After cruising Española Way, where Hunter becomes fascinated by
intricate artwork protruding from the walls of buildings, we yield
to Maddy, a reluctant biker from the start, and cut our ride short
to loll on the beach. The lure of the shining blue-green water
holds us gleefully captive.
A few hours later, we leave the Historical District, which has more
than 800 buildings from the 1930s packed into a square mile of real
estate, and head out on the South Dixie Highway to the original
Shorty's Bar-B-Q location that E.L. "Shorty" Allen opened in
1951.
Plates of
food arrive and are devoured: BBQ Beef
Texas Brisket
(Shorty's recipe comes from a barbecue master in
Abilene, Texas),
two sauces developed in
Georgia, sweet corn on the cob, and
one-of-a-kind coleslaw (an employee comes in at four a.m. daily
just to make the special recipe).
After lunch, we drop by the Lowe Art Museum on the University of
Miami campus in nearby
Coral Gables. Students saunter by in
sunglasses and shorts. We seek shade and enlightenment in the
museum's permanent collection, an eclectic mix of classic and
contemporary art. College-football-crazed Hunter, thrilled to be on
campus, stares intently at
Football Player, a dramatic
life-size Duane Hanson sculpture of an exhausted athlete in a Miami
Dolphins uniform.
We can't stay long, though, because we have to fit in a trip to one
of
Miami's hidden treasures, just minutes away. The Venetian Pool
is a former rock quarry in a picturesque residential neighborhood.
We slip behind the pastel stucco walls and iron gates and admire a
scene complete with a lagoon and cascading waterfalls (fed by
artesian wells), vine-covered loggias, and coral-rock caves.
The chill of the water dissuades Hunter from getting in at first,
despite his sister's taunting. As she and I swim out of a cave, she
chuckles and says conspiratorially, "Let's tell him there is a
restaurant serving free Cokes in there."