After visiting Key West for Stacy and Jason's wedding and then making a pit stop at Everglades National Park we spent two days in Miami.
When we got near the exit for our hotel, we saw the sign for the tunnel that takes you to the cruise ship ports... we had to go there. It was pretty late and looked pretty empty so we decided a fun trip through a tunnel was definitely a must. We drove through, turned around, and came back, got lost and then finally made it to the hotel.
This was the view from our window that night. We immediately changed into swimsuits and jumped in the pool for the last hour it was open and watched planes coming and going from the airport. It was lovely.
The next morning we were able to see the cruise ships when we woke up! It was cool. We have never been on a cruise and the ships really are way bigger than you would think is possible.
It was so nice to see support all over South Florida for our hometown.
We decided to go to Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden our first day, and when we left the hotel this is what the sky looked like... not great. We drove around a little while it rained and then once the rain stopped we went to look at plants!
Our wild adventure started in the parking lot with this little guy. He was hanging out in the parking space next to us. I have never seen such a big or pretty lizard outside of a pet store in my life, so that was surprising and weird.
The garden was amazing. Our pictures don't do it any favors, so I'm only going to share my very favorites, but if you are visiting Miami you need to go here.
Huge iguanas. Tons of them. EVERYWHERE!
There were so many cool looking trees, and tons of plants I've never seen.
I was extra excited to see the rain forest section because of their large orchid collection. There is Christopher at the bottom of a stream.
Look how many orchids there are. Just take like an hour looking at them all.
Here I am with my favorite plants.
Even the sticker you get as a ticket is cute.
After we were done at the Garden we drove through University of Miami. I always like seeing other college campuses to see how they are laid out, what kinds of stuff do they have, what do the buildings look like, are the squirrels there just as vicious as they are here... yano important stuff like that.
UM had a ton of ducks. Maybe ducks are their squirrels.
They also have a really cool looking fountain. It's no Reflecting Pond.. but it'll do.
Of course we couldn't go to Miami and not at least see the beach, it is famous.
This is us sitting on the beach watch kids and dogs play and adults be awkward and/or creepy. Miami Beach is a special place.
How cool is this??? A sunscreen dispenser at the beach!! Totally cool. Florida Hospital should think about doing this at the Central Florida beaches.
And a vacation day that doesn't end in dessert is wrong, so we went to Lulu's Ice Cream. Lulu's makes ice cream with liquid nitrogen right in front of you! It was so cool. Pun totally intended.
They even make their waffle cones while your ice cream chills. It was really good!
It was a pretty lovely first day!