We had a blast in Miami. It was definitely the right choice for traveling with our son. Bowie was a champ both ways on the airplane, which was the first victory of our vacation. The second victory was our awesome airbnb. We stayed in the Biscayne neighborhood, which is near Little Haiti and is in the process of being gentrified. I'm not here to expound on my opinions of gentrification but in this case it meant we were in a super colorful and exotic part of town where we also had quick access to Whole Foods, vintage shopping and a bunch of good places to eat. Our airbnb hosts welcomed us with wine and fresh fruit and it was an awesome duplex with absolutely everything we needed (including a washer/dryer and towels!)
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| Welcome gifts and letter from our hosts. |
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| Toys for Bowie in addition to a pack and play and high chair supplied by our airbnb hosts. |
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| Bowie's Miami hair was extra curly and awesome the whole trip. |
Another victory of our vacation was the AMAZING food. Cuban food was a favorite for all as well as fresh squeezed juice, freshly caught stone crab, key lime pie, French pastries and gourmet hotdogs.
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| Bowie rocking a banana shake, plantains and part of a medianoche sandwich at Three Palms Cuban Cafe. |
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| Cuban coffee and sandwiches. Damn straight. |
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| More Cuban coffee and for Bowie fresh squeezed mango juice at Café Versailles. |
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| Cortados will mess you up with caffeine! |
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| Gourmet hotdogs from Dogma. This one had potato chips and pineapple among other things... |
Bowie's clear favorite part of the trip was swimming in the ocean. Once he figured it out he was an ocean kamikaze. No fear and only eyes for getting out deep. He loved the waves and being held in a swimming position. I think we did well to get him swimming lessons for Christmas. We managed to swim every day. Our favorite beach was Bill Biggs state park. It was clean with great waves, a long white sand beach, a light house, minimal jelly fish and was warm.
The only bummer of our trip was the day we drove to the keys. It was bumper to bumper traffic the whole way and the drive took a little over twice what it normally does. Once we got to the keys we paid to enter a state park only to find out once we got in that it was full. We looked hard for a restaurant where we quick had some tropical drinks and sea food before high tailing it back to Miami. What a bummer.
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| Wild peacocks at the state park. Who knew? |
We rang in the new year by starting our day in South Beach exploring the art deco hotels. Afterwards we picked up stone crab and champagne and watched HBO Go at the airbnb. We were able to sneak down the block for some quick fantastic cocktails at a new Italian restaurant, too. Not too shabby.
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| Ringing in the new year with Italians in tuxedos. |
Here is Bowie looking extra cute. We called him Mister Miami.
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| Fun trip, but somebody was ready to go home. |
