Annals of Pointess Vehicles: Stretch Hummer

Saw this in Coral Gables, driving around Cartagena Plaza. You know what this reminds me of?

SEXY!!!

Bicentennial Park: Restaurant

Probably the biggest surprise for me during my recent visit to Bicentennial Park was the discovery of a restaurant there. Well, concession stand. But a very large one.

It's closed, of course.

But here's the first image of it: the kitchen/service counter on the right, and the seating area just beyond the trees:

This is the concession stand; it's quite large, the service counter is about 20 feet long. Restrooms are included in this building (sealed now).

The underhang is now home to any number of the homeless. The restrooms sealed off, they've been relieving themselves in the recesses. Piles of their belongs are strewn underneath. I didn't take pictures of the service counters because I didn't want to incite the locals. You can see a man sleeping under the trees to the right of this photo; there were several more around.

The seating area:

The tables and chairs have been stripped; I don't know if the city did it, or if the homeless stripped them for firewood. This area used to have a roof over, but decay made it ripe for a hurricane to rip it down, and I've heard Wilma did just that.

Several men and a woman were drinking beer and grilling sausages. I don't know if they are homeless, but the grill setup looks like it's been there awhile. I don't know what this structure actually is; probably some sort of equipment bay.

The View:

This restaurant has an incredible view of the waterway; you can watch the cruise ships turn around and depart for the Caribbean, and there was a constant flow of boat traffic. And yet it's very quiet and peaceful. This should be a "best-kept secret" sort of place.

This restaurant was open when the park opened; there were very little interest in running it. When someone finally did agree to run it, they were murdered in front of a lunch crowd by a gang just a few weeks after opening.

Times have changed, and downtown is booming. I'd like to see the Park Department make a deal to re-open this restaurant; help a prospective tenant clean it out and set it up. I want to have breakfast in front of this view.

Not-So-Appropriate Public Art

I recently flew into Cedar Rapids, Iowa for a family reunion. (No, I'm NOT from Iowa. Don't ask.)

Everyone jokes about Iowa being one big cornfield, and the Cedar Rapids Iowa won't disabuse you of this notion; it's SURROUNDED by cornfields.


You can see the fields beyond the parking lot. But you can also see some sculptures that have been placed between the airport and the cornfields.

I suppose it's an attempt to show arriving passengers that Iowa isn't all corn and pig farmers, and that they have art, too.

And not just any art: MODERN art.





The problem is that the sculptures kind of look like the tails of airplanes.

That makes the message something like "WHEW! You had a better landing than THESE guys!"

I wonder if this one is called "Whoops!"