We had the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving in Miami with Shoshana, Mary’s best friend, and the woman who married us. She recently moved from Orcas Island to Austin, Texas, and was visiting her family in Miami for Thanksgiving. We drove down from St Augustine to Shoshana’s mom’s condo in North Miami Beach. The 7th floor condo is like an art museum, and overlooks the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean.
We had Thanksgiving dinner at Shoshana’s cousin’s house and also got to spend a wonderful evening at her brother’s house on the Intracoastal. He took us out for a very nice sunset boat ride complete with a few dolphins frolicking nearby. We had a great time, and very much enjoyed the warm weather and balmy nights. (Mary is on a diet now to get rid of those holiday pounds.)
Shoshana went with us to the Miami Seaquarium to visit Lolita, the last living orca in captivity from the Pacific Northwest. She was captured in 1970 at the age of 4 and has been performing at the Miami Seaquarium ever since. Lolita is believed to be the oldest orca in captivity. She is in a notoriously small tank with no other orcas, and only a few pacific white-sided dolphins for company. There has been a campaign to try to secure her release for many years, but with no result. We weren’t sure what to expect. Thankfully, she looked in surprisingly good shape (skin, teeth and mouth all excellent). She did a very good job of splashing the audience, and interacted well with the trainers. Mary checked in with her, and she seemed to be resigned to her lot.
On the way back up to St Augustine, we checked out campgrounds for our next stop near Vero Beach. It’s unseasonably cold right now in north Florida (overnight freezing temps), but still nothing like the rest of the country, so we are not complaining.
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