Guy Brighton: MONDAY 29th DECEMBER : MIAMI ROAD TRIP PART 3: THROUGH ST. AUGUSTINE TO SOUTH BEACH MIAMI

MONDAY 29th DECEMBER : MIAMI ROAD TRIP PART 3: THROUGH ST. AUGUSTINE TO SOUTH BEACH MIAMI

I looked out of the window from the Charleston hotel room – it was overcast – perfect for driving the length of Florida. It was also perfect to match The Lady’s health. She’d been throwing up all night and we suspected the tuna before she sent it back for some more cooking.

After squeezing a bit of coffee and water into the Lady, we left a little later than expected just before 11am and took the I17 down to get back onto the I95. As we headed towards the south, we passed dense woodland that would suddenly open up to vast brown swampy ‘fields’ with coal black rivers running through them. The scenery stayed much the same for the rest of South Carolina and Georgia. I loved it, the Lady felt a little queasy....

The drive through Florida lasted an ion. Somehow, you fool yourself that Miami is closer than it actually is. In fact, it is actually at the other end of the state!!

We stopped off at the old town of St Augustine. The highway took us into the heart of the Spanish colonial town and we parked just on the river by the Oldest House (in where?). After a potter around the Lady asked the tourist office where the locals ate. The Tourist Informant was dumbstruck – he didn’t know – certainly not in the centre.

We managed to find a seafood shack the other side of the bridge and ordered a Blue Plate dish (a scheme to encourage old people to eat out between 4 and 6: half the food, half the price – and in this case, half the quality).

Feeling a little queasy myself after the fried shrimp, we got back onto the I95 - We made South Beach by 11pm and found the small, smart art-deco hotel, the Greenview, easily enough. Somehow I mucked up the reservation – they thought I had only booked it for one night and I thought two – but my email reservation slip said one too… damn! They’ll know if there’s a room in the morning.

The next conundrum: do I tell The Lady or do I just hope they tell me we had a room in the morning. All things considered, I chose the lesser pain: I told her. I think she was too tired to react. Thank you, God.

We took a stroll along the busy pedestrians stretch of restaurants on Lincoln Road (very continental) then wandered over to Ocean Drive.

On the way there I couldn’t believe how many art deco buildings there were. And they were beautiful in their bright neon lights. Somehow it worked in Miami.
The hotels on Ocean Drive looked even more spectacular....
but I can’t say much that for the quality of bars – we were transported straight to Cancun or Lanzerote – drunk people going from techno bar to techno bar avoiding sad guitar playing bands and PR girls touting their bars.