Welcome to Miami

 

February 9, 2022

Welcome to Miami

Our final stop on our mini vacation tour was in Miami, where Kathy and I decided to spend a couple of nights relaxing and taking in some of what Miami has to offer before we headed back to Key West. We booked a suite at the Hotel Indigo in Brickell and settled in for a few days.

We spent a lot of time simply relaxing by the rooftop pool, reading and swimming a bit, we also took a wonderful walk across the bridge onto Brickell Key and walked completely around the perimeter of the small island, something that neither of us had ever done before. It was a beautiful walk in what was finally about perfect weather, as the cold snap that had followed us through Florida was over.

Of course, I am rarely content to just relax, so as usual I went looking for something to do and found out the University of Miami was hosting Notre Dame in basketball at the Watsco Center on campus one of the nights we were there. It has been a minute since I attended a college basketball game, so I went online and found decent and reasonable tickets for the game.

Before the game, we had a good meal at Shorty’s BBQ on south US 1 near Dadeland. The place has been sold and will be closing soon and almost certainly developed into something horrific, but we wanted to experience at least one last meal there before they are gone forever. The iconic establishment has been serving up BBQ for seventy years and will remain open until a decision on exactly what will be replacing it is made.

The game was a lot of fun. Both teams are mid-pack ACC teams, and the game was pretty close throughout, with Note Dame eventually taking the win 68-64. Paul Atkinson Jr. had a big game for Notre Dame, scoring 25 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. Prentiss Hubb added 15 points and six assists. For Miami, Isaiah Wong was the bright spot for the Hurricanes scoring a team-high 18 points

It was great just being back in a college sports atmosphere and we had a fun night enjoying the action. The next morning, we were off to explore Wynwood, prior to going to see the new art exhibit at the Ice Palace, “The Art of Banksy”. I always love driving around the Wynwood neighborhood as it offers an ever-changing huge canvas for many of the world’s greatest graffiti artists.

As always, it did not disappoint as the walls of just about every business and warehouse are completely covered by huge murals and graffiti that is almost completely new since the last time I visited. Since that time last fall, Art Basel has happened and that is a time when the graffiti artists congregate in Wynwood and create new works, covering over whatever happened to be there.

It makes for a constantly shifting flow of new artwork and exposes the fleeting nature o graffiti art, it is really never meant to last, which to me just adds to its value and uniqueness. Of course the very idea that there is a traveling show highlighting one of the most famous graffiti artists sort of challenges that notion.

https://shortys.com/