We took a taxi to the airport. It costs about $40 each way (after tip). Parking at the airport is $15 per day, so the $80 taxi ride is a money saver for any trip longer than 4 days. This trip is going to be a bit longer than that.
When you hire a taxi to take you to the airport, you never know if they’ll be on time, if they’ll drive the same route or as fast as you, etc. So you plan on a little extra time. We also allowed a little more extra time because we knew we would be checking a bag filled with our scuba stuff. So we had scheduled the driver to pic us up at 9:30. He called at 9:20 to make sure he had the right address. He showed up right on time, drove the shortest route, and got us to the airport by 9:50. We walked straight to the self-check kiosk, checked in, turned in our bags, went straight through security (there’s never a line in San Jose) and sat down at our gate… with nearly two hours until our flight was scheduled to leave… and then it got delayed.
Our connection in LAX was already short at just 60 minutes. Getting delayed just made things a little more interesting. We flew there on a tiny 2×2 SkyWest plane, so we had to take a bus across the runway from the commuter terminal to the main terminal. We didn’t run, but we walked quickly… arriving just 5 minutes before departure. Luckily the plane had plenty of seats so we didn’t have to sit in our assigned middle seats on the 2x5x2 777.
The flight to MIA from LAX was smooth. There was plenty of room and opening the air nozzles even a little was enough to keep me quite cool the whole time. I did have some trouble with the in-seat entertainment system, but it was a pretty good flight. MIA is a huge airport. Getting from our terminal to the rental car high rise was a serious journey, but it went by quickly as we walked, talked, and rode the train there with another couple from our flight on their way to Lima. Enterprise made getting our car super easy. Literally no paperwork until after everything was signed, sealed, and delivered. They even upgraded us to a Nissan Altima. It’s not terrible, but it’s a long way from how good they used to be when we owned one. The CVT stuff is crap.
We took the 1 (South Dixie Highway) all the way to Key Largo, only stopping to eat at Shake Shack, and to pick up some essentials at Walmart. The Shake Shack was mediocre. The burgers were greasy. The fries were greasier. But the shakes were made with frozen custard and were very good, but also extremely rich. We don’t need to go back. Walmart was scary. Seriously. There were hundreds of shopping carts strewn throughout the entire parking lot, many slammed into cars. There wasn’t a car or truck in the lot without serious damage and scratches. I was honestly nervous about parking our nice rental car in that lot, especially with all our stuff in it. I thought about it almost the entire time we were shopping and 100% of the 30 minutes we stood in line trying to check out. Yikes. But we chose Walmart for one reason: they let you get $100 cash back when you check out. I’m not sure it was worth it, but at least we will have some tipping money tomorrow.
Now we just need to adjust to the new timezone. It’s way too late and we have to dive at 8:00 in the morning.
