This weekend, Ocean Drive was the setting for the annual Art Deco Festival - while the Convention Center hosted the Motorcycle Show!  We certainly have diversity on the Beach.  

Art Deco being my great love - that's where I headed.  Art Deco fashions, books, posters and jewellery 
featured on the lively stalls under the shade of palm trees alongside the Ocean.  The Art Deco Festival 
is a signature event in the Miami Beach calendar and always attracts tourist from all over the world.  The weather is pretty near perfect with temperatures in the 80's - no wonder those wanting to escape the 
cold and snow Up North - chose to visit the tropical delights of Miami Beach.  

The Art Deco Festival always features fun entertainment and as well as musicians , dancers and theatre productions, there were  a colourful array of street performers - from stilt walkers to Shirley Temple twins.  Plus, a star attraction, hot MB firemen showing off their muscles and promoting sales of their beefcake calender.  They can rescue me anytime! 

The Art Deco Parade always brings the crowds out to see the vintage cars, the costume characters - and 
the beautiful people! 

Miami Beach is celebrating its incorporation as a City and many celebratory events are planned.  We can 
promise you a warm welcome!

While on Ocean Drive I paid a visit to the Art Deco welcome center and heard a most informative lecture   lecture by Carolyn Klepser, a local historian,  who was talking about her latest book, Lost Miami Beach (published by www.historypress.net)   Miami Beach has certainly changed a great deal - and it is fascinating to see the old photographs in the early stages of settlement and identify the buildings that occupy those sites now.  The mega fast rate of growth and development in the Magic City is legendary and not everyone approves - though the Preservation movement has been very active in preserving many of the landmark buildings, many have indeed been Lost.    But even way back in those early days, the founders were entrepreneurs and the City was an exotic location designed to attract visitors, tourists and buyers of real estate.  Miami Beach has been 'America's Playground' for a century. It's a great place to live!  
Who can blame me when I say - LIFE IS FABULOUS!  ENJOY!