A Brief Distraction from Paradise

Well, we’re back from Miami, and sadly, we didn’t blog as much as we would’ve liked! But we can’t say we thought too much about it…if there was ever a place that could tear us away from the computers and hecticness of everyday life, it was Miami. It’s a beautiful and exciting town – and we made a pact this would be the first of many trips!

This is just a little bit of what we saw once we got out away from The Standard. We wanted to see a little bit of architecture. And that we did. Some highlights…


This crazy “living room” was an art installation that sat on an intersection down in the Design District. Looks like we missed it in it’s glory, as you can see that there’s some kind of construction going on – it looks like items have been removed and there’s a fence around it now, but it is quite something to see. We like that we caught a man walking in front of it, you can get a sense of scale.

Also near the area on Biscayne Blvd., there are old, run-down 1950’s motels with some pretty cool signage. It’s probably better at night, as thy’re neon signs, but you get the general idea (and again, Carrie’s got a thing for cool signage):


After we saw all the poor, sad motels of yesteryears, we saw a classier lady – the Bacardi Building. Pretty amazing:

We weren’t exactly sure what this was right next door to the Bacardi building, but it sure looked cool:

That concludes our mini architectural tour. We could absolutely kick ourselves, as we didn’t capture any of the most amazing parts – and that was the Art Deco! Seriously, South Beach almost seems like a movie set, the buildings are all pastel and colorful – and they are so well maintained that they almost look like facades. They were amazing.

This was by far our favorite though:

This is the exterior of the Standard Miami – it used to be this old spa called The Lido. It’s so cool they kept the exterior unchanged, it’s pretty groovy.

p.s. This one is for the Subcat crew: we caught a shot of the famous tattoo shop, Miami Ink (for those who do not know, Miami Ink has been a show running on TLC for 4 seasons now). No tattoos for us, but the place sure was hoppin’ and lots of people were hanging outside trying to get a peek in:

The end to a perfect weekend!

After many hours on the road, we’re too tired to write a whole lot but man, what a great weekend it was! We took a completely different way back home, taking the 166 through a podunk town that time forgot called Cuyama and down the 33 through Ojai. Driving up to Morro Bay yesterday was all about ocean views and mock-Danish villages, but today was all about isolated plains and grand mountains. And we do mean isolated….we’d go for miles without seeing any sign of life! We went from the most John Steinbeck-ish moments…big rusted tractors and roads lined with orchard trees…to curvy, pine tree lined mountain roads…and back again to the coast! It was hard to believe we were in California the whole time!

Just a few pics of the signage we captured today (Carrie’s got a thing for cool signs):
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And a few more on the journey home:

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