Things to know about Miami and flying

HistoryMiami Museum tour

Miami can literally be called the birthplace of modern aviation and commercial air traffic.

Air business was born for mail delivery, and survived with the infusion of money and training needs of the government for the WW1 war effort.

Thanks to a fabulous tour put together by the HistoryMiami museum, I was able to spend a full day learning about the history of flight on a tour that took us from Miami Springs, to behind the scenes at MIA, to Dinner Key (where Miami City Hall is located in Pan Am's first airport).

Our guides from the history museum had the whole day synchronized perfectly. Our bus driver was excellent and had us moving fluidly through traffic, our historian Dr. George is amazing. This was my fifth tour led by Dr. Paul George tour, so I must be a groupy.

Me and Dr. George

MIA was known as "36th Street Airport" or "Pan Am Fields". Today Miami International Airport covers 3,230 acres west of downtown Miami between Northwest 36th Street, Le Jeune Road, the Palmetto Expressway and State Road 836 and is one of the busiest airports in the world. Over 44 million people traveled through the airport in 2017.

On the tarmac of MIA

in the control tower

The Glenn Curtiss mansion is now a museum and wedding venue next to the airport. Among a million other things, Curtiss owned the largest airplane manufacturing business in the 1920's, he gave the land for the current Miami International and Opalocka airports and he single handedly saved UM from going under in the 1920's. He also had over 500 inventions and 400 patents when he died at 53 years. He invented the first motorcycle and was the official "fastest man in the world" in 1907 (for going 136 mph on an 8 cylinder motorcycle). He was issued pilots' license #1 in the USA and license #2 in France. He and the Wright brothers fought notoriously, but generations later their businesses merged to continue manufacturing plane parts today (Curtiss Wright Co)!

Victor Chapman, of Chapman Field, and a road right around the corner from where I live, was the first pilot to go down in WW1 combat .

Eddie Rickenbacher was a larger than life figure in Miami. He  was the highest scoring Ace fighter pilot in WWI, and he owned Eastern airlines. He survived an eastern airlines crash into the Pacific ocean and survived for 24 days. In his older years, he was often seen as the crazy old man feeding the seagulls. But you have to know the story to appreciate why he did that. 

The pilot, Paul Tibbets on the plane called Enola Gay, (named after his mother) which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima August 6th, lived in Miami.  The second plane that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki was also piloted by a Bahamian Miami resident.

All the big stars worked  or flew out of Miami, including Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, and Glenn Curtiss.

Charles Lindberg was an airplane mechanic in Miami. Later he was hired to design routes for PanAm.

Talk about self made go-getters. Juan Trippe is someone to read about. He went from being a stunt amusement park flier to starting a mail delivery service to owning the largest international carrier in the world.
Pan American Airways, the largest international carrier, worked out of Miami airport from 1927 to its collapse in 1991. The employees were like a family and they formed World Wings International to keep in touch, build on philanthropic projects and keep the memories alive.

Pan Am flight attendants shared memories at the Curtiss Mansion

The next best thing to being in the airport control tower... If you eat in the 94th Aero Squadron Restaurant that is alongside the southern runways, you can wear headphones hanging from the walls between the windows to listen to the control towers.

A day from Heaven

Haiti: an island journey

I have only been back to the island 4 times since leaving in 1971 after living there for several years. I feel I grew up in Haiti and acquired my taste for color, for sounds and the smells of the Caribbean that have haunted me ever since. I felt privileged to be able to travel back with a group of 8 high school students and two other teachers. Everyone was excited. The students and I were wide awake...

No surprise, as we drove north out of Port-au-Prince, that I felt whiffs of "home". The road conditions, the further from the capital got more ludicrous and laughable! Switchbacks and hairpin turns with three vehicles vying for a single lane... we went over the mountains, rumbles up against cliffs, shot across valleys... The memories!

poultry in motion

rice fields

Is this even a road?

beautiful orange flower captured as we got stuck...

As I exclaimed over a yellow Suessical flower, aiming my camera at it, we became stuck. Our vehicle soon lost traction and became suspended half over a rock and a ledge, so we had to bail. We ended up having to walk in the drizzly rain the last mile to our destination. It took the village to pull the car out and get our 22 duffle bags and our 11 personal bags delivered to us.

A new painting

A friend of a friend was killed a few weeks ago and I was asked to do a memorial portrait. It is a tricky thing to do... I had never met the guy, and I only had some small images to work from. In the process I was drawn to learn more about the lost life... and it is life history on the internet. I learned of his accidental death because of a careless, rushed, driver passing on a double line... his passion for motorcycles, mountains, caves, nature, his surviving wife, his son... his heroic brotherhood in the police force... his youthful determination to serve and protect... his wide, often spell-casting, laughter. It is painful to think of his wife facing her days without him and I tried to convey that she would never be alone. He is behind her.
By the time I finished the portrait, I felt more honored than challenged.

Called Dave and Crystal, this painting is on 8 x 10 inch stretched canvas.

Sunshowers and sweethearts on South Beach

It rained three times on us today... briefly, but enough to get pretty tickled and fully wet. The feeling of staying outside in spite of the rain was exhilarating and harkened me back to childhood days of staying out no matter what. First, morning yoga at Coral Reef park ended in a face up Shavasana shower. Then the sun cleared in time for a Sunday afternoon at South Beach. Good friends from Colorado played in the sand and body surfed the waves and mused on how nice a rain shower was in January compared to the low temp snow storms back home. We eventually scurried from the beach to the Wynwood district where, in the sun, we wandered about the murals until the rain caught us again. After huddling for a while- almost 10 of us under two umbrellas- we caught the inspiring idea to go to the Buena Vista Bistro for a late afternoon lunch, and the Buena Vista Chocolate store, right next door,  for a lovers snack.

 Miami puts on a good show. The sky always has character. Even the rain looks good. Palm trees glisten black and white, girls in bikinis race by on Asian motorcycles, cruise ships as big as apartment complexes turn brilliant against a horizon of dark clouds. Wynwood was covered in new paintings. Feeling artsy and somewhat proud of my recent portrait attempts, I gave two of my latest paintings to my Godson and his mother, my girlfriend Julia.

Sophia, Julia's grandchild, was the star of the gathering and it felt great to be able to celebrate her with them in the paintings. Though she seemed a little suspicious of her "butterfly portrait", Sophia loved the painting of her and her two parents. She carried it about, talking to it animatedly! 

my studio last year this time

what was I crazy????!!!!!

PS Motorcycle painting on eBay

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320470226040&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT#ht_500wt_972

A fun and dangerous search

8.5 X 8.5 INCHES
This captures something about the motor that runs inside me. And the memory of days (and rides) past. July is national motorcycle month. Found a fun site- about riding for chicks. You don't need the testosterone. www.her-motorcycle.com. Very practical advice on helmet hair!

Motorcycle rider- Juvenile class

sold
Making a big rooster tail at the corner, he shows off for the crowd. Mom breathes a sigh of relief that he is still riding
7 x 9.5 inches.

Trail Riders

collection Trotta family
5.5 x 9.5 inches
painted panel
Into and out of the woods...
wired for hanging!

Air time on Motorcycle

SOLD
7.5 x 8 inches
The constant question, after, "Mom, did you see that?" is "Did you see how much air I got?"
My LEAST favorite phrase is, "Watch this!"

Kawasaki Splatter

sold
painted panel
7 x 10 inches
The wire swirls in each corner could be symbols of my mind at large- but are actually part of the hanging mechanism- these are luan primed panels, painted, and pierced with wire for hanging= I twirl the ends to hold them in place.

(I spray painted the bottom half with a grit spray)

Max on Motorcycle races by me

sold
6 x 10 inches painted panel

Motorcycle Impression

7.5 x 8.25 in
painted panel
SOLD

Playing on bike

sold
Down the Woops
8 x 9 in
painted panel