March 23, 2015
Ft Lauderdale to South Miami
Our first big day and we were raring to go.
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Routing back south meant basically reversing Saturday's ride from the airport for at least the first eight miles. After navigating that, we turned east and headed for the beach (Hollywood Beach) to follow FL-A1A south to Miami. Before that could happen, we had the first of several encounters with Florida's coastal draw spans.
That was fine, and, after crossing, we cruised south to Miami, getting lunch at a Subway north of Miami Beach. In fact, we had trouble finding a place to eat since the road is split into one-way pairs. Since we were headed south, all of the businesses are located on the northbound roadway closest to the beach.
As we got deeper into Miami, the characteristic architecture of an earlier period was evident and I noted this cute marina building in a local park.
However, our route did not take us fully into South Beach where one can really get a fine show of the Art Deco style.
We crossed into downtown Miami on the Venetian Way causeway (after navigating around a construction zone and inadvertently stumbling onto Happy's Mother-in-Law's last condo in Miami). There is nothing special to say about downtown Miami, so I will leave it at that. We did enjoy the M-Path for a short distance and then hopped over to S Miami Avenue which eventually led to Old Cutler Road, which turned out to be a very busy road, probably because we arrived on that section of road late in the day and rush hour was underway. By the way, the Old Curler Trail is available along Old Cutler Road but is in such poor repair with multiple crossings that we gave up riding on it.
A nice part of the ride was through Coconut Grove where I stopped in front of a hotel to wait for Happy and was immediately offered assistance by the young valet for the Sonesta Hotel who graciously procured cold water for both of us. A nice welcome to Florida.
Today's ride: 52 miles (84 km)
Total: 60 miles (97 km)
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