The Returner

I have returned from my short trip to south Florida and boy are my arms tired.
.....

Sorry.

The trip didn't start out as well as expected (the SuperShuttle van that I was informed would be 30 minutes earlier ended up being an hour later than the original pick up time - thats an hour and a half late). The driver must not have had his heroin because he was driving all over the road. I think everybody else in the van remained quiet in the van, afraid for their lives. I couldn't stop laughing at his skill and direction (nothing says service like driving the industrial side streets of Long Island City) .














I stayed in Miami the first night, right off of South Beach. Its a nice place, though very, very touristy. The hotel I stayed in was worn and aged, but then everything seems like that here.















The funniest thing that occurred was on the beach itself. While hanging out on the beach, I notice none other than Terrel Owens. Yep. TO.

It was not a typically sunny day. The sun had taken to the clouds and the water was as you would expect for March. It was initially chilly (and by chilly I mean chilly for Florida standards), but after 2 minutes the warmth of the water was clearly evident. Terrel was not by his lonesome. He had an entourage.

No. Not that kind of entourage. More like this :


I think it took TO about 5-10 minutes for him to make his way slowly, painfully into the water, with his attractive female entourage encouraging him on into the water the whole time (begging him actually). You'd think by watching him that he was jumping into the Antarctic Ocean naked. Initially he even stuck his toe in shuttered and backed away from the water. I haven't seen that much aversion to water since Alien Nation. I guess it just goes to show what a tough guy image is worth. TO has just fallen many, many steps down for me.

Miami doesn't seem to be the kind of place to wander around without transportation :


It is also full of colorful people :


About the hardest thing for me to deal with was the amazing similarities between the actual city and the one I remember from Scarface and GTA Vice City. I had to restrain myself from pulling out the chainsaw or doing a back alley coke run.

Key Largo was next.