Lazy Iguana's Cruise
August 24, 2006
Carnival Imagination
Welcome to my cruise vacation website! If you see any photos you like, steal the buggers. Please do not hot link to this page. STEAL THEM. It is OK. Save the pictures on your hard drive, then upload them to your web server! No hot links please!
Now here is how this page works. Each thumbnail can be clicked for the same image in full resolution. My digital camera is a 5 mega-pixel, but I did not shoot at full resolution. Each full size photo is anywhere from 1 - 1.5 megs. If you are a high speed user, NO PROBLEM! Click away. If you are still using dialup - it will take a few minutes download the full size photos. How many minutes? If you have a 56k connection about 5 minutes. Or something like that. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle! YO JOE!
NOW ONTO THE GOOD STUFF! THE PHOTOS!
It was a grey day leaving Miami. But who cares! I was going on a cruise to Mexico! So I check in at the cruise terminal, get on the boat, and head to my ocean view cabin. This is what the view from the cabin was.
You can not see it very well, but you are looking at I-195 (AKA MacArthur Causeway) and Star Island. Notice the grey sky.
Next, it was time to hit the main deck! I have seen Government Cut from a small powerboat dozens of times, but never from a cruise ship. This is some of the stuff I saw.
This is the skyline of Miami. It has probably changed since this photo was taken on August 24, 2006. If you download the full size version, you will see a whole bunch of tower cranes. Miami is one large construction zone. The condo craze is HUGE here. The cranes are due either to new condo projects OR apartment building conversions.
This is a photo of MORE CONDOS. In the
foreground is Star Island. If you steal download the full size
image, you can see more cranes.
MORE CONDOS! This is a zoom photo, showing just some of the cranes. To the far left is the Freedom Tower (old Miami News Tower). It is one of the last historic buildings left standing downtown. All the rest have been blown up to make room for more condos. If the Freedom Tower had not been the place that the INS used to process refugees from the Mariel Boatlift inthe early 80s - it would be gone too. Everything else you see is fairly new construction or office/apartment conversions. I am holding out for the great condo market COLLAPSE so I can afford some housing. But the problem with that idea is that all these housing units are being built - but the public transportation sucks, and the roads are not getting any wider. Traffic will be WORSE than New York City. At least in New York you do not need a car. In Miami, you do.
This is the Miami Performing Arts Center. It is almost finished. Too bad the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra left years ago. It went belly up. Nobody went to see them, so they all left. Now there is a nice new center - and nobody here to use it. The shot is grainy because the light was low, and I was using maximum zoom.