Posting has been slow recently because we’ve been stuck on island time in the Florida Keys for most of January. This picture (one of my favorites from our trip so far) was taken from our bedroom window in Grassy Key. It’s hard to get motivated when just sitting here is so rewarding. I imagine we’ll have more to say on Miami at some point. But at the moment I have more pressing matters to address; like finding my lost shaker of salt.
South Beach beckoned, and we heeded the call–after stopping for lunch al fresco at the French-inspired eatery La Sandwicherie–during our first Miami outing. The mythic stretch of sand and much-hyped celebrity playground was a nice but pretty much regular beach. No star sightings, just a lot of tourists like us enjoying the sun and surf.
We found intriguing scenery in north Miami at the Cloisters of the Ancient Spanish Monastery, which made a picturesque backdrop for Brian to try out his brand-new, fancy camera.
The church was constructed in Spain in the 12th century and, in 1925, purchased by William Randolph Hearst and shipped to the U.S. in 11,000 wooden crates. They languished in a Brooklyn, New York, warehouse for 26 years, until a buyer came along and had the cloisters reassembled in Miami. Like a giant jigsaw puzzle, each numbered stone was placed in its original location.
I don’t recall hearing “Glory Days” playing anywhere in the Kennedy Space Center, but Bruce’s little ditty about geriatrics remembering their prime could be the theme song for the place. It shouldn’t be that way. This is the departure hub for all U.S. manned space flight. You’d expect its visitor’s center to be an exciting showcase for NASA’s visionary projects that are pushing the boundaries of human capability and turning science fiction into fact. But instead, we’re treated to exhibit after exhibit of forty year old accomplishments. The place is mostly a tribute to the Apollo and Saturn rocket program, which, in case anyone is interested, ended in 1975.
One imagines that when Eugene Cernan left the lunar surface in 1972 he fully expected that in the coming decades we’d make the moon our bitch. He had every reason to. In the prior ten years we vaulted from an embarrassingly earth-bound rocket program to playing golf on the moon. If the same rate of progress held through the succeeding decades, today we’d be fouling its surface with upscale condominiums and using it as a trampoline for jumping to Mars and deeper space. Instead, we never returned. Nor did we go anywhere else, for that matter. Sure, everyone got excited for a couple of days when we landed a glorified Roomba on Mars to vacuum some space dirt, but as far as heroic space exploration, we’ve done basically nothing in my lifetime. And as much as the Kennedy Space Center serves as a rightful tribute to the heroes of the Apollo program, it also stands as a depressing reminder of how little we’ve done since.
Apparently there is snow in every state except Florida today. Even Hawaii is said to have had flurries. Meanwhile, we dropped about fifteen degrees from yesterday’s low 80’s into the 60’s today. And the wind picked up quite a bit, which made bicycling this morning a little more difficult; not as difficult as shoveling snow, of course, but the weather affects us all.
One thing I’ve noticed this year is how much more quickly winter seems to be passing by. It’s already mid-January. Where does the time go?
Everywhere Once 
