Slim pickings. When you are not traveling the world, but becoming intimate with your hotel room, you do anything you can to get the makings for a blog. We are still in Doral, Florida, a suburb of Miami. Our last post was about how empty the closed Dolphin Mall across the street was, with nobody around. We have since walked around the American Coot Lake that fronts the mall, with signs saying to beware of alligators and snakes (see the last photo), but all we saw were coots, ducks, and other water birds.
Since that time the mall has gotten even less inviting. The single retail store, Bass Pro Shop (shown with its the Live Bait vending machine on Day 780), in which we shopped one day, has since closed, only leaving a couple of restaurants serving takeout orders a few hours each day.
The cruise ship Rotterdam, from which we disembarked in Florida on February 24 after transiting the Panama Canal, is now sitting off the coast of Florida. The Rotterdam went back out to sea after we disembarked and supplied its sister ship, Zaandam, with medical supplies. Now the fates of the passengers and crews of both ships are being debated by the powers that be. Some want to let them back into their Florida home port and others want them to disembark somewhere (anywhere) else. But for one or two lucky decisions we made recently, we could be in the same boat, so to speak.
As far as our own situation, we know that our hotel actually received an order to close a couple of weeks ago, but was able to get it countermanded because some of the guests were government workers. A small but steady stream of new guests are coming in each day or two from other hotels as they close. We still don’t know if the order will come through again, as “tourists” are no longer wanted here. If so, we will be forced into the street and told to go “home.” That is a problem for us, of course, since we sold our house more than two years ago and no longer have a “home.” We have never been to the private post office where we receive our mail, but I suppose we could go see if they have a lobby in which we could wait out this apocalypse. That is of course if we could get to LA. Anyway, on to today’s events and happier thoughts.
We walked a different way today and saw a building that had some beautiful looking street art from across the street. We realized when we were standing in front of it that it was a club or restaurant with deliberate artwork (i. e., commissioned), so not really street art, but it was beautiful nonetheless. So, a little eye candy for your quarantine. Check out how lovely this club is….Divino Pecado, Santo Bocado (Divine Sin, Holy Bite). Just scroll through the photos slowly and delight in the colors, textures, visuals….the fun. The club opened last September but is now closed, of course. We ran into a worker, Francisco, who warmly invited us inside to take photos and look around. He was very gracious and spent some time chatting with us.
The first bunch of photos are of the interior…flowers, umbrellas, angels, and beautiful women abound. They are followed by the outside of the building, complete with elephants in the parking lot! The last two photos are fun: next door was a full-size plastic horse and buggy, followed by the aforementioned alligator sign! In the midst of the coronavirus apocalypse, we had a fun time in a lovely little gem on NW 25th Street in Doral, Florida. There is beauty all around us…you just have to seek and find!
