We then turned inland and drove through Hollywood. The greater Miami area really reminds me a lot of the greater Los Angeles area where I grew up. One could compare Miami to Los Angeles and Ft. Lauderdale to the endless suburb of Orange County. There were a lot of older houses from the 50's and 60's, and in Hollywood, even a commercial district from the same era (you don't see so much of that in Southern California anymore). Other neighborhoods were newer, but the architecture was very similar to that in California. The palm trees and scarcity of big trees also felt familiar. The biggest difference was the water; there were lakes and canals everywhere. At the tool store, I waited in the parking lot together with a family of ducks. I kept watching for alligators in the canals, but I didn't see any.
I had learned of a great mall near where we were to pick up our daughter, and while more shopping was on the agenda, we decided to take a break and got to the beach while we were nearby. We guessed correctly that the Hollywood Boardwalk would be open, and indeed it proved to be very popular. We got one of the last spots in the parking garage. Canadian license plates were dominant there.
The boardwalk was hopping as seniors danced to a live big-band, and the beach was packed! I found the water a bit cold, so I relaxed on the beach with my book, but the guys went swimming. There were not a lot of other people in the clear turquoise water. Sorry, I have no pictures of this. It's the photographer's dilemma--does one bring an expensive camera on a day like this? I would have brought the pocket camera, but it was with our daughter.
After about half an hour, a helicopter started circling. It was soon joined by another, and they buzzed overhead like a pair of giant mosquitoes for the rest of our stay. We later found out that a roofing repair job had collapsed at a hotel on the boardwalk, and some workers were injured. (Otherwise, the news for the entire duration of our trip was completely dominated by the earthquake in Haiti and the relief efforts--largely based out of Miami.)
By the time the guys emerged from the water, I was getting hungry. My husband checked the time on his phone and was shocked to discover numerous messages to the effect of, "Where are you?" It turned out that he'd completely forgotten about his afternoon meeting, so we rushed back to the hotel.
It was okay for our daughter to spend another night with her grandparents, and I was not looking forward to the 45 minute drive (or probably a lot more since I would be driving in the direction of commuter traffic this time), so I did not go to the mall as planned. I had more shopping to do, but there was nothing of interest nearby. At this point, I decided to look into the voicemail situation in our room. My mom said she'd called and left messages, but the message light was not blinking. It turned out that I did indeed have messages--several of them that needed immediate attention. I was impressed that the hotel sent up a repair man within half an hour. I was less impressed by his conclusion, "It don't work. You wanna change rooms?" Since we were there for a whole week, I'd unpacked everything, so this was not so appealing. Also, even though we were only on the fifth floor, we had a pretty good view (better than my husband's co-worker's room on the 16th floor).
I considered driving over to South Beach for a taste of the night life since my husband was busy with his conference for the rest of the afternoon and evening, but I decided to take it easy. If I took the car from the parking garage, I'd have to pay $6 per hour on top of the $25 per night, and that made the idea of dinner at the hotel with a good book even more appealing. As it turned out, both dinner and the book were good (The Friendship Test by Elizabeth Noble--thanks, Solvej, for loaning it to me). I enjoyed the me-time.
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