Miami

In April while progress on our house was at a standstill and our stress levels were through the roof, Alison needed something to take her mind off of the lack of progress so she informed me she booked a trip to Miami. My first question was if she checked the baseball schedule. She had not, but we looked together and not only were the Marlins in town, but they were playing the Yankees. It was meant to be. That is how our August trip to Miami came to be. 

We took the red eye to Miami on Friday night. Alison likes to say we don’t take red-eye flights, but we do if it makes sense - meaning it is cheap and helps us avoid days off work. This is already our second red-eye flight this year. Red-eye flights are brutal, but we got upgraded to first class which made this flight as bearable as possible. Alison and I got on board and immediately fell asleep. We landed in Miami at 6 am. We headed right to our hotel. We are staying at the Gale South Beach. It is a boutique hotel in a really great location. We didn’t expect that they would have any rooms available at 7 am, but to our surprise, they did have a room and we were able to check-in. We went right to bed and slept until noon. After we got up we grabbed some tacos for lunch and headed to South Beach. 

Our hotel has an agreement with a nearby hotel, Shelbourne, to share their beach club. We got a couple of beach chairs and an umbrella, which greatly enhanced our beach day. We lounged, spent time in the ocean, and ate food on the beach. South Beach is a beautiful white sand beach. It ranks right up there with the best beaches we have visited. We spent the rest of our day enjoying the beach. Days that start with red eyes are not bad when you end up lounging on the beach. 

At 6 pm they took down our beach chairs so it was time to head back to the hotel. We weren’t really hungry, but there was a bar in the hotel basement. There was a jazz band performing tonight we enjoyed the music and drinks. Then we hit up the hotel restaurant for dessert and a nightcap before calling it a night. 

On Sunday we ventured away from South Beach to LoanDepot Park to see the Yankees take on the Marlins. LoanDepot Park is an exciting ballpark. It is located in a neighborhood near Little Havana. It has a retractable roof, but it was a hot and humid Florida day so the roof was closed, which made the game that much more enjoyable. Despite the closed roof, there are numerous large windows around the stadium that ensure the stadium has plenty of natural light. We really found we enjoyed LoanDepot Park. They had great food options and a fun atmosphere. It was a beautiful place to watch a ball game. 

The Yankees have not met expectations this season. The team has struggled, especially of late, and they face increasingly long odds of making the postseason. Despite the struggles, this game seemed like a good opportunity for the Yankees. Gerrit Cole was pitching and has been excellent for the Yankees. He continued that trend today, he labored early but gave the Yankees 6 innings of 2-run baseball. The offense picked him up too. By the time he left the game in the 6th inning the Yankees were up 7-2, headlined by a 2-run shot by Anthony Volpe and an unlikely home run from backup catcher Rortvedt. It seemed like the Yankees would cruise to an easy victory. Alas, this team has a way of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Clay Holmes came in to close out the 9th with a 4-run lead. A few walks a couple of hits and a costly two-run error by Holmes himself and the lead was down cut in half with Miami’s best hitter Luis Arraez at the plate. How you don’t intentionally walk Arraez there I will never understand. The Yankees did not walk him and he hit a triple and the game was tied with one out and a runner on third. Boone took out Holmes, but it was too little too late and the Marlins would walk it off. It was a very 2023 Yankees type of game. 

After the game, we walked around Little Havana. While it was a hot and humid day, it was worth braving the heat. First, we headed to the Bay of Pigs monument and then took a self-guided food tour of Little Havana. We started with a delectable fruit tart and a Cuban coffee for Alison. Next, I really wanted a Cubano. It was a long walk to the place that supposedly has the best Cubano in Miami, but it was 100% worth it. The Cubano from Sanguich was unbelievable. So good. It exceeded my very high expectations. Then we found a place to get mojitos before heading back to South Beach. 

Tonight we went for an evening walk around South Beach to explore the area around our hotel.  Even though it doesn’t really cool down after the sun sets it did feel much better than when walking around Little Havana. We wandered south and then walked back along the beach and got drinks and dessert at the hotel. 

Monday was a total beach day. The weather was beautiful. It was sunny and warm and the ocean was amazing. We spent hours floating in the ocean and the rest of our hours laying in beach chairs. It was divine. The warm ocean waters soaked all of our stresses away. 

On Monday night we went to dinner at Smith & Wollensky. It is a steakhouse at the southern tip of Miami Beach. They sat us at a table overlooking the ocean. It was an excellent dining experience. The food and service were both top-notch. I would highly recommend it. After dinner, we went for a walk along a patch behind Smith & Wollensky. We found a nice place to sit where we could see the lights of Miami in the distance. We also watched a distant thunderstorm. It was cool watching the lightning play across the clouds. 

Tuesday was another beach day. It started out with gloriously sunny weather, but by the afternoon a storm was blowing in. It was about time for us to leave anyway so we left the beach and found a place to eat. We ended up at a Cuban restaurant on Española Way. We shared a couple of platters of Cuban food for lunch. It was tasty. After lunch, we went for another walk exploring South Beach. We found a place called the Baked Bear that sold custom ice cream sandwiches. You choose the cookies and ice cream and they smash it all together. We had Funfetti and Snickerdoodle cookies with two flavors of ice cream we can’t even remember the names of, but it was all delicious. 

After our treat, we meandered back to our hotel to retrieve our bags and head to the airport to come home. 

This trip to Miami was exactly what we needed right now. For four days the stress and worries of everyday life melted away. All we focused on was being together and having fun. We loved South Beach and I am sure we will be back.