BBQ and Baseball Tour 2017 Day #6 “El Guapo”

You might recall that I ended yesterday’s post saying that today would involve a meeting with a woman of my past.  Those of you who have followed our travels for years might recall me once saying that we were going to have dinner near the Erie Canal with a woman with whom I had shared some of my deepest and secret feelings for about 20 years but had never seen or met.  My readers love scandal and dirt so they were very disappointed to find out that my friend Zara and her husband Chuck, like us, have a child with Crohn’s disease (we have 2 but this is not a competition I want to win).  I first met Zara through a website called “IBD SUCKS”.  I am not sure if it still exists (actually I just checked and it does) but the site http://www.crohnscolitisfoundation.org is MUCH more useful. We had a delightful dinner that night and have remained in contact since.  Chuck is a retired DDS (who has a sense of humor very similar to mine) and Zara is a retired nurse.  They have relocated to this area having previously lived in Rochester, New York.  Zara and Chuck, unlike Patrice, are baseball fans.

People have asked me why in the world I would fly down to Miami to see a game.  Part of the reason was of course to continue our (my) quest to visit all 30 MLB parks (12 down; 18 to go) but it was also to visit Chuck and Zara.  We had a delightful evening talking about baseball, Crohn’s disease, living in Florida (vs New York or California) and retirement.  We also saw a heck of a game.  The Astros won 12-2 but more important than that was that again we had incredible ballpark food (Dodgers get your act together!) and I didn’t see one beachball in the stands (Dodgers get your act together!).   Zara also told me of the real draw of Marlins Field is their Bobblehead Doll Museum (see below).

Prior to the game Patrice and I did some more exploring of the city.  We went to an area known as “Little Havana” and had lunch (at Chuck and Zara’s recommendation) at Old’s Havana Cuban Cocina (1440 SW 8th Street).  We both had sandwiches and they were excellent.  My sandwich was names after me, “El Guapo”.    For dessert we got some ice cream across the street at Azucar (1503 SW 8th Street).  How could we resist a place that looked like this (see below).

We also wandered into a cigar factory where we saw Cubans (so we were told) rolling cigars by hand.  It was fascinating to watch.  See below.

This sign outside of the cigar shop was also of interest (see below).

Travel day tomorrow.   Hopefully we will get to Memphis but our schedule is a bit tight so we need to pack and get off to bed.