Searching for Old Miami

As you can see, the view from our executive suite of Biscayne Bay and Miami Harbor is spectacular - but it's not the Miami of my imagination and dreams. I had dreamed of men in old white fedoras, the smell of cuban rolled cigars, pastel painted art deco hotels on white sand beaches. From our hotel window, Miami is more pre-apocalypse Metropolis. The spires of the super rich cast shadows on the many poor and homeless of Miami.

View of Biscayne Bay and Miami Harbor from where I write

Homeless camp 50 yards from our hotel under the Brickell Avenue Bridge

So while Lauren attends the conference, I've been out searching for old Miami.

I didn't have to go far. Just below our hotel window was an ancient Tequesta Indian village site. I noticed some folks digging with hand tools in a huge empty lot and learned that a 600 million dollar development project had been halted as archeologists found a 2000-year-old Tequesta Indian Village with unique post-hole hut structures. The Tequesta Indians were likely living here when Ponce de León showed up in 1513. Much older than I was looking for but it was refreshing to think about this piece of land before the skyscrapers.

Tequest Indian Village site about to be covered by another big building

A Haitian taxi driver suggested I would find a piece of old Miami at South Beach - also called SoBe - a strip party beach made up of the barrier reef islands off Miami proper.  So with shorts and sunglasses, I set out first to check out the beach. I wanted to put my feet in the Atlantic just to celebrate having started this journey on the Pacific.      

I found this great old life guard tower and lots of people sunning and swimming in the warm Atlantic

 The beach was hot and muggy -- so needing some refreshment I headed over to Ocean Avenue and found plenty of old.  A bunch of great old art deco hotels from the 1930s.  Had a beer and lunch at the Carlyle where the people-watching rivaled Venice Beach in Southern California.

The Carlyle Hotel 

Old Miami Cars in South Beach

After South Beach I went looking for Old Miami in downtown.  Lauren was busy for the evening so I went looking for a local joint. I found the oldest bar in Miami called Tobacco Road. Its been here 102 years and has managed to serve the good stuff continuously (even through prohibition). It's a real dive where the locals hang out, the food is good, local blues bands play and people are friendly and talkative. My kind of spot. The bartender sports a shirt that says - "we got lots of problems but staying open late isn't one of them." Tobacco Road stays open till 5am. The sad part is the land the bar sits on has been sold to a developer and within 36 months this old dive will be gone. Another skyscraper.   

Miami's Oldest bar at 626 S Miami Ave

Fortunately I did not stay out till 5am so was able to head out for more old Miami the next day.  From Downtown I walked several miles west along Calle Ocho to Little Havana.  I wanted to get some hand rolled cigars, eat some Cuban food and see what's left of this Cuban enclave.  The walk took me through some run down neighborhoods but I found lots of great murals and building art. 

I was surprised to come across a memorial to the infamous Bay of Pigs event. We rarely think about the people who actually picked up weapons and went on this ill-fated mission.  Leaving aside the politics and the CIA's mistakes, a lot of young men of the 2506th Brigade died in that event.  

The Bay of Pigs Monument at 13th Avenue and Calle Ocho

  

I went looking for the old Cuban cigar factories where old guys hand role stogies, but no luck. No one was rolling cigars when I was there.  But I did find a good Cuban shop and got some good smelling cigars. 

Little Havana Cigar Shop 1501 Calle Ocho

I had lunch at local Cuban dive called El Pub where the locals were watching the world cup, the waitress was bossy and the cuban food was great.  I had arroz con pollo and sopa de Platanos Maduros -which is yellow rice with chicken, fried plantains and ripe banana soup. 

Too much food but very good

Bossy waitress

After lunch I visited the CubaOcho Art Center that was largely empty of people but filled with decor and art of what old Miami use to be.  

CubaOcho Art and Research Center at 1465 Calle Ocho

All in all this was a great journey into old Miami and even though the downtown streets are filled with kids driving BMWs, there are still hints of the way things use to be. But for now I've had enough of the city and am looking forward to getting back into the trailer and hitting the back roads as we head north and west. Sometimes there is somewhere to go that's not east.    

   

Miami

After more than 3,000 miles, we've arrived at the other coast, and our room, 30 floors above downtown Miami, overlooks Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

Maybe because we looked so haggard, or because we'd come so far, the hotel extended us an upgrade, so we have an Executive Suite, which means a gigantic corner room and top flight amenities. We're feeling pretty swanky as we settle in here for the weekend.

To celebrate our arrival, lunch at a posh Peruvian place. With Peruvian beer, of course.

Sweet rewards after a long journey. And the irony of it all, now there's nowhere to go but west. :)

Signs of the South

(A note to Claire and Jean: As you can see here, God provides a bounty of food for Southerners.)

Whether or Not, We Drive

Like the farmers and truck drivers I find myself surrounded by, I spend most of my time these days looking at the sky, trying to predict the weather. Mostly, it's been raining. Thunderstorms. Torrential downpours. Biblical-style flooding. It's like being in a carwash for hours. Here's a view from the window of our trailer on Monday night.

Ominous skies on the Tennessee River.

We often wait for the rain to stop at a rest area. Here we are with the big dogs in Georgia. 

It's No Lie

Monday was laundry day in Burlington, Wisconsin, which turns out to be a pretty famous place. First, it was a stop on the underground railroad. It's also home of the Burlington Liar's Club, which celebrates the art of lying and tall tales. Dallas Cowboys QB Tony Romo is from Burlington, where he spearheaded the local high school team, the Demons (no lie). And if that's not enough of a claim to fame, Burlington is Chocolate City, USA.

Nestle has been producing chocolate there since 1966, including Crunch Bars, Butterfinger, Baby Ruth, Toll House chocolate chips, and Quik hot chocolate mix. Farfel was the Nestle mascot before the Quik bunny. Every Memorial Day, Burlington hosts Chocolatefest, and huge sculptures are made in honor of the event. Here's a recent winner:

And here's a sculpture of John and me ;)

Ten Days In

Being on the road makes it difficult to keep track of time and place. Memories of places and events melt into one another like ice cream in summer. In ten days, we have traveled through eight states and three time zones. Tonight we continue our trek east into Wisconsin, adding another place and experience to the feast.

The Mississippi raged at St. Anthony's Falls because of all the rain, but at least the sun was out. 

Our visit to Minneapolis has been great. John has been working (so maybe it's been less great for him), but I've had lots of writing time and am pleased with my latest draft of the play I'm taking to Missoula Colony (more on that later this summer). We also had a chance to see friends and family, and I saw a new production of Our Country's Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker at the Guthrie.

We stayed for a post-play discussion with the cast from Out of Joint, a touring theatre company from London. The production was directed by Max Stafford-Clark, who commissioned the play for the Royal Court theatre in 1988. After the show, Thomas and I had a lovely lunch and stimulating conversation at Wilde Roast Cafe on St. Anthony Main.

Minneapolis always means an opportunity to see family. Josh and Maurissa took us to their favorite restaurant, The Sample Room, and we were very fortunate to meet the newest Becknell, Chris and Elissah's son, Grayson, who immediately stole John's heart.

Maurissa and Josh

John and Grayson at 16 days old.

And for Minnesota-lovers, one more photo, of a band playing at the Saturday Farmer's Market by the Guthrie. Only a Minnesota band would have this great moniker.

Have a listen. If you close your eyes, you, too, can be in Minnesota with Dylan's Wagon Wheel. :)

Downed Trees and Repairs

The weather that drove us to stay Monday night in Elkhorn turned out to be a disaster for eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. Although we didn't witness firsthand the tremendous damage to Pilger (about 75 miles north of where we were staying), driving northeast on Tuesday took us past hundreds of downed tree limbs, uprooted trees, mangled farm equipment, roof damage, and flooded rivers, creeks and farmland. Residents were cleaning up for hundreds of miles. Fortunately for us, the thunderstorm that hit Tuesday night didn't start until after a hot but clear day of driving.

Our route took us from Nebraska into Iowa at Missouri Valley, which is part of the Lincoln Highway, America's first transcontinental road, built in 1913.

We passed thousands of acres of corn fields. Luckily, I can happily gaze at them for hours (and I did.)

We took Route 71 north to the aptly named Storm Lake, where we ate a bit of lunch by the water before continuing to Okoboji/Spirit Lake, where we stopped for two hours while John led a board meeting via phone for Soldier's Heart. I ate a piece of blueberry pie in the local diner and talked to a woman who worked in the quilt shop about barn quilts.

The rest of the day was spent traversing Minnesota, including a stop for beer, burger and baseball at Big Dog Sports Bar in Mankato, where the burgers were buy one/get the second half-price. Today, we got settled in a Minneapolis hotel so John could get ready to teach tomorrow and through the weekend. The trailer is spending the weekend at Reid's house. Here are a few pix of John and Reid fixing the hitch wheel stand that got bent during the trip.

Now it fits again.

All this, and it's not even the first day of summer. And more rain is predicted for tomorrow. 

For those of you in sunny southern California, Happy Solstice!

Leland Kizer

He doesn't have a website, and you won't see him advertising his Old Ford Museum on a billboard. If you stick to the interstates, you won't find him either. But if you take the local road into Julesburg, Colorado, you might be lucky enough to meet Leland Kizer. A former big band musician, barber and collector extraordinaire, Leland is a treasure of a man with a treasure trove of history that he shares with locals and a few lucky tourists who happen by: stacks of LIFE Magazines and newspapers that date back to the teens, old gasoline station signs and gas pumps in pristine condition, military uniforms from WWI and WWII, old band uniforms and instruments and a handful of perfectly preserved Fords. Plus a barber shop that takes you back in time, especially on Mondays when Leland will still cut your hair for an old-fashioned reasonable price.

John talks with a couple of locals in front of Leland's barber shop.

As if Leland weren't enough of a rare discovery on our journey through Colorado, it turns out that the tiny (pop. 1,225) town of Julesburg sports three museums, which display an array of artifacts from local history. I loved these telegraph line insulators from the 1860s.

 Bottles of ink for manual typewriters.

Leland Kizer restored and donated this buggy to the Julesburg Depot Museum.

From eastern Colorado, we crossed into Nebraska, where we spent the night in Grand Island and treated ourselves to BBQ ribs and baked potato dinner. The plan was to head up towards Yankton on the James River on Monday, but our plans were thwarted by a storm cell and tornados. It was all we could do to battle the strong winds for an hour or two, and our gas mileage was cut in half because of the winds. So we're hunkered down in a hotel tonight watching Monday Night Baseball. Adventure, it seems, will have to wait until tomorrow.