Sunshine Trip: Day 3

On the third and final day of my tour in Florida, I took my talents to South Beach. I parked my car in Mid-Beach at 9:15 and immediately headed down the beach towards South Beach. The sand wasn't as white as the beaches in Clearwater but the beach was wide and seemed to extend forever along the coast. Luxury hotels lined the inshore side of the beach only buffered from the beach by a greenbelt and nice bike path. I was a little surprised in how few people were on the beach but that may have been due to being a Sunday morning and the menacing clouds overhead. As a walked south towards South Beach, the clouds began to clear and the beach started to become a little more crowded. Interestingly, most of the people of the beach were latin families and it was a rare occurrence overhear people speaking English.

By the time I got to South Beach I was very hungary and thirsty. I stopped at a bakery and had a kiwi smoothie, a ham and cheese empanada, and a custard filled churro. I then walked back north along one the main streets of Miami Beach and wandered into a few touristy surf shops. I was looking for a shirt that had something to do with LeBron James's quote from The Decision but couldn't find anything.

As I started walking back north. the clouds had cleared and it had turned into a wonderful day weather-wise. I went back to my car, put on my swimsuit, and sat on the beach for a couple hours. The water was very clear and the sand bar extended pretty far out. I put sunscreen on pretty heavily but still managed to get a little sunburnt but not too bad. I kept an eye on my watch since I didn't know how long it would take me to return my rental car and didn't want to risk cutting my flight close. Once I decided it was time to call it a day at the beach, I stopped at a restaurant and got an order of fish tacos en route to the Ft. Lauderdale Airport. I resisted my urge to eat my meal until I had returned my car, checked in, and gone through security. The tacos were good and certainly better than anything I would get at the airport.

We boarded the plane a little late and as soon as we were about to move away from the gate lightning struck in the vicinity of the airport. We ended up waiting an hour and a half on the plane until the weather cleared. This frustrated me since if we would have boarded the plane on time we would have been gone before the storm reached Ft. Lauderdale. Alas, I finally got home and went to bed for an early morning wake-up for work the next day.