We might not love Miami, but Daisy does. It seems that every other person on the streets is walking a dog. She loves greeting her fellow canines and sniffing the numerous smells in the grass.
Above, Daisy pauses next to the Starbucks in Coconut Grove. (Notice the green and red Christmas scarf.) We stop at this Starbucks almost every day, but sometimes are on our bikes so Daisy doesn’t get to come. Mark usually takes her for her morning walks, but a few days ago, he was busy working on the dinghy motor, so Daisy and I caught the shuttle ashore. She always seems to have a destination in mind when she walks and is quite insistent on us following her. She led me down a paved walking path next to Bayshore Drive and then turned on a street. Soon, we were at Starbucks. I didn’t want to leave her outside while I went in to get a drink and when she noticed I wasn’t stopping, she took me through the tables to get a drink out of the dog bowls they leave outside. Today we went to the post office and Daisy got her stop at Starbucks along the way.
Another place Daisy always wants to visit is the benches at the marina. She demands a constant scratch and likes watching the people and their dogs walk by. Dinner Key is the place where she first started her habit of sitting on benches. We were here for months last year and she got well trained, or rather she trained us well. Sometimes she’ll pass a bench, dig her feet in and refuse to move on until she gets to sit and rest.
Although we have been here several times in the past, and walked throughout the area extensively, we missed one important destination. We were riding our bikes last week, avoiding the very busy streets with no sidewalks, and we cut through some neighborhoods on our way to West Marine. We passed a lovely dog park filled with well behaved dogs. In the photo below, Daisy meets some new Goldendoodle friends. As a rule, we don’t go to dog parks, as many times the owners ignore their dogs and Daisy gets scared when packs of dogs are running around with no supervision. This one is truly a park, not a fenced in empty lot. The dogs are well supervised, which makes it a pleasure for us and for Daisy.
Coconut Grove is a trendy area with many restaurants, upscale stores, a movie theater, hotels, etc. The CocoWalk area is only a few blocks from the marina. Sadly, we aren’t overly impressed with the residents of the area. For example, I’ve never been at a Starbucks where so many people leave their cups on the tables. Also, unlike most Starbucks, the baristas don’t periodically come outside to clean off the tables. It’s rare to find an empty table without lots of cups on it. If you want to sit there, you have to carry dirty cups to the garbage cans. On the other hand, we rarely meet a dog who isn’t friendly.
Crossing a street in a marked crosswalk does not guarantee a safe place to get to the other side. Very few drivers in Coconut Grove seem to know that it is a law to stop for pedestrians in a marked crosswalk. Unbelievably, yesterday two police cars zoomed by us without stopping while we patiently waited to cross Bayshore Drive. It’s one thing to have to be a defensive driver in the heavy traffic here, but apparently it’s important to be a defensive walker as well.
When we are not at a dock, with unlimited water, Daisy’s baths are a little less frequent. Here at Dinner Key, we are able to bring water back to the boat in five gallon jugs. At the dock there is a hose we can use for this purpose. Perhaps they didn’t leave it there for dog baths, but Daisy and Mark didn’t seem to worry about that. Daisy enjoys her bath no matter how she gets it.
One of the restaurants that seems to be popular is across the street from Starbucks on Grand Avenue. Mark had a hamburger and fries at Johnny Rockets (right) and wasn’t impressed, but with no fast food nearby, people must get their junk food fix there. There are many restaurants in the CocoWalk area and almost all have outdoor, dog friendly seating.
Of course the city of Miami has many entertainment opportunities and tonight the rapper Pitbull is performing at a New Years’ Eve concert at the American Airlines Arena located in downtown Miami. Daisy saw the word “pitbull” and perhaps thought it was a dog show.
We will be at Dinner Key Mooring Field until Wednesday, when our last piece of mail will arrive and we’ll finally move over to No Name Harbor anchorage to stage ourselves to leave early Thursday morning for Bimini.
The weather forecast looks good for a crossing Wednesday through Friday with SE winds, clocking to SW at about 10 kts and seas only 2-3 feet. We expect there will be a large migration of boats leaving this week as the last weather window was over a week ago and then only lasted a day.
