Our campaign of conquering continues.
Our next destination:
Miami.
This time, our timing was on a whole new level.
Just as we we’re in DC, waiting to board our plane, on CNN it showed the following:
“In the next days, the East Coast will be hit by a very powerful hurricane…”
Sh!t son…
It coincided exactly with all of our holidays there.
We just choose to ignore the facts, no turning back now.
Miami is epic in size, not to mention the whole state of Florida.
We landed, for now, everything was fine.
Took the bus to our hotel and go out at what we thought it was our stop.
We soon discovered that we were wrong.
Very wrong.
We were so far off our destination that nobody knew the hotel we were asking for.
We took a cab because it was so hot.
Hot.
Very hot.
Did i mention it was hot like hell?
Yes, that hot.
Even the driver barely know if he would get us to the right hotel.
After 30 minutes we still weren’t there !
Finally we arrived, the driver very nice with us he said don’t worry about the fare because i didn’t know how to get you here fast enough so just give me xx. Excellent.
This was it: “Solé On The Ocean“.
Respect.
By the way, this trip in Miami Beach, a 4 star hotel, 5 days with 4 nights and with a full plane round trip, it cost us 390 $ each.
How about that.
When we saw our room we couldn’t believe the sight !
We said: let the hurricane come we would die happy.
Straight into the ocean.
Again, amazing views.
A big mind blow came when we realized that the temperature of the Atlantic Ocean was hotter that the outside air temperature ! It was like in a sauna, man ! Epic.
Then a guy comes to us:
“You’re tourists, ‘ight?”
I answer with the classical “that obvious, ha?”
“You look so f*^ing white, whiter than Snow White”.
You don’t have a tan, you’re clearly not from Miami.
In 24 hours Judgement Day should be here.
We were like the only tourists for a few days, of course because of hurricane “Irene” knocking at the city’s doorsteps.
Clear sky, so we set out to explore and enjoy what time we had left, if the end came.
Fabulous city and this is barely 10 % i think, that big it is.
Full of convertibles, exotic cars and clubs. Few people walking in the day though, the heat is crazy, i think you need AC even for your bicycle.
Ah, my E34 again, no trip is complete without spotting it.
Night was soon upon us, started to rain a little, so we took shelter in the ocean.
It was still warm so it was perfect.
The tides brought so many algae and a few extra bits.
Full of jellyfish that we didn’t notice until it was too late and bit us like in a horror movie.
We were full of bites, now we were getting killed by jellyfish instead of the hurricane.
But we survived.
The third day, the sky was getting darker.
More rain poured.
We decided that we should explore more and not to stay in the hotel.
We rented a car and went to a new road trip.
We got a Nissan, very nice car considering what it will have to handle.
We almost got this.
But we said let’s play it safe.
Destination - Cape Canaveral – NASA, Baby – “One small step for men, one giant leap for mankind”
As we were exiting the city and onto the highway, we heard on the radio that Bahamas was completely devastated by Irene.
Poker face.
They said that it was closing on Miami and it will continue parallel with the cost.
Also it was traveling at 40 MPH.
In my technical mind, i said , hm given its current velocity and if (and that was a big ‘if’) it is constant, we should should reach NASA and still have 1-2 hours to spare until it will catch up with us.
We felt exactly like in “Independence Day“ – “we’re the only smoochs going in”
The rain was bad, really bad that i had to fight with the car to keep it on the road.
I think you can see some moments at the end of the clip.
On the radio, ironically it was “AC/DC – Highway to Hell”
Maximum cliche.
I had to remove our conversations, not public worthy. Rated R stuff.
Soon the rain stopped and we realized that we were on a 7 way highway.
The mirage was complete.
Crazy times, for us it was like we were in the movies.
I don’t know, now as i recall these, we were complete lunatics.
Found some indicators and soon we were getting close.
We have arrived.
Again, on the limit, as it is in our style, we got the last tickets before closing, of course, Irene was not long behind us.
The sky was black.
It’s happening.
We visited as much as we could.
Not even now i can’t believe that i touched the most powerful engines made my mankind, the ones used in the Saturn 5 rocket space ships from the Apollo missions - a combined power of over 160 million horsepower.
It boggles the mind.
NASA, done, at least the “Kennedy Space Center” - named after JFK because he was the one who made it happen.
This is the launching place and the control and command facilities are in Huston, Texas.
Thus the famous quote.
These, plus the Space Museum from D.C., i was a very happy gearhead.
The final show was when we got into a space simulator.
But we weren’t prepared for this, it was a 100 % space simulator.
It will incline exactly like a space ship, you will be striped down and wait for liftoff.
You will even experience 0 G, so it’s a full and amazing experience.
We took it again that good it felt.
Americans - masters in showbiz.
Finally, Irene had arrived.
The place was shutting down and rain poured in a biblical sense.
They ordered to leave the premises for our own safety.
What did i do?
I found almost 70 $ in a puddle, a lot of small bills.
We dried them on the dashboard.
What the heck.
Then we headed back to Miami, we expected the worst when we got back, but we were prepared, we had all of our documents with us and our luggage at the hotel was small just clothes and stuff, the main ones were in DC with some friends.
So we didn’t have anything to loose.
We were happy that we were still alive and managed to visit NASA.
Then, we found a ‘classical’ radio station full of great hits.
And of course, the soundtrack from the movie “Armageddon”.
It seamed that Irene didn’t enter Miami and NASA, Bahamas was the only one that received its full force.
The sun was coming between the clouds, proof that we survived and the worst had passed.
The next day, hot weather was back and we just enjoyed our remaining days.
We even went to Miami Ink.
But we were there too early, the shop was closed.
We saw Amy, the bold guy, we knocked but he pointed to his watch and said he’s sorry.
Eh, no problem.
More relaxing and traveling in the city.
A lot of diving and of course sun insolation.
After these, our blog motto “Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.”, we can surly affirm that we put it into practice.
We leave you with “Scorpions - Wind Of Change”
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To be continued… the adventure is far from over.
