Suitably refreshed, we head back to the hotel through a river of
strollers, bladers, and bikers and their afternoon parade of dogs.
We make a mandatory stop at Joe's Stone Crab Take-Away - the to-go
outlet of the local landmark restaurant that's been serving stone
crabs since 1913 - to buy Michelle a piece of its incredible Key
lime pie.
Back at the hotel, the kids plug into their iPods, which are better
than the hotel's windows at shutting out the noise of the
never-ending motorcycle traffic and car-stereo bass rumblings
booming up and down Collins. Michelle and I sneak over to D'Vine
Cyber Lounge, which bills itself as the only wireless cyber-lounge
in
South Beach, to check our e-mail. We sip a special Spanish wine
cooler called
calimocho (a light blend of red wine, sugar,
and lemon), a delicious purchase that allows us free use of the
wireless service.
For dinner, we join a bevy of locals at David's Cafe II, a 24-hour
takeout near the hotel. Regulars - from cabbies who stop at the
curb to workers finding their way home - come and go, a woman
behind the counter fixing them bittersweet Cuban coffees with a
minimum exchange of words. We grab our bag of Cuban sandwiches and
enjoy them perched in our hotel courtyard, watching the daily
circus go by.
After dinner, we slip out onto Ocean Drive and into a snaking
crowd. While the Cuban influence here is still dominant, today's
Miami moves to a Latin-Anglo-European-Asian fusion. We squeeze past
sunburned tourists and women in gauzy, sequined camisoles. Lights
blink from palm trees, music blasts from clubs. We are part of the
show now, but the kids are wearing down. So we make tracks for the
Essex.
AN UNCOMMONLY MILD Sunday morning bodes well for a visit to
the every-other-weekend Lincoln Road Antiques & Collectibles
Market, a smorgasbord of 80-plus dealers peddling everything from
armoires to vintage cat-eye reading glasses.