ATLANTA
We flew out of Vegas on Thursday morning with an ETA into ATL of 2pm, and our whole intention for this city was to see a ballgame at Turner Field. It just so happened that the Brewers were visiting Atlanta for a series, then heading down to Miami for the weekend series. But more on the Miami game later. Our plane was slightly delayed, but we still got into Atlanta in plenty of time. We had a car rental reserved for the weekend at Dollar Rental. When we got to the rental center, there were about 20 other people in front of me, waiting to rent a car with Dollar as well. I waited about 20 minutes to get to the counter, and when I did, the agent told me that there would be a half hour wait for my car. By then, it was about 3:30, and we didn't have time to waste, as we like to get to the ballpark for BP. Anyway, we didn't want to sit and wait that long for our car, so we went next door to Budget Rental. When we realized they had cars, we booked them, and Dollar lost our business. After finding out that Budget had an Escalade at the same rate as our Dollar full-size would have been, we were sold!!
Before we got to our hotel, we went through the drive-thru at a nearby McDonald's because we hadn't eaten anything the whole day. When we got up to the window to get our food, Robbie asked the lady how to get to Newberry Rd (the one that our hotel was on, and the one that McD's was off of), and her response was "oh, I don't drive." Robbie's reply to this was the best when he said, "YOU don't know how to get to THAT road, right over there??" Blame it on an early morning, a whole day of travel, or just the way she said it, but it had us busting out laughing. We have a bunch of inside jokes from our prior life experiences, and this one is going on that list!!
Anyway, when we got tour hotel, we didn't have that much time before we had to leave for the 7:10 game, so we dropped our stuff off, and literally were right back in the car. Turner Field was really easy to find, and before we knew it, we were inside the gates. Before we got to our seats, we went to see the field at our first opportunity. Luckily the Brewers didn't take BP that day, so we didn't miss anything. We both really liked the look of Turner Field, except Robbie didn't care for the dimensions of the field. He thought it was boring how the outfield wall went straight across without any nooks or cranny's. I had to agree with him. After we found our awesome Club Level seats, it was game time!
Another cool aspect about Turner Field was that they had a deck in left field that looked out onto the Atlanta skyline. Robbie noticed that the sun was setting and he mentioned going over to watch, and to our surprise, there was the skyline! We watched the sun go down as the lights were coming on downtown, and we even saw the 1996 Olympic Cauldron to the east of downtown. That was neat!
TAMPA
Early Friday morning, we set out by car to Tampa. Our plan all along was to drive from Atlanta to Tampa, and then over to Miami. Robbie and I love road trips, and I hadn't ever been farther south than Destin, FL, which is on Florida's panhandle. My alarm went off at 6am, and when I looked at my phone, it still had the Pacific Time Zone saved, and I was not happy that it said 3am!! But I powered through, and we were on the road by 7:30am. A part of our decision in choosing a hotel in a southern part of Atlanta provided us the opportunity to just jump on the open freeway and not have to deal with any city driving. That decision shaved off a good half hour! The drive from Atlanta to Tampa was a real contrast from driving in the Southwest, that's for sure. We had the rare enjoyment of green scenery all the way to Tampa! I found myself comparing the ATL/TPA drive to the Midwest equivalent of driving from Minneapolis to Chicago. Lots of green, hills, and trees!! Oh, how I miss trees! After we went through Tampa and crossed the Bay, we were there!
Our single intention of going to Tampa was to cross off Tropicana Field from our stadiums list. We had nothing else to do there besides to take in a ball game. We purposely booked a hotel right by the stadium, and it happened to be right across the street, within walking distance!! Yessss! We had a little time to relax in our room before we headed over. The Brewers weren't playing in this game, so we had no interest in getting there early for batting practice. We did however find out there was a Hitters Hall of Fame inside Tropicana Field, so we definitely checked that out, too!
Tropicana Field is one of the last domed stadiums left in the MLB. Most teams have built new stadiums, and a lot have opted for the retractable roof. Seeing the inside of the stadium reminded me A LOT of the old Metrodome!! The inside view of the domed ceiling was really cool, as it had a catwalk on the perimeter, and a smaller one in the middle. And the roof was the only cool aspect about it!
We had tickets in the upper deck, but there were so few people there that we moved down right along the third base foul line. The Rays were playing host to the Boston Red Sox, and the game was a snoozer. No one scored until the 9th, and the Rays came away with the 1-0 victory.
We left our seats in the 3rd inning to explore the stadium some more, and we noticed there was a re-entry door on the west side of the stadium. We went out there to eat some food and we witnessed one of the more spectacular sunsets I've seen in quite some time. I took a sequence of pictures, and you can see them below. Shortly after, we headed back to our hotel to call it a night early. We were wiped out from driving all day, and we knew we wanted an early start the next day because both of us were itching to get to Miami's South Beach!!!
MIAMI
We were on the road to Miami by 8am on Saturday morning, and we could not get there fast enough! We first made a pit stop after we crossed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in St. Petersburg. The bridge crosses Tampa Bay, and it is pretty awesome! It only spans about 4 miles, but it is very aesthetically pleasing!! Thankfully there was a lookout to the bridge just as we crossed, so we stopped there to grab some pictures.
We then were back on the road with our destination being Miami! As Will Smith says, "Buenvenidos a-Miami!" After driving east through Alligator Alley, we were there! Back in October of 2013, I won a 2-night Kimpton hotel stay to any property in the country through my work, and when we were planning this vacation, I knew we had to use it in Miami, especially after realizing they had a property right on South Beach!!! It was pretty great rolling up to our hotel in an Escalade! Just imagine little old me getting out from behind the wheel when the valet guy opened the door! Ha!
Our hotel, the Surfcomber, was really cute, just 3 floors, and the rooms were pretty great! And the best thing about the hotel was that it had direct beach access with lounge chairs and umbrellas at the ready for hotel customers only!! That was pretty swanky!!
After our lunch, our intention was to lay on the beach, but laying in a bed seemed much more appealing. We were so tired from the previous couple days, and we wanted to rest up for the night ahead. A few days before we left for this trip, we added the Miami Heat game to our itinerary. They are in the Eastern Conference Finals, and they happened to be playing in Miami on this day, so we said "why not?!" Later that night, we made our way to American Airlines Arena, home of the Miami Heat. The arena is right on the Bay and the Port of Miami, so the vibe was pretty energetic when we got there. We went right into the arena and found our seats. I needed a few minutes to just soak it all in.
The Heat were playing the Indiana Pacers, and before we knew it, they were warming up, and then starting line-ups were being announced!! On each seat was a white t-shirt that said "White Hot", so it looked like the crowd was part of a white-out. Pretty cool!
The Pacers jumped out to a quick lead after tip-off, and none of the shots that the Heat were attempting were going in the bucket. It was pretty frustrating, and the crowd let them hear it. The score at half-time was 42-38 in favor of the Pacers, but the Heat came out of the half, guns blazing. LeBron James put on a clinic in the second half, with help from (former Buck) Ray Allen and Dwayne Wade. Towards the end of the game, the crowd was going nuts, and I found myself cheering with the best of them! The people of Miami take their basketball VERY seriously. The Heat ended up winning handedly 99-87, and the celebrations commenced!!
After the game, traffic was terrible, as expected, so we went to this really cool area called Bayside, right next door to the arena. At Bayside was an outdoor "mall", with restaurants and shops. We went to the first place we could find that didn't have too bad of a line, and that place was Hooters. We have a Hooters here in Vegas and their food is terrible, so I wasn't too excited, but I knew we needed to sit and wait out the traffic. We were seated on the patio with views of the bay and the Port, so that made up for the food, which turned out to be alright!
After Robbie saw that traffic was dying down, we set out for our hotel on the island. Here's what we didn't know about South Beach: for some reason, the city of Miami thinks it's a good idea to shut down part of the main drag on South Beach, and several side streets at night, the busiest time on the island. We were diverted north just two blocks away from our hotel. So instead of having a semi-early night, we were stuck in traffic for the next hour and a half. We were diverted 25 blocks north, just to head south again on another street. We left Bayside at about 12:15am, and didn't get back to our hotel until just shy of 2am. If anyone has an explanation as to why Miami does this, please tell me. Both the cops who were diverting traffic and our valet guy didn't seem to know what the road closures were for. Needless to say, we both slept in until the absolute latest on Sunday, which was 10:45am. And boy did it feel good!
When we did finally roll out of bed on Sunday, we got ready to go to our last stadium of the weekend, Marlins Park. As I stated above, after the Brewers finished their series in Atlanta, they headed to Miami for the weekend series. Baseball is ultimately what we planned this trip around. The game was at 1:10pm, and we got there with about 20 minutes to spare, but we didn't care. We knew the Brewers weren't going to be taking batting practice being it was a Sunday. We had originally planned to go to the Marlins/Brewers game on Saturday because we heard that Mark Reynolds and Giancarlo Stanton put on a pretty good show during BP, but luckily we hadn't bought our tickets yet, as we went to the Heat game instead. Anyway, we didn't have great expectations for the look of the park, but when we got there, the park proved us wrong. Marlins Park is a behemoth, for a baseball park. It's bright white on the outside, and the inside is just as nice. The concourse reminded me of Miller Park, in that you can see the field from anywhere, so it's nice when you are walking around or getting food.
We were supposed to see the Brewers ace Yovanni Gallardo start on this day, but in his previous game, he rolled his ankle, so he had to skip this start. The Brewers ultimately called up pitcher Jimmy Nelson for this start from our Triple-A affiliate. He was facing Marlins pitcher Randy Wolf. We knew right away that we were in for a lot of offense.
After the first pitch, the Brewers wasted no time getting on the board. They scored 3 in the first, and our pitcher, in his MLB debut, was on deck in the top of the first even before he took the mound! It would have been cool if he batted before he had a chance to pitch....it didn't happen though.
The Brewers won this game big, with a score of 7-1, and Braun was a homerun shy of the cycle...pretty cool! In the week prior to this series, the Brewers fell into a slump, so Roenicke shook up the line-up, and it worked. And to this day, the line-up is the same as it was in Miami! Marlins Park has a feature in center field of a waterfall and marine life scene, and it lights up and the fish move around when the Marlins hit a homerun, so we were lucky to see that. The Brewers did get out of a few bases-loaded jams, courtesy of the bullpen, which I am very thankful for this year! We even got to see our amazing closer K-Rod come in, in a "tune-up" role, and he finished the game for us!
Driving back to our hotel from Marlins Park was MUCH easier this time around, and when we got back, we went directly to the beach! Ahhh, relaxation! Being it was later in the day, the beach chairs and umbrellas were gone, but the sun wasn't that strong anymore, and it was behind us for the most part. Robbie and I spent a good hour at the beach, jumping waves and playing like we were little kids again (more-so Robbie)!
The waves were pretty strong when we got out there, so after our time at the beach, we relaxed by, and in the hotel pool for a while as well!
We wanted at least one night to experience Miami, so after Kristin suggested Lincoln Road, we had worked up big appetites, and we headed there! Lincoln Road is blocks and blocks filled with shops and outdoor restaurants. She suggested eating at a place called 5 Napkin Burger, so we did, and it hit the spot perfectly!!! Then we went to Serendipity 3 for dessert. Our evening was the perfect way to say goodbye to Miami...for now!
On Monday morning we were headed back to the airport, finishing up our Whirlwind Tour. Yes, we were busy But no, I would not have changed one bit of it! We flew back to Vegas from Ft. Lauderdale, and we had great birds-eye views of the Florida coast as we ascended! As we were closing in on Vegas, we flew over the Grand Canyon, and the views from the top were also outstanding! What a way to end our vacation!! Robbie is the best travel partner I could ever ask for, and we have already started planning our next trip!! Look out Denver and Minneapolis...here we come!!!
