I have been on a knowledge quest for the past several months.  I think I have read more books in the last 3 months than I have since I graduated from college.  But, sometimes the things you learn are not from a book you read but simply by living life.

This week I learned the importance of time off.  I don’t mean time off where you stay home and try to get as many items as you can off the honey-do list.  I don’t mean taking the family to Disney World or some other vacation destination where you have to entertain and chase the kids all over the place.  I mean time off.  Time doing nothing other than relaxing.

The 3 days that I spent on the beach with Heather in Miami taught me this lesson.  I have returned to work ready to tackle any problem and with a renewed energy to get things done and finish the year strong.  I think I have honestly gotten more done in the last week that I did in the previous month.

If have that feeling that you are just “punching the clock” and waiting for 5:00 to roll around every afternoon so you can leave it may be time for a break.  I recommend a beach with no kids somewhere.

OK, who hired the Midget to install the urinal?

After hours and hours of searching and reading tons of reader comments I settled on the The Pelican Hotel for our 4 nights in Miami.  It was posted as $160 a night, but with the fourth-night-free special they were running it came to $120 a night.  Seemed like a great price for right on Ocean Drive across the street from the beach.

When we arrived the room was not ready yet, but we arrived before the official check-in time so we expected this to happen.  The lady at the front desk was very friendly and offered to take our bags and give us a call as soon at the room was ready.  We decided to get some lunch and right at 3:00, as promised,  the hotel called to let us know our room was ready.

We were given the “Peace, Love, and Leaf Forest” room on the second floor.  The room was nicely decorated and furnished.  Being a boutique-style hotel the room was pretty small, but we planned on spending most of our time on the beach and not in the room anyway.

My base requirements for a hotel room are really quite simple.  It needs to be clean, the a/c needs to work well, the bed needs to be firm, and the shower needs to have good pressure.  Very few hotels score a 4 out of 4 on the Shane scale but the Pelican did!  The a/c was so good, in fact, that Heather had to add extra blankets the first night to stay warm.

On top of this, the Pelican also provided beach towels, beach chairs, and an umbrella each day.  I didn’t realize how great this was until I learned that it would cost $60 to $75 a day to rent the chairs and umbrella.  So, the $120 a night seems like even more of steal now.

If I ever need a hotel in the South Beach area of Miami again I will definitely check the Pelican out first.  If you are headed to South Beach you can’t go wrong with a room here.

I managed to get a 3 mile run in while I was on vacation on Miami.  I was able to run on the beach since there is a road-like surface that vehicles use to service the beach.  It was noticably harder though with the wind, sun, and softer surface.  Here are the run stats.

You can probably guess what I did on Day 4 in Miami.  Yes, I spent the day on the beach.  For someone that normally does not like the beach I really enjoyed the beach on this trip.  I spent nearly the entire day in the shade of our umbrella finishing up Creating Wealth by Robert Allen.  For lunch, Heather and I left the beach and got lunch at one the many street cafe’s that line the road in front the beach.

After about 7 hours on the beach we returned to the hotel, took showers, and headed to Lincoln Road for dinner and some shopping.  We got dinner at the only Mexican restaurant we saw the entire trip.  We also stopped in a little art studio and bought some prints from a local artist that depicted Miami Beach scenes.  After walking Lincoln Road, a pedestrian shopping district, we returned to the hotel and crashed.  We head home tomorrow and I already miss the beach.