While I was in Miami Beach I took the time to stop in and pay a visit to the local Apple Store.  This brings my tally to 6 stores visited and should move me into 2nd place in the informal office competition.  I have updated my Apple Stores Visited page in case you want to learn more.

Day 3 in Miami took on much of the same theme as Day 2…  7+ hours at the beach.  Today we ordered a picnic lunch on the beach.  It was nice that we did not have to leave our chairs for lunch, but you pay for the convenience.  It was a little on the pricey side for a sandwich, banana, and orange juice.  Since I was starting to get a sun burn I stayed under the shade of the umbrella most of the day and read one of the books I brought.  I ventured out for a walk up the beach with Heather and spent 30 minutes or so in the water.  I am loving the “do nothing” approach we took to this trip.

Heather and I decided to go out to a nice restaurant for dinner.  We did some research using the FREE Internet access at The Pelican Hotel, where we are staying, and decided on Nemo.  We enjoyed Nemo and the nice quiet atmosphere that you do not get at the other, typical South Beach eateries.  We even got plenty of humor out of the couple a table down from us.  I thought the man had taken his grand daughter out for a nice meal (although I couldn’t explain the skimpy dress for dinner with grandpa.)  Heather, on the other hand, was convinced they were “together” and was giving no credence to the grand daughter story I was pitching.

The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful and a long day on the beach tires us out.  Plus, we have to be up bright-and-early the next morning in order to get to the beach by 10:00 to claim the prime beach chairs.

Day 2 in Miami got a slow start.  We drug ourselves out of bed at about 10:00 and took our sweet time getting ready.  On the way to the beach we stopped and got some lunch at one of the thousand places along the beach you can eat at.  Then it was on to the beach for 6+ hours.  The constant wind, nice chairs and umbrellas make it easy to just sit and watch or sit and read for hours at a time.  At about 6:00 we headed in and got ready for some dinner.

We decided to try out the Tropical Mango.  This is a cross between a restaurant, bar, and club just down the street from our hotel.  What is cool is they have live entertainment all night.  Tuesday night was latin night and it was fun to watch the dancers and live band perform.  We stayed for a couple of hours before heading back to the hotel and crashing for the night.  Laying on the beach all day is exhausting.

Our flight to Miami left the Cincinatti airport at 9:05am.  We were told the drive to the airport would be about 40 minutes and after some discussion I was talked into leaving at 7:00.  (I hate not being at the airport way in advance just in case there are unforseen delays.  I get this from my mother.)  Anyway, I set the alarm for 6:00 and manged to get us on the road by 6:45 giving us another 15 minute margin of error.  Then, it happened!  As we drove up the airport terminal Heather realized she had left her driver’s license at home in Atlanta.

To make a long story short you need 1 government issued picture ID or two government issued non picture IDs to clear security.  Thankfully, the TSA manager was in good spirits and accepted 2 library cards as the required forms of non picture IDs.  With that speed bump behind us we caught breakfast at Chik-fil-a and made it the gate about 10 minutes before we needed to board the plane.

The flight was uneventful… the best kind.  When we landed in Fort Lauderdale we got our luggage and with only a 5 minute wait our shared van ride to South Beach was ready.  After stops at the cruise ship terminals the driver dropped us in front of our hotel.

Since the room was not ready yet, Heather and I decided to go get some lunch and explore a little bit.  Right at 3:00, and as promised, the hotel called and our room was ready.  The room is awesome, more on that later.  We quickly changed and were on the beach by 3:30.  The beach is literally 100 yards from the hotel and the hotel provides beach towels, chairs, and an umbrella as part of the nightly fee.  After about 4 hours on the beach we caught some dinner and called it a day.

Other than the little issue at the airport the day went very well and we are excited about the next couple of days doing nothing other than lying in the beach.