Today began with bacon donuts in Naples, and ended with beer in Miami Beach. It involved airboats, alligators – both viewing them and eating them – getting very wet in the rain and then exploring Calle Ocho and Wynwood in Miami.
On Thursday I'm looking for more Miami tips – particularly places to eat and some less-frequently visited areas, perhaps.
Here's a video review of day three. Goodnight.
Wynwood came recommended by Richard Cole on yesterday's blog. It's noted for its graffiti, and I headed straight to Wynwood Walls, a little park-cum-outdoor eating space with beautiful street art all along the warehouse type buildings that surround it.
The main area for graffiti seems to be off 2nd Ave between 22nd St and 25th street, and there were a few other people pottering around looking at the walls.
Wynwood is a tricky place to describe. The restaurants and bars I saw - there's maybe six or seven spots in the neighbourhood - had a grungy, cool vibe, but they were interspersed with high end furniture and design shops, giving a slightly strange feel to the area... half way between hipster/artist cool and moneyed cool.
Anyway Wood Tavern looked a very appealing bar - big open entrance, dark interior, and so it proved. They had a good selection of beer, which was all I was interested in at this point, and I had a can of Dale's pale ale, which has nothing to do with Florida (it's from Colorado) but is a personal favourite.
The bar area was pretty small but through the back was a second bar and extensive seating area, where a bingo round was taking place. The participants were mostly in their 20s, cool looking, and drunk. The bingo called was getting exasperated with one table in particular, where one woman appeared to be trying to com her way to a full house.
Also out the back of Wood Tavern: a 1960s Mercury Commuter estate (think chrome and space-age styling) that had been converted into a taco truck. The tacos, served by a friendly woman called Sury, were $1 and delicious.
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Exploring Wynwood
Adam took some time to explore Wynwood, an eclectic, 'modern-art Lego village' district known for its street art.
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Bienvenido a Miami
I made my way to Miami, in buckets of rain all the way, and went straight to Little Havana at 8th Street (Calle Ocho) and 15th Avenue.
On Twitter @AngusTCat, @discoverusaUK and @ariellec had instructed me to head to the neighbourhood.
@adamgabbatt I grew up in Miami. Best places there: Crandon Park Beach, Greynolds Park, Fontainebleau hotel, Calle Ocho and Lincoln Road
— Ivy(@AngusTCat) April 30, 2013
Upon parking I was immediately waved into the Cuban Cigar Corporation by a woman called Dunia who was sitting outside.
I know nothing about cigars but happily obliged. Dunia showed me how
she was keeping some of the cigars moist, in a wooden casket with a
glass of brandy and two glasses of water inside. She then flogged me
three cigars for the price of two and insisted I smoke one there and
then.
As I mentioned, I'm not a cigar connoisseur, but Dunia took pity and
showed me the correct way to a) hold the cigar (two fingers and a
thumb) and b) light and smoke the cigar. She did not however, teach me
how to look cool with the cigar, as I think is evident from the
pictures.
If you go to Little Havana you've got to go to Azucar Ice Cream @adamgabbatt :)
— Arielle Castillo (@ariellec) May 1, 2013
Post-cigar I pottered a few doors down from Dunia's place to
Exquisitor restaurant, which I was horrified to learn sold big Cuban
cigars for $1.25 each. (I had just paid $20 for 3, although Dunia did
intimate that they were good ones).
You can just walk up to the window at Exquisitor and order a Cuban
style coffee for 75 cents, which I did. It was a blow-your-socks-off
Espresso-style thing, which went very well with my still smouldering
cigar.
After stubbing out my cigar with some difficulty (I put it out in a
small puddle onto of a trash can) I then went right across the street
to Azucar ice cream company, a specific recommendation of @ariellec. A chocolate-covered waffle cone with three scoops was $5.50, and had the bonus of ridding my mouth of the taste of the cigar. One of the scoops was labelled "Elvis" and was peanut butter and banana flavour. I tried it. Not for me. The mint chocolate chip was great though.
On the way back to the car I looked in at Maximo Gomez Park, where
mostly old men were playing dominoes and chess. I thought I might be
called over for a game, as I was still carrying my cigar at this
point, but it didn't happen. Possibly they saw that one end of it was
soaking wet and noticed all the ash on my shorts from trying to stub
it out.
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Day three, the journey so far: Bacon donuts, gators and gator's tails
Adam made sure his day got off to a supercharged start by combining breakfast and sugar-rush in the form of a bacon donut at Peace, Love and Little Donuts in Naples.
Next stop: Everglade City. After driving the single-lane Tamiami Trail, with its signposted warnings of Florida panthers, he headed to Captain Doug's in Everglade City to sign up for an airboat ride. His six-seater airboat - piloted by Captain Dwain Daniels III no less - zipped through the soupy air and tangled mangroves of the swamplands. He spotted two gators hungrily eying up a gaze of raccoons, and caused permanent damage to his inner ear, before beating a retreat from an approaching storm.
Next stop: Big Cypress Gallery in Ochopee, where Adam was impressed by the large format black and white photographs of Clyde Butcher. He was equally impressed by a close-up with a slumbering gator in the creek outside. He got even closer at the Miccosukee Restaurant in Shark Valley – where he ate a gator's tale.
Now: he's on the road to Miami with no fixed plans and nowhere to stay, other than a vague idea to get a room at the Colony Hotel. So, make his day, and point him in the right direction @Adam Gabbatt #roadtriptips
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Snaps, gator tails and heading for Miami
Heading east along the Tamiami trail I stopped in at the Big Cypress Gallery in Ochopee, as recommended by @01steven on Twitter.
It's a showcase of photographer Clyde Butcher's work, set just off the trail around 20 miles east of Everglades City.
Butcher eschews digital methods and takes all his pictures using large format cameras, which create up to 12x20 negatives. He then develops these by hand in his 1,600-square-foot darkroom in Venice. Butcher's black and white pictures are of landscapes around south Florida and beyond, with incredible detail due to the size of the original sheets.
The largest piece in there is a photo of Cash Creek, Florida, roughly 10ft by 4ft. Butcher wasn't in when we stopped by - off on another photography expedition - but Brian was very helpful and chatty. Some of his works are for sale in the gallery, too.
The gallery is right next to a little creek, and right by the side was sat an alligator, bold as brass. I got within about 10ft of it when I realised it probably wasn't going to move, and backed off. There's a $100 fine for feeding them, by the way. Although why you would want to is beyond me.
As we hung out at the gallery, the storm that we narrowly avoided in Everglades City caught up with us, with dramatic lightning and thunder. It drove the alligator into the water and led us to drive on towards Shark Valley, where I'm going to eat alligator tail at Miccosukee Restaurant.
Big Cypress Gallery, archive of Everglades photographer Clyde Butcher
Adam's close encounter with an alligator... he is actually frozen with fear
But this is not about revenge... Miccosukee restaurant, just before Shark Valley and around 20 miles east of the Big Cypress Gallery, came recommended by no one, but I was really hungry so I stopped.
I had battered gator tail for the first time. It was quite fatty and chewy, although this could have been particular to this restaurant as the gator came only barely warm. What Miccosukee does have going for it is that it's next to a creek where alligators regularly swim past. There's a certain sense of one-up-manship that comes from eating alligator in front of an alligator. A great way to mark that classic battle between man and beast.
As I sat in the restaurant neglecting my chewy gator tail it began to absolutely pour down outside, prompting a dash to the car and a cancellation of plans for a bike ride. With outdoors things off for the moment, I'm heading over to Miami.
If the weather clears then the street art and hipster vibes of Wynwood have been suggested by Richard Cole in the comments, while @ariellec on Twitter has directed me to Little Havana for ice cream. I'm going to try and stay at the iconic Colony Hotel, as per @hangingwithmr's tip a couple of days ago.
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Thanks to greensox for thinking of Adam's appetite with this tip for Joe's Stone Crab restaurant in South Beach when he reaches Miami. It started as a small lunch top counter in 1913, back when Miami was still a quiet backwater town, and served fish sandwiches. These days they serve all sorts of seafood as well as the stone crabs - and they round it off with Joe’s famous Key Lime Pie.
Everglades by kayak
Top tip from LouiseKirk for another watery expedition and gator-watching opportunity in the southern part of the Everglades
Take a full day eco tour trip with Garl's Coastal Kayaking when you get down to the southern part of the Everglades. They're based out of Key Largo, but they also meet people at Robert's Fruit Stand southeast of Homestead near the Ingraham Hwy entrance to the park.
The full day starts at around noon, and includes a couple of nature walks into mature hammocks, freshwater kayaking with alligators, and a sunset kayak in the ocean off the southern tip of the Everglades, with lemon sharks feeding in the shallow water. Then you do a night walk to look for alligators by flashlight. It's definitely a full day, even without an early start!
Gators versus raccoons
I've just got back from the airboat trip through the Everglades, guided by the capable hands of Captain Dwain Daniels III.
We managed to get on the last trip for a while, as there's a heavy thunder storm coming. The airboats are metal, so you don't want to be on the water when lightning strikes.
The first thing you notice about an airboat is that is it very, very loud. Even with the ear protectors they provide, the noise of the engine, the air blades, and the wind howling past is incredible. If you dare to take the protectors off there is just a continuous howl.
The boats are designed to just skim the surface of the water - the six-seater boat I was in had just a 6.5-inch "draft", meaning only half a foot of it dipped beneath the surface. The boats were originally developed so fisherman could skim across wet mud and even dry land to get to fertile territory.
We saw two alligators during the ride - one of which was lingering ominously beside a family of raccoons that Captain Dwain stopped to feed. Both alligators didn't seem at all perturbed by the racket of the airboat - ours had a 365hp engine. Our captain was the third Captain Dwain of his family, and the sixth generation of fishermen in this area.
I asked him if he'd ever had an alligator mount the boat and stage an attack, much to the alarm of my fellow passengers, and he said he had not.
Captain Dwain has, however, saved a 90-year-old woman's life by killing an alligator that had attacked her in a Florida canal.
"I was driving by, and I saw her getting dragged into the water," he said as we stopped on the boat. "I had a rifle. I killed it with the rifle."
He then dragged the woman to safety. The story was splashed across news websites for days.
The storm is coming
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Calling all Miami experts
After all these swamps, Adam is heading to Miami, where he plans to spend the night. We've already compiled a list of 10 budget hotels and B&Bs in Miami, so Adam is spoilt for choice. If you only had one night in Miami, which one of these would you choose? Or do you have another reasonably priced favourite?
Not far outside Naples is the Audubon Society refuge, where you can get into the glades on a boardwalk, and get close to animals and birds.
Shame we missed this one mikedow, sounds great but it arrived just as Adam got to Everglade City for his airboat ride
Airboat boy
If you're heading to Florida but won't have time to get down to the Everglades, another good tip we've received on GuardianWitness is for the Orlando Wetlands Park. Nothing Mickey Mouse about this.
Swampy country
Gator aid
Thanks to mojoangel for providing the soundtrack to Adam's airboat ride. Top tuneage!
Molly Hatchet's "Gator Country" is surely the tune for this article.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmUeQ-o7n1c
A stonking slice of hard Southern Rock with guitar overload. Mighty.
Stormy weather
Captain Dwain reckons we're gonna get a thunderstorm while out on the
airboat. It's gonna be a big one, he says. Possibly lightning. I've
got a waterproof poncho though so what could go wrong?
Airboat selfie #roadtriptips twitter.com/AdamGabbatt/st…
— Adam Gabbatt (@AdamGabbatt) May 1, 2013
Central Florida is known as Lightning Alley for all its storms and is said to be the lightning capital of the US.
Jason Weingart, a storm chaser, has been in touch to explain why:
The biggest factor that contributes to all of our storms is the geography of our state. We are on a peninsula, which provides surfaces boundaries, known as the east and west coast sea breezes. Storms often occur along the boundaries and especially when they collide, ie almost every summer afternoon. It's also very hot and humid here for much of the year, which contributes to instability, which is like fuel for thunderstorms.
Jason has made this film to show Lightning Alley in action:
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Everglades City
Everglades City doesn't look like somewhere you'd really want to stay,
but it seems to be a good spot for airboating. It's a small town
really, with motels and homes on stilts located off each side of one
main road.
There are airboat signs everywhere here, so without a firm
recommendation I pulled up at one that had the term "captain" in the
title: "Captain Doug's".
It's $40 for an hour long ride on a six-seater airboat. We're setting
off shortly from a little inlet in Everglades City, and we end up
going through tunnels of foliage and between trees and the like,
according to the signage. Our driver will be Captain Dwain.
The drive along Tamiami trail was largely uneventful, a single-lane
road with greenery on each side. There were a lot of state prisoners
at work cleaning up and trimming bushes, with orange signs pointing
out that they were incarcerated.
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The smallest post office in the US would have been worth a look. Apparently, its post mark is quite the collector's item.
Unfortunately, the tip from a reader came just a little too late and we'd already moved on.
On the plus side, it was sent in via GuardianWitness, so we received a nice pic anyway.
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One thing I would love to do, but probably don't have time, is take up angelita's suggestion in the comments yesterday.
She said I should hire a jetski off the coast here, which would be amazing. The website she suggests hires them out for half a day, a full day or a week. Maybe next time.
To burn off those calories and really see the best of the Gulf coast beaches you should rent a jet ski from rentaseadoo.com. They let you take the jet skis anywhere on the water you want between Sanibel and Marco Island, so you can ride between the Fort Myers, Sanibel and Naples beaches, have a great time and see dolphins and manatees as you go. Their skis are super-charged and really fast -so fun.
Breakfast is served – and it's doughnuts or doughnuts
On Twitter I had a suggestion to try "Peace, Love and Little Donuts", which was described as a "drive-thru" doughnut place.
I'm here right now. It was a little hard to find as it is tacked into a BP garage, but it's worth it. It's at 2201 Tamiami Trail. The fare is exclusively doughnut-based. There are about 15 different types on offer, including the "maple bacon donut".
I'm eating the bacon one right now (pictured above, centre-right). It's actually not too bad, but I don't think I'll be repeating the experience.
Anyway, four donuts and a coffee: $8. There are a couple of tables outside if you don't want to stuff your face in the car, but bear in mind that you are eating next to a busy road and a gas station, so it's not the most relaxed spot.
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Waking up in Naples
Not a bad start to the day. This was taken on my morning walk to the beach in Naples. I'm now heading off to follow a tip from a reader on where to eat breakfast.
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Another great start to the day thanks to Miami Nice blogger Patricia. Some great tunes from the Deep Down blues of Muddy Waters to the eye-watering falsetto of the Bee Gees' Jive Talkin'- which was originally called Drive Talking and was about their daily drive across the causeway from Biscayne Bay to the Criteria Studios in Miami. Spam Allstars crop up yet again - making them the most played Florida band this week - and it's always good to hear the classic Walk on the Wild Side. Enjoy - and remember, you can share your Sunshine State sounds via Spotify.
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Day three begins ...
Morning! Yesterday was a lot of fun. I learnt a lot about sponges and subsequently bought a $10 sponge that I don't really have any use for; I sought sharks' teeth (unsuccessfully); and I splashed about in what I later learnt were shark-infested waters. Although only small ones apparently, so I would have lived in any case.
Today I'm driving through, and stopping in, the Everglades national park. We're taking the Tamiami trail, as suggested by reader Muratnal.
Via Twitter, @01steven said it's worth checking out a photographer's gallery on the trail itself, Clyde Butcher's Big Cypress Gallery, so I hope to call in there, too. It has "amazing Everglades photos," says Steven.
@GraemeBandeira said we should stop at Cypress national reserve on the trail and get an airboat.
@imagardner2 suggested kayaking, which sounds fantastic, but is there a particular place to do it? I've also heard tell of bike riding, which I'm keen on, so guidance on that would be good.
Importantly, I'm hoping to see alligators. Although I'm probably not going to wrestle one, as my colleague Matt Seaton suggested in a tip – which may be his ploy to kill me off so I don't sit near him in the office anymore.
Everglades aside, a breakfast spot in or around Naples would be splendid, too. And come Wednesday night I'll be needing a hotel in Miami.
I'll leave you with a video recap of Tuesday's happenings. Here's to day three ...
When you get to Miami you just have to go to Joe's Stone Crab in South Beach, you are just in time before the end of the season which runs to May15th. It isn't cheap but it would be a crime not to go.