The Adventure School » Dispatches from Miami: Birthday Garden

I turned 31, to celebrate I was taken to some awesome places. The first one was The Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. This place is no joke. There was an art show up by Les Lalanne AND our boy Chihuly had some glass stuff lurking around in the tropical shadows. We took a tram ride around the entirety of the park which was awesome, we didn’t see any alligators of crocodiles, bummer. But, we did see a WHOLE lotta awesome including an entire garden full of plants from Madagascar. The tram ride was driven and narrated by a volunteer. A pretty great job for a retiree . . . talking plants all day to Japanese tourists and 31 year old birthday girls. She was way into telling us about how they filmed CSI: Miami in the park sometimes.

Then we went to a place called Knaus Berrry Farm which apparently used to be run by The Amish but now there are like Mercedes Benz everywhere and teens that definitely use the internet etc working the register. I drank a milkshake and we bought cinnamon rolls to go.

The berry farm led us to a very agricultural area near or in Homestead Florida. They have fruits galore. It is possible that I have never seen so many fruits. The fruit, vegetable, everything stand, Robert is Here is the next place we went. They have a petting zoo complete with goats, geese, chickens, donkeys, ducks, emus and more! The highlight of Robert is Here was seeing fruits that I had never heard of like, the ugli fruit. Robert is here also sells sugar cane, starfruit, key limes, tiny bananas, heirloom tomatoes and the list goes on. Here in Florida, they call Heirloom tomatoes “Ugly Tomatoes” must be a Floridian citrus sensibility coming through . . . round = good, not round – UGLY.

My birthday totally ruled and culminated in DELICIOUS Mexican cookies and a midnight showing of the Swan movie starring Princess Amidala. Stay tuned for some flicks taken with A REAL CAMERA by Bert Rodriguez. And, really, seriously look at the photo of that rainbow Eucalyptus tree. That is completely out of this world!

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