June 25, 2019: The Dior Exhibit at the DMA
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It's been a busy Spring, but before it gets too hot and Fred needs to stay home to make sure things get watered, we are going to take our third trip down to Florida.

Getting to Fort Lauderdale

If you've been through more than a year or two of this photo album, you are undoubtedly familiar with our route to Florida. Years ago we used to fly, but that has gotten to be such a hassle (and a good deal more expensive) that now we drive. This allows us to take all kinds of things with us- including, on this trip, our two youngest cats, Bob and Cole. Both of them are good travelers, and we thought they should keep each other company. Bob, for example, will come out of his carrier every hour or so and walk around the car and sit up front for a while. But then he goes right back in and curls up. Cole stays out of his own carrier more; he usually curls up behind my seat where I usually make a flat space on top of my computer and duffel for him. I like it when they come up front, and it is especially nice when they will stay in one lap or the other for a while. As the driver, I'm OK with that; I just try to ignore them and concentrate on the road.

The trip is routine; we stop at the same places to eat and to stay- almost without exception. And it's an easy route, too. Getting out of Dallas is easy if a bit congested, sometimes. We usually leave about nine-thirty, and by ten or so are on I-20 heading east towards Shreveport. We usually turn southeast on I-49 about one in the afternoon, reaching Lafayette and I-10 east along about three-thirty. Baton Rouge can be very slow if we don't get through there by four-fifteen or so, and then it is another 90 minutes to get across Louisiana to the Mississippi border.

The Mississippi River Bridge at Baton Rouge is one of the most interesting highway features on the way to Florida. (There are really only three other interesting highway features on the whole trip- the 30-mile bridge across Henderson Swamp and the Atchafalaya Basin, the tunnel under Mobile Bay, and the beautiful bridge that takes I-295 across the St. Johns River west of Jacksonville.)

Unfortunately, the design of the approaches and exits from the Baton Rouge bridge tends to cause massive traffic jams. Today we were lucky, and traffic moved relatively smoothly.

From Baton Rouge and the Mississippi River, it takes us another hour and a half to get across Louisiana to the Mississippi border. The trips across Mississippi and Alabama are an hour each, so we are heading east from Mobile about six-thirty or seven. This puts us north of Pensacola right about dinnertime about eight. After dinner, we have now developed the habit of staying near Pensacola so we don't have to do a lot of driving at night. We have two hotels here to choose from; this time we've chosen the La Quinta motel about ten miles east of where we have dinner.

Cole and I in the La Quinta

We usually get away from the hotel in Pensacola about nine or so for the 350-mile drive to Jacksonville, which we usually reach about one in the afternoon. Then we take I-295 around Jacksonville to the south, going through Orange Park. This 14-mile stretch is kind of neat, mostly because of the long bridge that crosses the St. Johns River as it opens out into a large lake southwest of the city. (It narrows as it approaches and flows around downtown Jacksonville to eventually empty into the Atlantic.)

I-295 connects up with I-95 south of the city and we simply take that south for another kind of boring 300 miles down to Fort Lauderdale. This is another boring part of the drive, but it gets us to the condo around 5PM, depending on traffic in Fort Lauderdale on I-95 (which can be horrendous).

We unloaded everything at the condo, got Bob and Cole situated (and fed) and the laptops all set up, and then retired to the dock for a celebratory frozen drink. Then, as is our custom, we headed down to the Floridian Restaurant for dinner. I wish we had transporter technology, but the drive is not a hard one- although sections of it can be boring.

We have been here to Florida so many times that we have pretty much photographed everything worthwhile anywhere nearby. The pictures we take now are just candid shots around the condo, at the dock or perhaps at an Art Fair or other event that occurs while we are here. So I've begun the practice of just grouping the pictures for these Florida trips by topic.

Bob and Cole in Fort Lauderdale

We have had the cats with us so often that taking picture after picture of them, cute as they can be, doesn't seem to hold the allure that it might have had the first couple of times they were here with us. So out of all the pictures we did take, I've selected just two representative ones to include here.

Every morning, as soon as we are up, the sliding window in the living room gets opened, and the cats can't wait to jump up on the sill to come down to the opening to sniff the outside air and listen to the sounds. And they continue to do this so long as the window is opened.

Bob, and to a lesser extent, Cole seem to gravitate to places that we sit, or clothes that we might have tossed on the bed, as spots for a nap. Bob favors the seat of my recumbent bike, where I've placed an additional cushion covered with an old towel.

An Excursion to Miami on the Brightline

For our last few visits, Ron Drew has been keen for the four of us (he and Jay, Fred and I) to make a day of it and either take the new high-speed Brightline to either West Palm Beach or Miami. Ron wanted us to try it, but plans hadn't seem to work out until this time. So we bought tickets online and on Sunday the 19th Ron and Jay picked us up an took us over to the Brightline Station in downtown Fort Lauderdale for our excursion down to Miami.

Virgin Trains USA, formerly and currently operating trains as Brightline, is an express inter-city rail system, owned and operated by Fortress Investment Group, with Virgin Group providing branding rights and acting as a minority investor. Currently, the company operates a single service between Miami and West Palm Beach with a single intermediate stop at Fort Lauderdale.

Virgin Trains USA began operating in January 2018. As of November 2019, it is the only privately owned and operated intercity passenger railroad in the United States. Earlier this year, Virgin Trains announced that it had secured funding to extend its route to Orlando, Florida. The extension will consist of 40 mi of new track allowing for speeds of 125 mph. The project will also include upgrading 129 mi of existing track to allow for passenger trains to operate at 110 mph. When completed in 2022, it will be the only higher-speed passenger rail, known to most people as High Speed Rail (HSR), operated in the United States.

In 2012, Florida East Coast Industries announced plans to operate passenger rail service between Miami and Orlando; the cost was projected to be $1.5 billion. In March 2013, All Aboard Florida applied for a $1.6 billion Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing loan, and in late 2014, for a $1.75 billion private activity bond allocation, the proceeds used to repay the original loan.

When Environmental Impact Statements were submitted and approved in 2015, site work began at the Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach stations; right of way improvements along stretches of the corridor were also undertaken. On November 10, 2015, All Aboard Florida announced that the service would operate under the name Brightline. Service between Miami and West Palm Beach began on May 19, 2018.

At the Fort Lauderdale Station

We took so many pictures on and around the Brightline System and I need to break them down a bit. I'll do that by having a section for pictures taken at the Fort Lauderdale station, a section for those taken at the Miami Central station, and, finally, a section for the pictures taken on the train itself.

At left is a route map of the Brightline, both current and proposed. We will be starting at the Fort Lauderdale station, going over the New River on the railroad bridge you've seen in many, many pictures taken as we walked along the RiverWalk, and under two freeways. There will be a separate branch that will go to the Port of Miami (where all the cruise ships are). We go under another expressway and then arrive at the Miami Central Station.

Looking at the map at right, you can see that the Fort Lauderdale station is really just an easy walk from Riverview Gardens. But Ron picked us up because they would be returning from Miami earlier than us, and wanted to be parked near the train so that they could head on home. When we arrive back a little later, we'll just walk home- fifteen minutes, more or less.

To describe the Fort Lauderdale Station, it might be helpful if you could see it in aerial view.

Situated just north of Broward Boulevard and one block west of the central bus depot, the station comprises two buildings. One is the parking structure which is not actually connected to the main building. It is necessary to park, go down to ground level, and then walk over to the main building. After we parked Ron's car, and walked over to the elevators, I got a nice picture of Fred with the main building in the background.

Crossing over to the main building, we passed a group of "solar trees", which are actually generating power for the station. Heading into the station, we found that on the ground floor are the ticketing machines and some roving clerks to help passengers as needed. The ticketing lobby was nicely done, and there were some mural wall maps of the three stations currently open.

Once you have a ticket, you can use it to access the escalators lead up and to the east to cross over the southbound track and into the platform structure. On the upper level are waiting lounges and some kiosks selling coffee, drinks, and a small selection of food items. From this level there are escalators down to the platforms. You can go down these escalators when your train is announced, at which time the scanner at the top of the appropriate stair will scan your ticket and allow you to descend to the platform. This system keeps the platforms relatively uncrowded, as only those persons actually boarding a particular train are allowed down when it arrives. This upper level area was great for picture taking; here are some of those pictures:

This picture of the four of us was actually taken down in the ticketing area by an obliging Brightline employee.

Taken from the waiting area, this looks southeast towards Riverview Gardens, which is of course hidden by the tall buildings of downtown Fort Lauderdale and the residential towers along the RiverWalk.

This picture looks north at the tracks to Palm Beach- about fifty miles from here. Notice the large mural on the facing wall of the building in the distance just right of the tracks. Click on it and I'll show you Fred's closeup of it.

This view, taken on our return in late afternoon, also looks north, and you can see that there is a southbound train currently at the station.

Ron's been talking about this project for a few years; there were a number of obstacles in the way, one of which was how the Florida East Coast Railway's freight trains were going to share the tracks with the Brightline trains.

There are actually three tracks here at the station, and you can see them out the window in my view at left which looks south out of the Fort Lauderdale station. You can see that just south of the station, one of the tracks splits, and that track (the one on the left) goes around the station and continues north. (You can see in one of the pictures above that north of the station there are three tracks, although I assume that two of them come back together at some point. Actually, I know they must, because I've crossed those tracks north of Sunrise quite often, and there are only two tracks at that point.

So, I can only imagine that the Brightline has to be precisely scheduled so that it never interferes with a freight train. I do know that, from experience, there are only three or four freight trains a day (although there may be more after midnight when the Brightline isn't running), so perhaps having the computers work out the schedules for the two isn't all that difficult. And of course, there is the three-track section from here up to Sunrise (more than a mile) where the two trains could pass each other.

So sharing the tracks of the FEC (Florida East Coast) railway might not be as complicated as I might have thought.

On the Brightline Train

Our own train to Miami arrived and departed right on time. We'd reserved seats online, which was good, as the car we were in was pretty full. There are classes of service; we had opted for the promotional "One Year Anniversary" fare of just $5 each way. We took quite a few pictures while riding on the Brightline- most of them on the way down to Miami. Not all of our pictures turned out well, but I want to let you look at the ones that did.

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I've put our pictures taken from the train in a slideshow, and that slideshow is at left.

The pictures are pretty much in order from Fort Lauderdale to Miami and include a view up the New River as we crossed over it (#1), the Fort Lauderdale airport (#5), many of the murals on the buildings trackside, and the new skyscrapers of Miami.

Just use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image to move from one to the next, and track your progress by referring to the index numbers in the upper left of each image. The slide show "wraps", so going forward from the last image will take you back to the first.

The picture at right was taken as we were coming in to the Miami Central station, and another Brightline train is heading out for West Palm Beach. The trains were clean, comfortable, fast, and sleek, and reminded me of the trains we've ridden in Europe.

I also made a couple of movies on the train down to Miami so you can experience the ride for yourself:

(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

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At the Miami Brightline Station

The Virgin Miami Central station was a large place, particularly considering that it only services two tracks. There was a lot going on- there were quite a few restaurants, some performers, and even, oddly enough, a display of "Wizard of Oz"-themed stuff. The trains arrive on the upper level and there are escalators and stairs down to street level. Here are some of the pictures and movies we took in the Miami Central station:

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Performers in MiamiCentral Station (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

Getting to the Bayside Marketplace

Our first destination today will be a touristy area over on Biscayne Bay called the Bayside Marketplace. To get there, we are going to try Miami's Metromover system. Ron Drew has used it before, but for the rest of us it will be our first time on the system.

To get over to Bayside Marketplace, I'd like you to look first at the aerial view at left. It covers the area around the Virgin MiamiCentral station, the Metromover route eastward towards Bayside Marketplace, our short walk from the Metromover station over to the Marketplace, and the location of Bayside Marketplace itself.

One thing to notice is that this aerial view (courtesy of Google Maps) must be some years old, because neither the Virgin MiamiCentral station nor the building(s) south of it show up on the view; they haven't been constructed yet. The new station was not actually completed and opened until early this year, part of a 9-acre complex extending to the south that also includes 3 million square feet of residential, office, commercial, and retail development. Originally named simply MiamiCentral, it was renamed to its current name just a month ago. So you won't see the actual station on the aerial view, but you will see the Metromover stations and tracks, as they have been around much longer.

We came out of Virgin MiamiCentral on the east side, and walked a block south to the Metromover Station that we could see that was built over the street.

Wilkie Ferguson Metromover Station

Metromover is a free mass transit automated people mover train system here in downtown Miami; it serves downtown and other much frequented areas, and connects to other transit options as well. It opened downtown in 1986, and was extended north to the Omni Center and Museums and south to Brickell Avenue in 1994.

The system is composed of three loops and 21 stations. The stations are located approximately two blocks away from each other, and connect near all major buildings and places in the Downtown area. It has heavy weekday ridership (about 125,000 people per day) and one of only three downtown people movers in the United States (Jacksonville, FL, and Detroit, MI, being the other two) and by far the most successful. It has been a catalyst for downtown development. Here are some more of the pictures we took at the station:

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While we were waiting for the next Metromover train, I took a couple of pictures from the station platform looking south and north along 1st Avenue. The view south looks at the Dade County Courthouse:

The View South

The View North

As for the trip over to the Metromover station nearest the Bayside Marketplace (the College-Bayside Station), we took both movies and pictures. First, here are the two best movies:

(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls) This movie was made in the Ferguson Station as the Metromover train arrived and we got on board.

(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls) This movie begins at the station near the Christ Church and continues as the train rounds the curve to the south and approaches the College-Bayside station.

Here are some of the still pictures that we took while we were riding the Metromover train over to the College-Bayside station:

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As you can see on the aerial view at the beginning of this section, once we got off the Metromover, we had to descend to street level and then walk about four blocks east along NE 4th Street to cross Biscayne Boulevard to enter the Bayside Marketplace complex. Along the way, we took more pictures of beautiful downtown Miami:

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At the Bayside Marketplace

We spent a fair amount of time at the Bayside Marketplace. I had been here before years ago when Ty, Scott, Fred, and I took a boat down from Fort Lauderdale to have lunch.

To orient you to the Marketplace, I've put an aerial view at left, and on that view have marked some of the locations and activities that you'll see in our pictures. You can see where we had lunch, at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, the two shopping areas where we wandered around, including the stairway/observation platform where we got most of the views looking northwest, the dock where "Captain Jimmy" was feeding the small sharks, and in general the places where we wandered around.

When we arrived from the Metromover, it was lunchtime, so we stopped in at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company (which was the first eatery we happened to come across, although it turned out there were lots of others).

The Bubba Gump Shrimp Company Restaurant chain was inspired by the 1994 film Forrest Gump. There are about 40 of these restaurants worldwide, about 30 of them in the United States. The company is based in Houston and is currently a division of Landry's Restaurants. The first Bubba Gump restaurant opened in 1996 in Monterey, California by Rusty Pelican Restaurants in partnership with Viacom- the owner of Paramount Pictures and distributor of the movie. The restaurant is named for two of the movie's characters- Bubba Blue and Forrest Gump. (In the film, Bubba suggested that he and Forrest get into the shrimping business on their return from Vietnam. While Bubba died in the way, Forrest pursued the idea and made a small fortune.)

The movie theme is carried into the restaurant in a number of ways. Like the name suggests, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.'s menu consists mostly of shrimp dishes and other seafood, as well as Southern and Cajun cuisine. The restaurant offers dishes named after characters in the movie, like Jenny's Catch and the restaurant’s bestseller Forrest’s Seafood Feast. Restaurants display movie memorabilia throughout the restaurant. Guests can play Forrest Gump movie trivia and can signal their waiter with a "Stop, Forrest, Stop" sign. (You can see that sign in the picture at left behind Ron Drew. If you don't need your server, you flip the sign down to "Run, Forrest, Run".)

The movie theme carries along even outside the restaurant, where each one has a replica of the bus stop bench on which Forrest is sitting when the movie opens. There is a replica of the suitcase he had with him, and even the special sneakers he was wearing in that opening scene. (Note that there also a box of chocolates on top of the suitcase, which recalls Forrest's line "Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get.") The replica is designed for idiots like me to sit down and try to emulate his posture (and put their feet into the sneakers), thus creating a "photo op". No telling how many pictures like the one at right have been taken.

After lunch, we spent quite some time just wandering around to see what there was to see. Ron and Jay stopped into some of the stores, while Fred and I took lots of pictures.

Generation Gap

As you may have discovered in this photo album, I go for the quirky pictures sometimes, and as I came up the stairs on the bay side of the large shopping mall on the south side of the water, I saw these three people sitting on the stairs. When I snapped the picture, the kids both smiled at me, but their mom stayed engrossed in her smartphone. I thought the picture interesting because it's usually the youngsters who are buried in their phones.

Here are some more eclectic pictures from our walkaround:

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Here's another group of pictures from our walk around Bayside Marketplace. I would have put them in a slide show, but a couple of them deserve a few words of comment:

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I made some panoramic pictures, too:

A Panoramic View of Bayside Marketplace

The Marina at Bayside Marketplace

I also made a couple of movies. One was made as I walked around the open area at the Marketplace. Because I had to watch where I was going, I couldn't hold the camera as steady as I wanted, so you'll notice significant shakiness in spots (and I apologize for that). The other movie was taken at Captain Jimmy's as someone (Captain Jimmy, I presume) fed the sharks.

Walking Around Bayside Marketplace (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

"Captain Jimmy" Feeds the Sharks (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

Fred took many of the same pictures that I did, and I've tried to eliminate those cases where we took essentially the same shot. But I want to include the best of Fred's pictures here, too.

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Since I don't have many comments on the pictures Fred took (they are either self-explanatory, or different views of other pictures that I've already included here), I've put them in a slideshow, and that slideshow is at left.

Just click on the little arrows in the lower corners of each picture to move forward or backward in the slideshow, and track your progress by referring to the index numbers in the upper left.

As with all slideshows, moving forward from the 14th picture will take you back to the first (and moving backward from the first will take you to the 14th). Enjoy Bayside Marketplace!

On the Metromover: Northern Extension

When we were all done at Bayside Marketplace, the four of us walked back to the College/Bayside station and decided to just ride the system to its northern terminus. Riding was free, so we just wanted to see where it went.

At left is a map of the part of downtown Miami covered by the northern extension of the Metromover. The last station on this extension is currently the School Board Station, although there are plans to extend the Metromover further west.

From Bayside Marketplace, we walked back across Biscayne Boulevard (that view looks north towards Freedom Tower, part of Miami-Dade College) and then down 4th Street to the College-Bayside Metromover station again, went up to the platform, and waited for a "School Board" train. On the train, I began with a movie (Movie 1)- filmed as the Metromover went from the College-Bayside Station to the first station on the northern extension- the Freedom Tower Station:

From College/Bayside to Freedom Tower (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

Originally completed in 1925 as the headquarters and printing facility for the newspaper The Miami News, the 255-foot, Mediterranean Revival-styled Freedom Tower got its name because in the second half of the 20th century it was used to house services involved in processing Cubans fleeing to Florida. Today, it is used as a contemporary art museum and a central office to different disciplines in the arts associated with Miami Dade College. In 1979, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Leaving the Freedom Tower station, we looked off to the east at the American Airlines Center- one of Miami's sports and performance venues over on the east side of Biscayne Boulevard.

To explain the next part of the trip, look at the picture at left (which was actually taken from a good deal further north as the Metromover crossed over I-395). That row of tall buildings are all very new condos and apartments; a couple of the buildings aren't even open yet. The Metromover track goes behind them (as they are viewed here), and then turns to come by the Frost Science Museum and the Perez Art Museum. These buildings are all quite striking, I think.

So in this view from the Metromover, looking north from the Freedom Tower station, those new condos are at the right and yet more new buildings on the west side of the tracks at the left. None of the buildings at left are on the current aerial views available to me, which means they are all very, very new.

Behind (to the west of) these skyscrapers, the Metromover makes a stop at the Eleventh Street Station. Then, after passing to the west of these new towers, the track turns to the east, coming around between the northernmost of them and I-395. This brings it past the Frost Science Museum, with its distinctive spherical planetarium, at which point it makes a stop at the Museum Park Station.

The Museum Park Station is the stopping point not only for the Science Museum, but also for the Perez Art Museum and Ferre Park- a large bayside park between the two museums on the north and the American Airlines Center on the south. The folks living on the east sides of the new condo towers must have incredible views as they would see the park, the museums, Biscayne Bay, Miami Beach, the American Airlines Center, and Bayside Marketplace.

From the Museums to Arsht Center (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

At the Museum Park Station, Fred took a picture looking back west from the station, and you can see that picture here. Meanwhile, I was taking a picture out the front of the car looking ahead at the Perez Museum.

Then, when the train started up, I started another movie, and that movie will take us to the next station, the Adrienne Arsht Center Station. (The Arsht Center is a performing arts center north of I-395.) You can use the player at right to watch it.

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Fred took some pictures while I was making my movie, and he took a couple while the train was in the Arsht Station as well. Those pictures are at left.

The four of us continued one more station to the current end of the Metromover's northern extension. I think that Ron said that the Metromover would eventually go either to the airport or it will connect up with some other way of getting there on public transit. But here, the train just switched tracks to head back south to the downtown Omni Loop.

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On the return trip to the Museum Park Station, I took a series of still shots from the front of the Metromover, and you can see those pictures at left.

You might not understand the last picture, but when Ron and Jay made their Brightline reservations, they decided to head back to Fort Lauderdale earlier than Fred and I. They thought that they would be "walked out" earlier than us and that they should get home earlier than us as tomorrow is a workday for Jay.

So when Fred and I got off at this station to see the museums and Ferre Park, Ron and Jay stayed on to ride back to Virgin MiamiCentral and their Brightline train home. Fred and I don't plan to actually go inside either museum, as we would only have a short time in either and admission is a little steep. So we plan to walk around them, through the park, and back down Biscayne Boulevard to Bayside Marketplace again.

Walking Around the Perez Art Museum

We got off the Metromover at the Museum Park station, and before we went down to ground level, took a couple of pictures.

At left is my picture that looks past the planetarium dome to the impressive wall of skyscrapers on the far side of Biscayne Boulevard.

At right, you see me on the station platform, again with the planetarium and skyscrapers as a backdrop.

In March 2011, Miami native Phillip Frost and his wife, Patricia, donated $35 million to the construction of a new science museum in Downtown Miami. The museum was designed by the New York studio of global firm Grimshaw Architects. The new 250,000 sq ft Philip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science opened on May 8, 2017 here in Museum Park. The new museum includes: the Frost Planetarium, a 250-seat full-dome screen with a diameter of 67 feet and a 16-million-color, 8K projection system; a three-story, cone-shaped, 500,000-US-gallon aquarium with a 31-foot diameter oculus lens at the bottom for viewing the fish, rays, and sharks; and the Knight Learning Center with four classrooms.

In the aerial view at left, though, the Frost museum isn't visible, which of course tells us that the aerial view was probably from 2016 or even earlier, as the Frost Museum seems still to be under construction. The Perez Museum is just east of the Frost, and we walked around the outside of it (and went up onto its bay-facing esplanade) to see some of the outdoor sculptures.

In November 2010, construction began on the new Perez Museum of Art, a structure designed by Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron. The structure is meant to resemble Stiltsville, which is the name given to a group of wooden houses built on stilts that stand off the coast of Key Biscayne in Biscayne Bay. The three-story building has 200,000 square feet, composed of 120,000 interior square footage, and 80,000 exterior square footage. Inside the museum, display spaces can be illuminated by floor-to-ceiling windows, which can also be blocked off or used as backdrop. Otherwise the rooms get clinically even light delivered by strips of fluorescent tubes, though spotlights can also be used. A grand staircase- nearly the entire 180-foot width of the platform— connects it to the waterfront.

In 2016, the museum's permanent collection contained over 2,000 works, particularly 20th- and 21st-century art from the Americas, Western Europe and Africa. The museum had originally anticipated some 200,000 visitors in its first year; that figure was surpassed in the museum's first seven months.

The Perez Museum (seen from its south side)

To show you around the Perez, I want to show you the museum itself. We got off the Metromover on the north side of the museum, but eventually walked around to the park that is just south of it. That's where I got the picture (actually, a composite) at left. At the right end of the museum (the end nearest Biscayne Bay) there is what amounts to a huge raised esplanade at the top of a couple of flights of broad stairs, stairs that could double as seats for anything going on in Biscayne Bay or on the apron between the museum and the bay. There were lots of seats of various kinds, and also some pretty neat hanging plants. These were not your typical plants in hanging pots, but rather columnar hanging plants that had to be some twenty feet high. From this open area, the view out to the Intracoastal was pretty nice, making this a great place to sit and relax. But there were also great views north towards Miami Beach as well as south towards Miami proper. Standing on the esplanade, here is the view to the south.

Speaking of Biscayne Bay, here is a really nice camera-generated panoramic view of the part of the bay from the bridge to Miami Beach on the left all the way around to the city of Miami on the right:

You can barely see it in that picture above, but here is a closeup of the new Miami Cruise Ship Terminal. I also made another panorama, this time manually constructed from five separate images, of just the area of Biscayne Bay right in front of the museum:

Biscayne Bay in Front of the Perez Museum

Here is another view of the high porch/patio at the east end of the museum and you can see the new development of North Miami Beach in the distance.

Looking Around the Bay Side of the Perez Museum (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

As we were walking around looking at the outdoor sculpture, I made this movie from the esplanade at the bay side of the museum. And here is some of the outdoor art that we saw arrayed around the museum:

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Walking around outside the museum was pretty interesting. We decided not to go inside the museum, for with only a couple of hours left in the day, it didn't seem to be a good use of $25 a person.

In Maurice A. Ferré Park

From the museum, we were basically just going to head generally south on foot to get back to Bayside Marketplace, where we would be able to get the Metromover again back to the Brightline station.

So we decided that since we had to go in that direction anyway, we would head into Maurice A. Ferré Park just south of the museum. It had a really nice esplanade along the bayfront and beautiful greenery throughout. It extended from the bay to the new row of highrises one block west, and also south to a man-made inlet where large boats could dock.

The esplanade, seen here in the picture at right, also had some man-made "inlets", although these seemed more for effect than for anything else. They did provide more bayfront space should the park be filled with folks who all wanted to be right by the water. The park really looked very inviting, but before we walked out into it, we noticed some interesting signs on the far side of the inlet nearest us; they were serious and humorous at the same time. If you'll click on them, I'll show them to you up close.

Maurice A. Ferré Park (formerly Museum Park) is a 30-acre public, urban park in downtown Miami, Florida. The park opened in 1976 as Bicentennial Park on the site of several industrial boat slips served by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad. For some time it was named "Bicentennial Park" to celebrate the bicentennial of the United States in that same year.

The railroad is gone, now, as is the port activity. Today, Ferré Park and its huge palm trees are maintained by the Bayfront Park Management Trust, and the slips can be use by anyone for a fee. The park is bordered on the north by I-395, Metromover, and the former Miami Herald headquarters, on the south by the American Airlines Arena and Bayside Marketplace, on the west by Biscayne Boulevard and on the east by Biscayne Bay. The Perez Art Museum and the Frost Science Museum are both located on the north side of the park. Here are some of the pictures we took in the park:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

From the early 1900s to the mid-1960s, Bicentennial Park was the location of the Port of Miami, until it eventually moved to neighboring Dodge Island in the mid-1960s. The port at what is today Bicentennial Park was then a bustling cargo, trade and passenger port, with the offices of Clyde Mallory Lines at the park. Once the port moved out to Dodge Island, the land was cleaned up of industrial residue from decades of port trade, and the park was designed, finally opening up in 1976, as downtown's second large park after Bayfront Park.

In May 1994, the Omni Loop of the Metromover opened, which brought a Metromover station to the park, but that station was closed in 1996. When the row of new residential buildings began to open after 2010, the station (located just west of them) was renovated and reopened as the Museum Park Station to provide direct access to the art and science museums. In early 2019 the Park was officially named Maurice A. Ferré Park to pay tribute to the former Miami and his legacy.

The west side of the park is bounded by Biscayne Boulevard, and across that avenue to the west is an impressive like of new condo and apartment buildings. Like Fort Lauderdale, the building boom in Miami has been torrid in the last few years- downtown, here on the north side, and over on Miami Beach.

I thought the buildings pretty neat, particularly the middle one, with its distinctive exterior ribbing and bulbous ground floor lobby area (looking from some angles like a skinny turnip having just been pulled from the ground. These buildings, positioned as they are adjacent to the museums and also across the street from such a nice palm-shaded park, would seem to be a very desirable place to live- although I haven't investigated how much you might have to pay for the privilege.

Walking Back to Bayside Marketplace

The ride north on the Metromover had been a bit deceptive; I thought we had gone further than we had. All that lay between us between the park and Bayside Marketplace was one of the large slips and, south of it, the American Airlines Center (a sports and performance venue).

At left is a little aerial view of the short distance that we covered from the park back down to Bayside Marketplace. In the park, we were standing on the walkway beside the boat dock that used to be part of the industrial harbor, and we were right across from the American Airlines Arena.

The American Airlines Arena is a sports and entertainment arena that was constructed beginning in 1998 as a replacement for the Miami Arena. It is home to the Miami Heat of the National Basketball Association. The arena is close to the Government Center station on the Miami Metrorail, and the Freedom Tower station on the Metromover.

The American Airlines Arena seats about 20,000, with the usual number of premier seating areas and private boxes. The venue can also host concerts, with the seating capacity varying depending on how the stage is organized. The building also houses the Waterfront Theater- Florida's largest- that seats from 3000 to 6000 depending on whether it's hosting a concert, family event, musical theatre, or other stage show. From across on the north side of the old ship dock, I think this is the Waterfront Theatre at the back of the complex.

Standing over on the north side of the ship dock, here is an interesting panoramic view looking south:

So to get back to the Marketplace, we followed the general route on the aerial view above. And coming around the west end of the inset ship dock, we got this view looking out Biscayne Bay, and also at that end of the dock was a sculpture entitled "Flora the Dreamcatcher". The sculpture (Spanish: “Flora la Recogedora de Sueños”) was given to the city of Miami by Cuban master Cundo Bermudez to represent his body of work and his love of Miami and South Florida. Bermudez was always grateful for the hospitality that he received when he settled in Miami from Cuba, and said that the bronze sculpture is "a symbol of Hope for all immigrants, an inspiration of the love of the City of Miami and the love that Miami exudes to all that come here and makes us feel we are home". Bermudez died in 2008, and the sculpture was moved from City Hall to its permanent spot here in Museum Park.

We continued walking south past the arena.

I am standing on the steps of the American Airlines Arena, and the view looks south past Freedom Tower towards downtown Miami. Most of the buildings seen here are residences, and Bayside is to the left.

Here, Fred is looking west at some of the new residences being built in the area around the Virgin Trains station where we arrived this morning.

Here, from the steps of the arena, is Fred with the new residential buildings west of Museum Park arrayed behind him.

And from the entrance to Bayside Marketplace, we are again looking north past the arena to those residences, although this time we also have Freedom Tower at the left.

We got back to the entrance to Bayside Marketplace, spent a little more time there (the pictures from which are in the earlier section devoted to the Marketplace), and then we returned to the Metromover station to head back to the Virgin Trains Brightline station.

On the Metromover Through Downtown Miami

When we got back to the Bayside Station, we could have waited for a train going north and counterclockwise around the downtown loop to get back to the Ferguson Station where we'd started. But since we had some time, we decided to wait for a southbound loop train and just take it on a clockwise circle around the downtown loop- just to see what it was like.

At left you can see the area of downtown Miami served by the central loop of the Metromover. The system goes north to the museums and south to Brickell Avenue, but on this excursion we will just do the loop. On the aerial view I have marked the various stations on that downtown loop.

On the portion of the Metromover route diagram show at right, you can confirm that we'll go from the Bayside Station south stopping successively at First Street, Bayfront Park, Knight Center, and (not being on a train that goes south to Brickell Avenue) Third Street. Then we will turn back north and our next stop will be Government Center. The stop after that will be Ferguson, where we want to end up so we can walk back to the Virgin Trains Station (Virgin MiamiCentral on the diagram) and catch our train back to Fort Lauderdale.

We got up to the platform at the Bayside Station and did not have to wait more than a couple of minutes for a train heading south.

Once on the train, we went to the front of the car and I took a look through the window south down the track to the First Street Station. That view is at left.

Arriving at First Street (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

It looked at first as if the train would be going through a picture frame, but as soon as we got started I could see the it was going right through a building.

I have no idea which came first, the building or the Metromover, but this was unique in my experience, so I made a movie as the train headed down the track and through the building in the distance to the First Street Station. You can use the player at right to watch that movie.

As we stopped at the station, Fred got a picture looking back north along the track. Just leaving the station, Fred got another picture looking back at the First Street Station while I was looking ahead out the front window. At this point, the track curves to the east (to the left) to get over to Bayfront Park.

Heading East Towards Bayfront Park

When the Metromover rounds that curve south of the First Street Station, it is heading east towards the ocean and Bayfront Park. Just after it straightened out, I snapped the picture at left.

Rounding the Curve at Bayfront Park (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

As we approached the Park, I began filming the track ahead, and the movie at right will take us around the curve to the right at the Park, after which we will again be heading south.

The Metromover continues south until it reaches and then curves around the skyscrapers that sit approximately at the southeast corner of the downtown Miami core- some of the tallest buildings in the city.

We are riding at the moment on one of the trains of the "Downtown Inner Loop". These trains (two cars long) run clockwise around the downtown area, and this loop serves all the downtown stations. There is also an Outer Loop that runs counterclockwise, and this loop includes the extension south to the financial district along Brickell Avenue as well as the extension north to the museum district and the Arscht Center. Both Loops share the tracks that run around downtown. This unusual pattern, a circular central loop where the trains running counterclockwise are those running from and back to destinations outside the loop, whereas trains in the opposite clockwise direction are only running a tight inner circular route, is also followed by the New York JFK Airport AirTrain system. The inner loop generally runs tandem two car trains while the outer loops only run with single cars. Each car can carry over 90 passengers.

Southeast Corner of the Loop

Looking Back East from Knight

I took two more pictures along here- one of the tall buildings at the southeast corner of the downtown core, and another just before we reached the Knight station, that view looking back east towards the ocean.

For my other movie of our ride on the Metromover, I saw that the Knight Station was actually going to be inside a structure, and so I filmed as we came into this station. Use the movie player below to watch.

Stopping at the Knight Station (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

I took two more pictures as we headed up the west side of the downtown loop:

The Spur to the Maintenance Shed

The Government Center Station

We got off at the Ferguson Station and went downstairs to walk back to the Brightline Station. I turned and took a picture of an outer loop train stopped at the station. After a very pleasant ride back to Fort Lauderdale, we walked home from the Brightline Station. On the way, we walked on SE 2nd Street which goes under a parking garage. On the wall we found this very colorful mural. I liked my picture of the mural, but Fred did take another picture of the mural and me. We continued on back to the condo, following a route we don't usually walk, and, in a testament to how much building is going on around here, ran across a new building we hadn't even known was back here (as it isn't tall enough for us to see from the condo (although not that long ago it would have been the tallest or second tallest building in town).

This was a neat day trip down to Miami; we will have to do it again sometime, and arrange to visit both the Perez and the Frost Museums.

Boat Traffic on the New River (Installment 47)

As is always the case, the New River right by the condo is a feature of the city that we photograph frequently. We take at least a few pictures of the boat traffic each time we come down here, and this trip was no exception.

Sunny Day

Not So Sunny Day

Panoramic View from the Second Floor Balcony

Around the Riverview Gardens Condo

Of course, another source of snapshots is Riverview Gardens itself, although I have taken so many dock pictures, and so many pictures of the inside of the condo that I tend to ignore them now. One day while we were here, though, it occurred to me that I've never done a tour of the complex (although I haven't looked back through 30 years of pictures to verify this). So I did one today.

A Tour of Riverview Gardens (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

You can use the movie player at left to come along on a five-minute tour of Riverview Gardens. And here are a couple of good still pictures I took right after filming the tour:

The Dock

South Wing (L)/North Wing

Miscellaneous

Finally, I have two more pictures to include on the page for this trip.

On one Tuesday, Fred and I invited Steve Friedman's mother, Betty, who lives in Hollywood (FL) to join us at Patron Azteca for their "Taco Tuesday" event. She did, and we had a great time with all-you-can-eat tacos (which are quite good).

One Saturday, Ron got tickets to the little alternative theatre in Wilton Manors. They were putting on a play about relationships. After the play, we had Ron take a photo of us with one of the actors (R) and the theatre "hostess".

So this was yet another nice trip to Florida. On our departure, I put the Internet service on a "seasonal hold" as it is unlikely we will be back down here until after Christmas. In the Fall, when we would normally return, we have a trip to the Pacific Northwest with the Ruckmans and Gleims, a trip to Chicago with Mario and Steve, and a cruise with Greg.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	June 25, 2019: The Dior Exhibit at the DMA
	April 21, 2019: A Visit to the Dallas Arboretum
	Return to the Index for 2019