the Atlantic) and on to Marathon.  Joe had spotted a Beech 18 that he felt needed to be admired at the Marathon airport.  It was about 3ish by now so we decided to stay here the night and head back to the Bahia Honda bridge for some sunset photos.  This was duly accomplished, with mixed results, but one or two half-decent photos to remember the occasion.

Today was laundry day and the scrubba wash bag was put to the test.  We have laundry draped off coathangers, shower rails and stretchy clothes lines, hoping it will dry a little overnight.  I’ve threatened to string the clothes line between the rear windows and hang our laundry inside the back of the car tomorrow.  We have a six hour drive to get us to our next destination of St Petersburg on the west coast of the Florida panhandle.

Day Five - 20th October 2016

Day 5 started with breakfast at a little French café we had spotted the day before.  Joe assured me it was just a couple of blocks from where the shuttle dropped us off.  It was about 10.30 by this stage and I was getting hungry, so of course, it was actually more like 20 blocks by the time we found it.  I had some nice healthy orange juice, granola and fruit, followed by toasted artisan bread that I was afraid I would break my teeth on, all washed down by passable coffee.  Joe had an almond croissant, which was pretty good.  Then we went our separate ways to explore the town/shops and get a feel for the place.  Very touristy, lots of bars and restaurants and all with live music, mostly pretty good.  Lots of tourist tat, with Key West plastered all over it, and quite a few with grubby jokes that weren’t even that funny.  A few cigar shops selling fine Cuban leaf, hand rolled in the Dominican republic – not able to buy genuine Cuban cigars made in Cuba – apologies to the cigar smokers !

Had lunch at Pincers Crab Shack, more average and over-priced-for-the-quality tourist nosh.  We caught the shuttle back to the motel just after 4 as we had planned to meet up with David and Laurie – brother and sister-in-law of John and Jeanette.  John we know from Westpac NZ and had met a few times since they also were in Sydney for the last 6 month we were.  David and Laurie live in Key West and have been here for about 5 years, so it was great to get the local knowledge.  They took us to the Green Parrot where the band playing later in the evening did a sound-check one hour gig.  They were pretty loud, but VERY good. They really got the crowd warmed up and were off the stage, mingling with everyone in the crowd.  After that we went to Virgilios for dinner, a superb little hole in the wall type place that is a regular spot for David & Laurie.  The food was fantastic – hurray!!  Joe had Ossobuco (braised veal shank) that fell off the bone, and I had Hogfish, so-called because it has a pig-like snout, used for searching for crustaceans buried in the sediment.  It was a really light flakey white fish, perfectly cooked.  Once we’d had dinner we went wandering through the twon, round the marina and in and out of several historic streets and a few bars that Ernest Hemmingway had once frequented.  Seems we had chanced on the right time to come, as there is a Mardi Gras festival starting tomorrow and the town is beginning to heave with people.  We bid farewell to our new Key West friends (we have friends in Key West you know sweetie) and made our way home after wandering around the harbour and taking in the atmosphere.

Day Four - 19th October 2016

Day Four. 19^th Oct

Checked out ( a civilised 11am) and picked up car from municipal parking lot ($15 for 15 hours) and jumped in the car and got on our way.  We got lost again in the spaghetti junction of Miami’s interstate & freeway system – totally not our fault, and Dora has been put on notice; Garmin & Tom Tom get regular mentions.  Missed one turn-off which took us about 20 minutes out of our way but eventually we got back on track.

Time for a long drive down the Florida Keys to Key West.  It took about 4 hours in total, thanks in part to Dora’s uselessness.  We passed over a few spectacular bridges, but mostly the roads were lined with trees and you would have no idea that you were on a narrow strip of land heading out to the Atlantic.  We commented a few times on the cost and effort of maintaining this tiny strip of land to supply one small town at the end.  But it seems to be a real holiday destination for lots of Americans and foreigners so I guess it must be worth the cost.  There are loads of diving and snorkelling places en-route, clearly big business for them.

It was incredibly hot, and despite Deb’s romanticised idea of being “cool” with the top down, it stayed firmly shut. We topped up with gas and it cost $30 US for 10 gallons. So far we are averaging 3 miles per gallon.

Arrived at Key West about 3-ish and are staying at a hotel on the outer edge of Key West – it’s cheaper and they have a free shuttle to the main centre.  Parking is a bit of a nightmare, so that’s a pretty good solution for us.  When we arrived, the Concierge asked “can I get you a glass of water, or champagne ….”   Ha!  She also thought we were English, and the Londoner that was checking us in said she is sick of being mistaken for being Australian!!  So far anyone trying to guess where we are from has guessed English or Scottish.

We caught the shuttle in to the town and spent a couple of hours wandering around.  It looks quaint and quirky and there seem to be a few art shops that we ran out of time to see today, so have ear-marked for tomorrow’s explorations.  Grabbed a cheap and cheerful tea and then walked to Sunset Pier to …. watch the sunset.  Which was pretty cool.  Shuttle back to the motel and update the blog and download photos.  Time to settle back, relax and watch the final Trump vs Clinton debate on TV.

Day Three - 18th October 2016

Evening of Day Two – 17^th Oct.

We ventured out to find a place for Dinner and wandered down the strip. There’s restaurants & clubs for several blocks, with awnings over the pavements and tables & chairs outside (despite the breeze it’s still quite pleasant to sit outside). As you walk past you get the hard sell from the waiting staff to come & sit down. These are, mostly, young women in shorts & t-shirts (or slinky dresses), though there’s the occasional hot ‘Ricky Martin’ fella, and each place has music blaring out, predominantly a Cuban-American dance beat.

One thing we have noticed here is that Spanish is spoken almost as much as, if not more so, than English. Being bilingual here would be a necessity I think and it’s quite cool to hear several conversations going on in Spanish, with waiting staff at the hotels and restaurants seamlessly switching between the two.

Each place is pretty much similar, so we settled on a place called the Breakwater that didn’t seem to have very loud music, so enabled a good chance at conversation.

We may have gone just for dinner, but we ended up staying for a few hours, just sitting and watching the world go by on a pleasantly warm night, and what a fascinating slice of life it was. Our spot on the balcony outside was a perfect place to sit and people watch, and there was all manner of shapes & sizes & dress code passing by.  Despite being off season and a Monday night it seemed pretty busy, and this place must heave in summer.  There was a constant stream of people, (couples, families, groups of friends on a night out) as well as a continuous stream of vehicular traffic up & down the road. We had a cocktail or two each, and it was a very pleasant night. On the way back, we had to stop at the beachside clock showing the date for Deb’s official birthday photo.

Day Three. 18^th Oct

Today, we picked up our rental car. We have a tour of the everglades planned for later in the day, and we chose to pick up a car earlier in the day so that we could get used to driving around again ( “tight right , wide left”) and then head out to the tour, an hour or so north of Miami township. That was a very fortuitous decision. To pick up the car, we had to go up the length of Miami Beach Island to the Avis dealer ship. With an option of a taxi ride or an hour’s walk in sweltering sun & heat, we wisely chose the taxi. The ride took about 20-30 minutes, and took us past some stunning marina’s and Hotels on the way. The water level on the marina was quite high and overlapping the edges, and in several places on the road there was significant flooding from the drains. This is apparently a normal problem when there’s a king tide and although a bit disconcerting didn’t cause any severe traffic problems. Our taxi driver was a classic old fella, Spanish American , who talked the whole way up expertly on such topics as tourists , tourist drivers ( ‘tourists come here and don’t know how to drive, they cause so many accidents, what are they thinking?”, Florida drivers, Miami drivers (‘They got no idea how to drive , they’re so rude. Look as this guy, look at this guy, he just pushes in) , Miami pedestrians, presidents , politicians, the secret service (‘they come here and take everything over. They close everything down. They tell everyone what to do’).  

We arrived at the Avis counter without fuss, and picked up our car, a Ford Mustang convertible. Deb had been seduced by a special Avis deal, and in a moment of recklessness, decided to hire it instead of our usual sedate and sensible options.  The idea of driving down the Florida Keys with the top down had some appeal.  However reality soon caught up with us, as we found it enormous compared to the Mini, the bonnet is almost the full length of Mini, and it handles a bit like a tank.  We also discovered that it’s baking in 30 degree heat while you are sitting in city traffic J

We decided to drive back to the Hotel first as the roads are relatively straightforward, then head out to Miami downtown to look around a while. After dropping our gear at the hotel, there was 10 minutes spent trying to figure out how to put the top down (no manual with the car) and then we headed downtown. We thought we’d try & look at Little Havana first and then downtown Miami, but after heading into town, our GPS, despite having the latest maps, made a few odd calls (voice & image not matching the street signs we were seeing), and after 30 minutes we had to pull over and try & find where we were and how to get out of Miami!

Unfortunately the GPS decided on a go-slow and misinformation campaign, and another 30 minutes was spent trying to find a way out of Miami to our tour destination. Miami city is a rabbit warren of freeways ,interstates, on ramps and off ramps with a lot of construction and changes happening.  However we managed it and got on the road out to the Sawgrass Tour center where our Airboat ride would take place.

The tour center is about an hour (of normal driving) out of town and is a small place with a number of airboats and small wildlife center, containing several animals. We had a while to kill before our tour, so wandered around. The park is quite small, and the animals they have are quite varied and have been rescued from various situations, for example from private owners illegally owning exotic animals, or those who’ve been found in distress or injured. There’s a few big cats (like the Florida panther), snakes, and of course Alligators. 

The airboats are very cool. They’re flat bottomed boats powered by car engines (Chevy 509 engines I think the guy said), but being car engines aren’t really designed to operate in this way. They sound great though, and steering is done by a lever that pulled backwards & forwards turns two rudders behind the fan left or right. Very basic but effective.

As we still had some time in hand we went for a drive further along the US27 Highway so Deb had a chance to get used to driving the beast. It’s a long flat straight road. After an hour we’d barely turned a corner and the scenery hadn’t changed at all. We turned around and headed back, and arrived at the appointed place at 5pm ready for our tour.

We had to get some warmer clothes on first, and I put some long pants on over my shorts but Deb decided to change and dropped shorts in the car park, meters away from US27! However she picked the wrong pants (mine) and I’d put hers on by mistake. So much hilarity ensued as the leg of my pants gets stuck on my shoe while Deb is standing there in her undies waiting for me to hurry up. We got changed with no further dramas and boarded our Airboat. It was just the two of us and Captain Wes, nice!

It started raining quite heavily though just as we kicked off, and Wes gave us the option to wait for a while until the rain had passed but we figured we may as well carry on and hope it would pass over as we were already pretty wet.  5 minutes in, still hosing down and the rain is stinging our faces, Deb is regretting bringing her camera and paranoid it will get wet.  Then we stop suddenly and Wes made a joke about losing power. Except it wasn’t a joke, we’d blown a fuse due to the rain.  He managed to get it fixed and warned the guy left on-shore that we’d had a problem and may need rescue.  I was wondering how we would ever be found, because while there are paths thru the saw grass, they are pretty random and there was very few reference points to speak of.  Thankfully the rain stopped at this point and the weather passed, it fined up and was perfect for the rest of the trip

Wes was great, and explained that the everglades (so named because the grass is named glade, and it’s a cutting grass, and it’s everywhere) is not a swamp as such but the widest, slowest river in the world. The water moves south at a rate of 500ft per day.

The wild-life was very co-operative, we same several alligators including a Mum and about half a dozen babies.  Lots of herons and birds taking off as we whizzed thru the grass, and one grumpy old guy who waved his fist at us for swamping his boat. 

Our two hours went really fast, felt more like half that time.  But it was over so we headed back to Miami – more cussing at Dora as she lead us astray again, but we eventually got back to South Beach and parked the tank at the top of a very small carpark with very narrow tight turns weaving through it.  Spotted a Tesla in the lot using one of the free chargers, plus space for 4 more EV’s. 

Headed out for food, ravenous by now as it was about 9pm, so we stopped at the first place we came to and had a quick tea and then headed off to try and get some night shots of the art deco buildings.

Day two - 17th October 2016

Day 2

Schlepped all our luggage to reception to by stored by them until our correct room was ready and then we headed out to find a Bank of America ATM (no international fees for Westpac customers) and got some of the folding stuff to see us through the next few days of tips and cash purchases.  Spent some time snapping pics – more gorgeous art deco buildings than you can point a camera at – and then stopped at the Blue Penguin for breakfast.  Pancakes with fruit for me and a bacon and egg roll with potatoes for Joe, all washed down by pretty acceptable coffee.  Then we headed off to do the Art Deco walk – basically a circuit of a few blocks of South Beach where we are staying.  Lots of oh’ing and ah’ing and snapping of pix, there are some great buildings here.  Mostly they are not high-rise, so the area has retained a very 30’s feel.  With the heat and humidity, there are lots of bodies out and about, and there are ALL shapes, sizes, colours and states of undress.  We are seeing it all, and I mean that quite literally !!  There have been a few “she should NOT be wearing those pants” moments. 

Our Art Deco block walk brought us back to the Art Deco Welcome centre, which had some pretty cool stuff, and let’s just say purchases were made that necessitated a drop off at the hotel.  Our room was now ready and we are able to experience the joy that is an Ocean View from our window.

After a quick refresh we headed back out to the World Erotic Art Museum.  Well we’re in Miami, so why would we miss it ??  And it was true to it’s word – the only pic we can post is of the entrance way J  It was VERY interesting, it had a vast collection of paintings, sculptures, ornaments, furniture – you name it, from all different races, cultures and also a range of centuries in which it was produced.  If I had to pick a favourite, it would be the Disney cartoonist responsible for Snow White and Mickey Mouse, who had … let’s just say put an erotic twist in to some of those characters.

Back to the hotel to recharge our batteries and download photos etc.  Tonight we hope to venture out with tripod and camera for some night shots and have tea somewhere.

Day One - 16th October 2016

Day 1

Left Auckland on time in a plane that had plenty of empty seats, so as soon as the seatbelt sign was turned off, there was a mad scramble by everyone in the back part of the cabin to grab some of the spare seats. We had paid (with gritted teeth) to choose seats with just two together down the very back, so I was able to stay in our allotted seats and Joe grabbed one across the aisle, which meant we were lucky enough to end up with two seats each – room to spread out a bit.  So we managed to get some rest on the flight once the turbulence had stopped – after about 4 hours from Auckland.  It was really rocking for a while, drink spillingly rough at times.  Being right at the back meant the favourite choice for the meal (BBQ beef) was already taken by the time the cart got to us, so it was chicken curry, rice and peas – try not dropping those in the aforementioned turbulence- pasta salad, roll finished off with Kapiti icecream – yum.  The rest of the flight was quiet and uneventful, just how we like them.  No crying babies or screaming children.  Always a plus !!  Our arrival into Houston was a few minutes early but then it took about an hour to wind our way through the immigration hall, then we collected our bags and went through customs.  Because we were connecting to an internal flight, we were ushered through to the TSA area and had to do the bag scan, take off shoes etc for the internal flight.  There was a guy at the x-ray machine next to ours refusing a pat-down, so a few reinforcements were called in and it was explained quite clearly that he could agree to a pat down or be ejected from the airport and miss his flight, the choice was his.  He agreed to the pat-down.

We had debated whether to rent a car to explore Houston as our flight to Miami wasn’t until 7.30pm.  However by the time we were herded through TSA, it was about 2.30 and not really worth our while to leave the airport.  So we sat and people watched and took turns at watching out stuff while the other went for a walk to stay awake.  Our flight to Miami was on time and also uneventful, and we were seated in premium economy – one of the perks of booking thru Air NZ as they tend to no allocate seats here as a rule and it can be a scramble to be seated together. 

Arrived in Miami slightly early, no bags.  Waited until the carousel had emptied and then approached the guy who was picking up the uncollected bags.  He pointed us to the baggage office and at that point we spotted ur bags through the window, they must have been sent on an earlier flight.  So we collected them and caught a taxi to our hotel in South Beach, a very fast and scary 15 minute drive from the airport.  I had booked an Ocean View room, but we did not have an ocean view, in fact it was a close-up view of the building next door, with not even a snippet of the ocean to be seen.  In fact once I thought about it, I realised the ocean was actually in the other direction completely, which I would have realised if I’d had my wits about me when we were being directed to the room.  Given I had booked it 5 months ago, I thought it was fair enough that we actually GET an ocean view room, so Joe went and spoke to the guy who checked us in.  The room was occupied but they agreed to move us tomorrow and refund the difference for the room we ended up in.  He spun some b-s about how the room we were in was allocated to us when we booked and it must have done that by mistake.  Sure.  So we showered and hit the hay, in a king size bed so large that I was not bothered by snoring, and I slept well until 8am Miami time.