South Beach - Part 2

On our way back into Miami this morning, we took a few pictures of the route out of the Keys. It's basically a one lane highway most of the way with very little room on either side. If there's an accident, and there are apparently quite a few, you sit. 

This is the view coming into Miami Beach. You have to take a bridge that can get very crowded. We've been lucky both times to have smooth driving. 

We arrived at our hotel, Park Central, and were very pleased to see the room. It's a classic old Art Deco hotel from the 30s but the rooms are updated. We have a corner room with windows on two sides. There's also a rooftop lounge that we can use. 
Here's the room:

After getting settled, we started walking towards the Lincoln Road pedestrian mall even though the skies were threatening. By the time we got there, it was raining lightly so we found a place for lunch. Oddly enough, the place was called Paul's and was a branch of the original place in France where we had lunch last summer. They had reproduced the look and feel accurately. We started at an outside table but the thunder and lightning got very serious so we moved inside just as the skies opened.
We both had cheese based sandwiches for lunch. Mine was a type of cheese steak sandwich and Marilyn's was a 4 cheese grilled cheese.

The rain kept getting worse and was coming down sideways. The shop started to fill up with people who wanted out of the deluge. We could see the streets starting to fill up with rivers of water.

We managed to linger over our lunch and some coffees for over an hour while the storm went on. It finally started to let up and we left. It was really surprising to see the lakes of water all over the place. We had to turn back at one point because the water was flowing like a river down one street. We found out afterwards that the sewer system for South Beach was last updated in the 80s and is highly inadequate for the number of people here now. So, every time it rains, South Beach floods. 

Here are a couple of shots from the rooftop lounge.

For dinner tonight, we went to a diner that was rated highly on Trip Advisor. It's called Big Pink. It's off the main strip but seemed to attract locals as well as tourists. You can see from the first two pictures where the name comes from.

Marilyn's dinner was a Cobb Salad that was probably the best she's ever had. 

I had a spicy Vietnamese beef wrap that was excellent.

After dinner we came back and picked up my camera and the tripod so that I could do some night shots. We also wanted to check out the proceedings along the beach where they were preparing for tomorrow's Pride Parade. We were bounced around a bit by the music at the main stage but it was fun. Today's rain storm has left some of the areas to be used tomorrow under water so we don't know what will happen. We'll definitely be watching the parade. Here are a couple of night shots to finish off. 
This is our hotel, the Park Central followed by a few other hotels on the strip.