Last week, we took you along for our warm-up pub crawl in St Petersburg, Florida. Today, we delve in a little deeper, hitting four pubs and a pizza joint. All are within a block from our hotel, in fact, we just walked across the street, went up one block, crossed over to the next one, and walked back to the hotel...all in one square block.
Easy walking and easy drinking.
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Another good thing about the bars along this route is that they seem to be in a perpetual happy hour during the daylight hours. I know, but we're beyond our nightlife days and enjoy an earlier party life now.
First stop, the Del Mar Gastro Lounge. Almost all the bars on our walk had $2 beer specials on select varieties. Here, one of those varieties is Rolling Rock so it's a little better than the usual Bud or Coors Light specials you see. They're also 16 ounce tall boys, which went well with the pulled pork sliders we got to go with them.
The sliders and beer were delicious, cheap, and the cold beer really hit the spot in this Florida heat.
Next up is Mastry's, which is the alcohol pouring outpost of Mastry's sportfishing not far from here over on the bay. According to the signs inside, this is the city's oldest bar...and also voted the best dive bar in St. Pete.
I'd have to conduct a much deeper investigation to see if that's true but it is a nice, dark, cash-only spot where we get a shot of whiskey and some wine...served in disposable plastic cups.
Back out into the light and up the block, it's the Five Bucks Drinkery. The name says it all, although my drink...a Captain Morgan on the rocks...was considerably less at $3.
Letty met a couple of friendly dogs here, too.
Coming around the corner into the home stretch, MacDinton's Irish Pub has just opened for the day. Inside, to the strains of AC/DC and Led Zeppelin, we have some beer and Jameson shots while having a lively discussion with the bartenders.
Lastly, it's Pacifico and slices of cheese pizza at Joey Brooklyn's about 100 feet from the hotel lobby. the Pacifico is good as always, the pizza...well...it'll do.
Cheers!
Darryl Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved
We can't come to a fun, Florida city like St. Pete and not try some of the local watering holes. This city is full of places to go have fun and that included their purveyors of adult beverages.
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It took a couple of days and we really didn't stray much more than a block from our hotel so we could walk, with maybe a stumble or two, the entire way.
We're starting off in what in no way can really be called a pub. The Annex 400 is a lunch counter, plain and simple, but they do serve beer and wine. We're starting here because we can get some of their great, inexpensive food in our stomachs before we start.
It's a nice, fat mug of cold Blue Moon with the requisite slice of orange in it to get us started.
Just around the corner is the Thirsty First Lounge, a day drinkers delight morphing into a loud, live music joint later in the day. It's just this side of the nice side of being a dive bar but the bartenders and locals are a friendly bunch, not to mention their prices are unbelievable...$3 well drinks and select beers are also $3 until 7:00pm.
Some whiskey sours and Shocktop beers set us on our way.
On the other side of our hotel, on Central Avenue, we end up at Caddy's, one of those ubiquitous Florida joints with the live band playing outdoors like you'd see in Key West.
Their three dollar Moscow mules will put us in the mood to finish the day back on the waterfront at the sunset happy hour at the rooftop Canopy bar overlooking Tampa Bay.
Cheers!
Darryl Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved
(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed) Long time friend and blog reader, Brian Garrido, shared his favorite quarantine jailbreak. It's the Monon Trail in Indianapolis, Indiana.
The trail is a rails-to-trails project that is currenlty 20 miles of flat, paved path through some of the prettiest Indiana scenery. It's also in the Rails-To-Trails Hall of Fame.
Thanks, Brian, for the picture and information.
Meanwhile, over in Florida, our friend Neala Schwartzberg McCarten escapes to Walter Jones Historic Park in Jacksonville.
On ten acres of a homestead datin gback to 1875, the area offers some excellent walking area in lush vegetation along the St. John's River.
Thank you, Neala, for your pictures and information.
Keep in mind that most shelter-in-place orders allow you to get outside and do a little exploring both for your physical and mental health so, if you're comfortable with it, get out once in awhile to clear those cobwebs out of your brain and body.
Darryl Musick
Copyright 2020 - All Rights Reserved
(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed) We're burning towards the end of this very long adventure. Before we continue, we're taking a little break to have a meal with our friends, David Paul Appel and Jose Balido of the great travel site, Tripatini.com (really, check it out...it's chock full of great information).
As we enjoy their company over fantastic $5 burgers and margaritas at Tarpon Bend Bar and Grill in Coral Gables, we commiserate over our travels, writing, and what's coming next. As we tell them we've basically ran out of things to do, with one day left, I believe it was Jose who said "have you seen Vizcaya?"
Why, no...I've never even heard of it.
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As the partners tell us about this house, formerly owned by Jim Deering, the founder of International Harvester, we grow more intrigued. We now have something to do on this last day.
Vizcaya is easy to get to without a car, it sits right off the Metrorail at the Vizcaya Station, just south of downtown Miami. It's only a couple of blocks from our hotel to our local station, and then just one stop on the train.
From here, we cross the Dixie Highway on the pedestrian overpass and what an overpass it is.
It's nicely ramped for wheelchairs. 'Nicely' is an understatement...this is the most spectacular pedestrian overpass and ramp I've ever seen.
Winding it's way slowly down to ground level, from the highway it transverses the treetops like floating down through a jungle canopy to the street below.
It's still a couple of blocks to the entrance of the grounds on Miami Avenue.
There is a driveway for vehicles and another paved path for pedestrians. The pedestrian path winds through a jungle of trees. It's bumpy and, at every bend you think you've finished, it continues on. It's gorgeous, enclosing, very engrossing, and also very bumpy.
We exited later via the vehicle road, which was a bit more boring but easier on the wheelchair.
After buying tickets, a security guard tells us there is a wheelchair lift off to the side. It's one of those lifts that go up the stairs. Another tells us with the heat, he'd recommend that we explore the gardens and the outside of the house first while the day is still relatively cool...save the house for the end when it gets hot outside.
Seems like good advice with all the hot weather we've been enduring for the last couple of weeks.
Turning south, we come around a corner of a wall and the landscape opens up into a large, oval shaped manicured garden with fountains around the edges. The old, Mediterranean style mansion sits at one end and a waterfall between two grottoes is at the other.
It reminds us of some of the European castle gardens we've seen in Germany.
We have to navigate around groups dressed in their wedding or Quinceanera finest, who are here and there with their photographers taking pictures.
Behind the waterfall, there used to be a couple of large lagoons but the property has shrunk over the years to its current 43 acres.
While Letty is snapping away with her camera, Tim and I explore the perimeter of these gardens but soon come to a dead end...stairs...and we have to navigate back the way we came.
Temporary wooden ramps have been build on the main staircase between the garden and the house. I get Tim up to that level, where he can roll over to the ocean side of the house.
Deering really went all out here. A Venetian-style canal sits here with a large, concrete barge just offshore.
Guests were ferried on gondolas from a landing at the house, across the little canal, and onto the barge where parties were held.
Iguanas stand guard along the edge of the wall.
It's an amazing sight and we can just imagine the gilt age shenanigans that went on here.
On the north side of the house, the gardens are closed off because of damage from Hurricane Maria in 2017.
We can still see the swimming pool that flows out from a room in the house. Not quite Hearstian splendor here but pretty impressive anyway.
A small orchid garden is here.
Tim and I explore it while Letty checks out the nearby gift shop.
Now, we head back over to that stair lift and go inside the house.
Upstairs is not accessible but downstairs, we're able to see a small kitchen, a dining room, and a living area.
A music room leads us into a large, central atrium.
Thankfully, it's now air conditioned so Tim and I wait here while Letty goes upstairs to take pictures.
She's able to see Mr. Deering's bedroom...
...and the main kitchen of the house.
It's quite a sight to see. The house is imposing, beautiful, and a reminder of Miami's past.
Catching our breath a little after exploring, we make the short ride back to the train station. With that last blast, it's time to pack our bags because tomorrow, we're flying back home.
Thanks to David and Jose for recommending Vizcaya to us and than you all for coming along vicariously on this trip.
Time for a little rest up before the next one.
CORRECTION: In the embeded video above, the builder of the mansion is referred to as John Deering. It is James Deering.
Darryl Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved
Photos by Letty Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved
(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed) It's been almost exactly a year since the last time we were in the Sunshine State. If you recall, some of our activities were washed out because of the weather. There was the accessible snorkeling trip we had scheduled and the air boat tour we tried to take also. But if there's one thing that never changes about Florida is that the weather is sketchy at anytime. We'll see how we do this year.
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While accessible snorkeling is not in the cards this time, I see no reason we can't do an air boat ride. Googling shows up some very expensive private options so I head down to the hotel lobby to see if they have better options. I see a brochure for Everglades Holiday Park and take a look. A 60 minute air boat ride is offered here for about thirty bucks each.
This is much less than the offers I've seen online. The only problem is that it's a little less than an hour away, there's no transportation, and we don't have a car.
To solve this, I rent a cheap car for the day and we head out to the Everglades. With our phone's GPS, it's not a problem to find. After parking, we head into the ticket office and I ask about the wheelchair. I'm told they'll help us out so I buy the tickets and we wait for our number to be called.
In just a few minutes it is, so we head to the dock. I find a spot near the rear of the boat where we can board without the other passengers crowding around us, take Tim out of his chair, and..with a little effort...transfer him down to the bench on the boat. Do note, however, that Letty and I had to do this by ourselves. No help was forthcoming from any of the staff.
We pop in some earplugs for Tim, the giant propellers start to buzz loudly and we pull slowly out of the dock. It's a gentle float around a bend in the channel, near a little dam. As our captain maneuvers into the main channel, he's giving us the information on the Everglades, the ecosystem, the weather, and what kinds of animals live here and what we might see.
Once we've cleared far enough away, the command comes over the speaker, "secure your belongings, we're about to go on a speed run."
The engines whine up to a deafening road. The loaded boat lifts a bit out of the water and soon, according to our captain, we're whizzing along the swampy, grass-filled water at 65 miles per hour.
It is quite a thrill and, honestly, he could have just done this for the hour and I'd have been happy. But, that's not what we're here to do. After a few minutes, the engines die down and speed quickly dissipates and the local flora and fauna are pointed out.
At this point, it's mostly flora. After a couple of more short bursts of speed, we drift in close to an island while the captain points out vultures lounging on the shore.
Gallinules, a flowery plant growing in the water, litter the landscape.
As we're drifting through a patch, I notice a dark blob in the middle. It moves. It has eyes. I soon realize I've seen my first alligator of the day. The lady sitting in front of me notices too but the captain misses it and soon it dives under the surface.
Another speed run takes us to another pond in the swamp and the captain points out another gator. This one is curious and swims straight toward the boat, almost posing.
About 10 feet away, it turns back. Soon, there's another on the other side of the boat and then a couple more. This is not water I'd want to be swimming in but it's fascinating from the boat.
After our close reptilian encounters, the gators seem to have had their curiosity satisfied and we see no more. Now, the biggest thing we see are other air boats.
A few more speed runs and we make it back to the dock just as the rain starts to fall. Somehow, we got Tim out and back in the chair while getting soaked.
Our admission includes a live gator show, so we crowd with about a hundred other people under a tarp until they let us into the arena.
A young woman comes out, surrounded by a dozen, large and lethargic gators where she explains trivia about the animals. No they don't like you but, no, they're not interested in hurting you or interacting with you...especially on land. In the water, they might attack but usually just spit you out and move on after taking a taste.
She demonstrates some moves on how to handle alligators when you're hunting them
She explains how people like here are licensed by the state to capture 'nuisance' gators (i.e., the one you find on your back porch) but they are not paid, nor to the charge the homeowner. For compensation, they get to keep the gator...either killing it and selling the meat and hide, or putting it in a sanctuary like this one.
Mercifully, the show is short. Not because it's not interesting but because the rain is now coming down pretty hard and there is no roof on this arena.
Wet, soggy, tired but glad for the fun we had, we make our way back to Miami to dry off at our hotel.
Darryl Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved
Photos by Letty Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved
(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed) Years and years ago, I used to do a tour, strictly for family and friends, called the 'Death Tour' where we'd visit sites where the famous and infamous left this mortal coil. It was a Christmas Eve tradition, evolving from ways to keep everybody from getting bored until midnight, when we'd open presents.
I no longer do that, but today's chapter of our Florida adventures covers a stop that would have made the tour...
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South Beach is another of those Miami locations that's a bit harder to do via public transit. There is a bus which goes there from downtown, it would take a few transfers to get to it so it's not the easiest one to make. Especially since it goes right over the crowded MacArthur causeway, getting stuck in that traffic.
Instead, we book a ride on Lyft. It's doable if you have a light, folding wheelchair and can transfer into a car seat. We can do that with Tim, as we've practiced for emergencies without the chair before.
Now, we get taken directly to Lincoln Avenue, at the south end of South Beach, and don't have to worry about finding a place to park.
Lunch today is at a French place, La Provence, which is supposed to have some of the best croissants in the area. Actually, they're a bit heavier than I'd like and the place is buzzing...with flies. Seriously, they need the help of a pest control specialist here. Other than that, the food wasn't bad but nothing to go out of your way for.
Across to a Walgreen's to pick up a few supplies and then over to the water.
While Letty is off taking pictures, Tim and I strike up a conversation with another wheelchair user from Argentina who's here with his wife. She's out on the sand but he can't get his chair out there.
We do find some mats that let chair users go out to the beach but they don't get you too far.
He tells us about Argentina and it's accessibility (buses pretty good, trains not) and that Buenos Aires can be a bit dangerous.
Speaking of dangerous, it's been a bit over 20 years when the day got very dangerous for designer Gianni Versace. Across the street from us now is he mansion he lived in when he was alive.
On the morning of July 15, 1997, Versace was returning from his morning routine of grabbing something to read from the local newsstand and having a cup of coffee. As he approached the entrance of his house, Andrew Cunanan came up and gunned him down with a gun he'd stolen from a friend.
Now, it's an upscale hotel and restaurant.
We wonder if the hostess standing at the podium of knows she's standing on the spot where this fashion icon's life was taken from him.
Moving on to happier touring, we go to Mango's Tropical Cafe, which is more of a bar, really, to have a cool mojito.
Tim is happy to get his.
We're all happy as we cool off with this minty cocktail.
Another hour is spent enjoying the amazing art deco architecture on one side of Ocean Drive...
...and exploring the beach via the wheelchair mats on the other.
At the end of the day, we catch another Lyft ride back to the hotel.
Darryl Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved
Photos by Letty Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved
(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed) Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Diego, Phoenix, San Fransisco, Toronto, Cleveland, Detroit, Boston, Chicago, Chicago again, Pittsburgh, New York, New York again, Philadelphia, Seattle, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Denver, Oakland, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, and St. Petersburg.
That is our trail and our route, as best as I can remember. For the past decade and a half we have been on a quest to see every Major League Baseball stadium. There are 30 teams...29 in the U.S.A. and one in Canada. There are 24 outdoor stadiums, 6 with retractable roofs, and 1 indoor stadium. 28 feature natural grass, two use artificial grass. 20 are downtown stadiums while 10 are a bit more removed from their city centers. 15 play in the American League...where a designated hitter bats for the pitcher...and 15 in the National League where pitchers come up to bat like everyone else.
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Some are good, some are bad, and others are squarely in the middle. Most have great customer service while one wasn't so nice to us. And, at the end of it all, each one is unique and his it's own personality.
If you count that list of team cities at the top of this article, you'll notice there are 29. We have one more to go, tonight we will cross the last team off of our list as we go to see the Miami Marlins host the Los Angeles Dodgers.
After spending a mostly delightful afternoon in Little Havana, after a little rest we gear up for the game. When we arrived here last week to take our Bahamas cruise, we turned in the rental car and have been relying on public transit and Lyft while here in the city. That poses a bit of a quandary because Marlins Park, although near downtown, is not what I'd call a transit friendly stadium.
Pouring over Google Maps and local transit sites, we decided we'd take Miami's Metro...basically an elevated subway-like system similar to Chicago's...to the Civic Center station. This would put us about a mile north of the stadium where we could take a bus or one of Miami's trolleys.
Once we arrived at the station, we checked the online bus locators, which told us that it would be about 40 minutes before the next one arrived.
"It's not really that far, let's walk," my wife said.
A half hour and a gallon of sweat later, we arrive. The stadium still has about 20 minutes to go until the gates open. Just outside is a party tent called the Fifth Base. The stadium security guards tell us we should wait there. It's air conditioned and the beer is cheap.
Sounds good to me.
The a/c felt very good after that walk in Miami's hot and fetid air. The tall, ice cold Modelos at $6 also helped to take away the heat and to replenish all that we'd sweated off.
Inside, we find our seats near homebase after perusing the park's bobblehead museum, basically a large display case filled with hundreds of little bobblehead figures that are occasionally given away at sporting events. The shelves even vibrate so that the heads bobble.
It is kind of amazing we did find our seat, if indeed we did. We kind of took a guess. The section was right on the sign but none of the seats were numbered. Maybe if we could have found an usher nearby, we could have been sure, but none were to be found.
Then, there was the case of the t-shirt.
For background, about halfway through this project, Tim decided he wanted to buy a t-shirt from each park to commemorate it. That is usually accomplished by a quick visit to the team store after finding our seats.
In Miami, there was a store called "Team Store" behind our seats. It was about a quarter the size of any other team store we've seen and had a very paltry and generic selection of shirts (Tim likes to get one featuring the name of his favorite player on the team).
I asked the clerk in the store, "is this all you have? It seems very limited."
"There's a bigger store downstairs that has what you're looking for, it's directly beneath this one," he tells me.
Since it's kind of a pain to take Tim back downstairs, I ask him who he wants on his shirt and then walk down the stairs of our section towards the field, where a tunnel leads to the concourse below ours.
An usher (!) down there stops me. "May I see your tickets? Do you have tickets to the Diamond Club?"
I tell her no, I'm sitting a few rows up from where we're standing. I point to Tim and Letty to show her.
"I'm trying to get to the team store," I tell here.
"You need to have Diamond Club tickets."
Thinking she's misunderstanding me, I tell her what the clerk at the store by our seats said.
"You need to have Diamond Club tickets."
Now I'm thinking that I just can't go through the Diamond Club seats to get there so I ask in there's another way, "maybe if I go down the escalators behind our seats?"
"You need to have Diamond Club tickets."
I tell her I not trying to get into the Diamond Club, just the store.
"Sir, you need to have Diamond Club tickets just to get into the store."
"You've got to be kidding me," I tell her. "The Marlins don't want to sell souvenirs to their fans?"
"That's all I know, you need to have Diamond Club tickets to get into the store."
I left and went back to the clerk in the store near us and tell him what happened, "That's right, you need to have Diamond Club tickets to get in there."
I tell him again, "I cannot believe the team does not want to sell merchandise to it's fans. There's what...30 people sitting in the Diamond Club? That's enough to support the team store?"
Seeing my frustration, he walks Tim and I to guest relations and tells them what we're trying to do.
"You need to have Diamond Club tickets," I hear the guest relations person say.
I basically launch into the same spiel with her, she calls upstairs to the main office.
"What we can do is escort you downstairs. The head usher will have to sign your tickets, saying you can re-enter the stadium. You'll be escorted to the outside entrance of the store," where anybody can enter from the outside, "and then you'll need to go back through security and be escorted back to the elevator to return to your seats."
And, that is just what happened. We spent five minutes buying the shirt and a half hour negotiating with the powers that be just to make that happen.
Even a nearby security guard told me, "This team and management is the worst in the league."
Hard to disagree.
So, now, we can relax and enjoy the game. Which we do with very expensive snacks and beer.
It's a good game, the Marlins went on to beat the Dodgers 4-2. The crowd was very thin, so the noise level from the PA system and a roving band of drummers was very high trying to rally the crowd. It didn't work...even though their team was winning, the few people that were there were very quiet.
All in all, kind of a disappointing stadium to finish off our quest in. Probably should have made Tampa Bay's stadium the last one, it was a lot more fun, but it is what it is.
This massive undertaking, which overall was a great blast to accomplish, will finish not with a bang but a whimper.
Take heart, though, the rest of Miami is fantastic and we'll be experiencing more of it next time.
Darry Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved
Photos by Letty Musick
Copyright 2018 - All Rights Reserved
