Estero/Naples, FL
I ended up going to South Beach. I left Kinko’s yesterday and called a friend of mine who lives in Miami. I left him a message. I wasn’t too fired up about going, but I thought I should call. I was feeling kind of mellow, but I knew the chance to head down to party city would be rare. He called back and said to come down. That charged me up, so Mark and I went.
I wasn’t sure what to think as we drove down there from Lauderdale. I had heard about models and great clubs and beautiful people not wearing much. On the way, we rocked out to some Foo Fighters and I was really pumped to be hitting the scene that I’ve heard so much about.
My friend in Miami, Jon, is pretty similar to Mark and I. We are not big clubbers and we don’t care too much about who is where. We go with the flow. He and I have known each other since we were kids. We played soccer together and against each other for a long time. We talked about that this morning and laughed about the memories. It’s funny how you can remember the players and how they played and the coaches and the fields and all of that. I can forget my best friend’s birthday, but I can remember the arm movements of a guy when he was playing soccer from 5th grade. Weird.
Jon gave us directions and we headed down at about 9:30. We met him at Monty’s. I think it was 5th street and A____ something street. There was a pool in the middle of the outdoor bar area. As with most places in South Florida, there was inside and out. I did the tour. There was a band playing and people dancing. There were picnic tables with groups of folks. There was a lot of Spanish in the air. This also meant there were some beautiful, dark eyed, dark haired beauties. As is my customary move, I waited for them to come to me. I don’t recommend this move.
We all caught up and laughed. Jon seemed to know the bartender and that never hurts. After about an hour, a group of 8 girls came in. It was like a scene out of a movie, all of the guys’ heads turn to them and follow as they walk through. We had the luxury of being in the aisle. Even better, we were in the aisle when they left an hour or so later. One of the girls looked at Mark and said ever so nonchalantly “The Clevelander,” as she walked by.
We all looked at each other. Mark grinned while Jon and I gave him props. We were headed to The Clevelander! Jon said this place would be hopping. He was right. This is right on the ocean and it was another beautiful night. This is all outside. It was crowded. We entered and circled. We would separate and regroup. On one of my solo trips, I found the group of 8. I tried my move.
I met back up with the guys, alone, and I laughed at how awesome this was. South Beach was great. We weren’t hanging with movie stars or anything like that. Deep down, I’m sure we’d all jump at the chance, but that was not the goal. We were hanging and meeting new people. At some point, we decided to leave there.
We headed to The Playwright. I asked Mark if he talked to the group. “What, they were there?” he said. “Hell yes they were there. You didn’t see them?” I said with a raised voice. There was one brunette I had my eye on. “No, I didn’t see them…” I wish I would’ve said something to him when we were there. Oh well.
Onward to the next place. This was an inside place and we were there until way too late. We talked with different groups of folks. We rolled in to Jon’s place at about 5 AM. At 10 AM my phone rang. It was Rich. He was calling to give me directions to where I am now, north of Naples. I was feeling sluggish. I tried to take the directions down and when I looked at them later, they were very hard to understand.
My night in South Beach was great. Jon was a great host and showed us an awesome time. I will say I did not feel too well today and I am looking so forward to the bed that is behind me. I’m outta here. Golf at 8:30 AM.