Mérida to Miami to Rixeyville 2025

Since last time, we enjoyed several months in Playa del Carmen. 

Cancun, Playa and Tulum are in the state of Quintana Roo.

We moved from Quintana Roo across the peninsula to Mérida, in the state of Yucatan. Definitely not the Mayan Riviera. Real Mexico for real Gringos. After several more months, Lilly had to head back to New York to tend to family matters. I used to walk by this cantina often. I always heard raucous yuk-em-ups and laughter emanating from behind those swinging doors in the middle of the afternoon. Probably just as well that I didn't go in to find out what was so funny.

During this time one of my credit cards was compromised. Then one day my cell phone wallet somehow flipped open and my second Capital One card was gone.

I travel with three cards, because every now and then a ATM will eat one or the card becomes somehow otherwise compromised. Lilly also travels with three, so we have plenty of back up. Now Lilly is gone and I am wandering around Mexico with one Virginia Bank debit card. Not a life for the faint hearted!

Try as I may, and believe me we went 'round and 'round about it, I could not get Capital One to figure how to Fed Ex me new ones in Mexico. 

So it was time to fly back to the States and resolve this matter, as well as modernize my phone with one of those Wallet Apps that you can download the credit cards into the phone. Miami was a 90 minute flight away.

Got a little place in Little Havana. I had a new phone and new credit cards in three days. Time to start wandering around Miami. 

It must have been spring break because the booze cruze party boats were out in full force. Hundreds of boats, of all shapes and sizes, blasting da tunes while ferrying twerking bikini clad co-eds, twerking buff gay guys in matching pink bikini bottoms, as well as representatives from the rest of the human spectrum. They motored along the Miami River out to Biscayne Bay to party at sunset.  

When the various bridges would open up to let the larger yachts and commercial ships pass, I would watch the passing party. They would twerk at me and I would wave back at them.

Here is a peculiarity of Miami traffic I noticed while walking across the many bridges in Miami. When these draw bridges were raised, I would estimate that the traffic waiting to cross would have to wait 20 to 25 minutes for the whole process to unfold. On weekends, this interruption might happen every 30 minutes. As soon as the crossing gate was raised and the light changed to green, drivers in cars, like 30 car lengths back would lay on the horn. I am talking LAYING ON THE HORN: HOOOONKKKK HONK HONK HOOOOONKKK! These poor sots would probably have to sit through two or three more light cycles...don't know why they bothered. By walking, I sometimes crossed the bridge before they did.

My Airbnb in Little Havana was about 7 blocks from the the Cuban tourist hub, Calle Ocho.

I was wasting time  browsing in a used book store one day when I ran across one of Tom Wolfe's last books. It is titled Back to Blood and it takes place in Miami in 2012. The universe wanted me to read this book! In one chapter, Wolfe is describing the north Miami neighborhood of Hialeah, where the original Mariel Boatlift Cubans moved after they became established in the middle class and left Little Havana behind:

"People were always talking about 'Little Havana', a section of Miami along Calle Ocho, where the tourists all stopped at Café Versailles and had a cup of terribly sweet Cuban coffee and then walked a couple of blocks to watch the old men, presumably Cubans, play dominos in Domino Park, a tiny plot of parkland placed right there on Calle Ocho to lend a rather drab neighborhood a little...authentic, picturesque, folklórica atmósfera. That done, they say they have seen Little Havana. But the real Little Havana was Hialeah, except it was hard to call it little. The old 'Little Havana' was dreary, worn out, full of Nicaraguans and God knows who else, and the next thing to being a slum, in Nestor's opinion. Cubans would never sit still in a slum."

The Uber took me from the airport to my Airbnb. I knew there were several apartments in the house, but it was not clear which one was mine, so I shooed the roosters away (they were everywhere in Little Havana) and tried the front door. It was unlocked and I swung it open and there stood an absolutely terrified young Latina. 

People over the years have said that I look like a cop trying a little too hard to blend in. This Latina took one look at this senior citizen gringo that screamed TRUMP IMMIGRATION RAID......FUCKING HANDS UP!!! and panicked. Having been in Mexico three hours ago, I hit her with some Mexican slang and she calmed down.

I eventually met everyone in the building as they worked on their cars and drank beer after a long day of construction work. Where were they from? Á la Tom Wolfe: Nicaragua.

Dude sure was observant.

It was about an hour and a half bus ride across the causeways to South Park Beach. It was always a raucous and colorful trip. Ranting crazies, wide eyed and on guard tourists from everywhere, many human colors, shapes, sizes and languages.

South Park Beach looking north to Miami Beach and beyond.

Miami Beach was about 20 blocks north of South Beach. Nice walk either on Collins Avenue or on a pedestrian path. It was too far and too hot for me to schlep on out there to check out the water.

I had eaten at the Versailles Restaurant about 15 years ago. Arguably the most famous purveyor of Cuban food and old school Cuban culture in Miami. I had the codillo de puerco then. It was like a three pound portion of bone in braised pork with fried plantains and black beans. Can anybody eat that much uninspired ham?

So 15 years later I hiked on over to Versailles and perused the menu again. I decided to go for the Cubano arguably the most famous of Cuban sandwiches, presumably invented in Florida.

How do you spell MEH for the second time in 15 years? Nice to people watch, though.

After a month in Miami, I caught the newest Amtrak train, The Floridian to see my Mom in Richmond, Va. The 25 hour trip followed the east coast from Miami up to West Palm Beach, then crossed over to the west coast to Orlando and Tampa. It then crossed Florida again and headed to Jacksonville. It was mostly daylight hours and a good way to see much of urban and rural Florida.

Here my Mom stands at the former site of the European Health Spa, where she worked in the 70's. The building has been long since torn down but the statue of Atlas holding the world on his shoulders....wait, somebody done stole Atlas' dang burned globe burden!!

Visited granddaughter Olivia at her second birthday party in Bumpass, Virginny.

Olivia's maternal grandad, Capitain Ed, father Hunter and uncle Giles at the party.

Moved on to Haymarket, Virginny to welcome fourth grandchild Caleb into the world. Brother Owen celebrates as well.

On my 68th birthday, I got a photo with three of the four grandchildren. Next time Cooper!

Chose this rural spot about 35 miles from each of the kid's new family homes. They have all moved back to central Virginia. This rural spot is Rixeyville and this is a shot of downtown Rixeyville. WTF?

The closest store is Ma and Paw's Country Mall. Haven't ventured in quite yet.

Unmarked Civil War graves at a nearby Episcopal church.

I have a room in this spacious and quiet abode. The hosts are German and speak German to each other and to some visiting friends from das heimatland. They speak perfect English to me. Quite the change from the Español of Mexico and Little Havana recently.

Wandered around a few more battlefields on some days. Here is the reconstructed Stone Bridge over Bull Run. The Confederates destroyed the original in 1862 to block the Federal advances/retreats during the first and second Battles of Manassas.

At the battle of First Manassas my great great grandfather Benjamin Franklin Eshleman was wounded while serving in this battalion, maybe at this very spot. He was stationed in Culpeper and was present at all the major battles of the Civil War. He fired the opening cannon signal to start the cannonade at Gettysburg before Pickett's charge. He managed to survive all four years and surrendered his unit at Appomattox. My grandmother remembers him as being hard of hearing. Understandably.

The Confederate line today, which was six miles long, on the Battlefield of Cedar Mountain, just down the road from Culpeper.

So a Papi Chulo is a slang expression meaning something like "hot rocking daddy". Lilly and my daughter have heard it a thousand times, but I continue to ask Spanish speaking clerks and bartenders "¿hay algún descuento para los papi chulos?" because it gets a laugh every time. They don't expect an old gringo to lay some happenin' slang on them like that. They usually good naturedly say something like "papi chulos? I don't see any around here or discount? old gringos pay double".

Thanks for stopping by