As we continue to wait for a weather window to cross to the Bahamas we get an opportunity to further explore Miami. There is a saying that that says "you can sail or you can have a schedule, but you can't have both"; cruising is about enjoying where you are.
Today on Joyce's birthday we went to Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens in Coral Gables. Since there is no public transporation to Coral Gables on the weekend, we took a taxi which is always exciting. Sometimes we think that having better Spanish skills would help in getting around south florida and they would, but the range of languages you hear in this area is really astounding. On point, the taxi driver that took us out to Coral Gables was Greek and the driver that took us back to Coconut Grove was Arabic.
Fairchild was built in the 1930's under the Civilian Conservation Corp program. We are often amazed by how many of our parks and recreation areas were created under this program.
Fairchild is a large park that showcases tropical and subtropical trees, schrubs and flowers from around the world. You could spend many days there and not see everything in detail.
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| Welcome center - built from local limestone |
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| A peaceful bench near the cafe. |
They had a very interesting collection of arid-climate plants, many from Madagascar:
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| Check out the 'thorns' |
And a Baobab tree from Africa. This tree was huge and the tram guide said that it is a 'small one':
Overlook of the 'formal' gardens:
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Since South Florida has a sub-tropical climate, many of the true tropical plants were in a conservatory (big greenhouse):  |
The orchids were spectacular:
And finally the rain forest. Although South Florida gets quite a bit of rain in the summer, the rain forest must be irrigated:
Tom
Coral Gables, FL
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