Quick update from my Florida trip. On Valentine’s Weekend my family from New Jersey drove down to Naples Florida to relax in the sun and enjoy our wonderful weather. We checked the news and it happened to be sleeting! We left Palm Beach at 9 AM and raced down to Fort Lauderdale dodging terrible drivers. My phone, for some reason, still thinks it’s in Central Time and the estimated time of arrival is an hour off. The aggressive driving basically kept my eyes off the phone and on the road. Plus it kept disconnecting because I had the wrong cords. To make matters worse, my family was on the phone the whole time with work. So they weren’t paying attention to where I was going.
Now since I have been driving around the country I had my phone set up to generally avoid toll roads. far too many times have I been driving down a road for it to randomly and without warning turn into a toll road with no other options of driving around it AND with no way to pay with quarters (exact change is always required). So I had kept it set that way. I should have turned it off. I had my Sunpass and was just fine. Unbeknownst to me I-75 was one of those roads where it randomly turns into a toll road. So when I plotted a course to Naples it routed me almost all the right ways but then had me turn off the main road.
When it turned off the main road I tried to come up with some reason why. There wasn’t a way to really turn around and there might have been an accident rerouting us around 75. Foolishly I listened to the GPS over my family. We turned into a paved road into a nature center called Holey Land Wildlife Management Area which is part of the Everglades. Thinking it might be a nice paved road leading us back to the main road we continued. Again. Foolishly. Next time I would have turned around but weirdly I kind of wanted to continue down the road unexplored. That adventuring itch I had started tingling again. And we pressed forward as the paved road turned to dust and rock.
The GPS at this point said we only had 14 miles to go down this road before the next turn. It was a straight shot, a turn, and then another straight shot, another turn and a final straight shot. Didn’t seem like very long but the estimated arrival time was 1 hour longer on my route than my dad’s phone. We quickly lost signal and the road narrowed further. There was a canal to the left and a swamp to the right.
This was a hectic and scary time as it was basically impossible to turn around. I kept thinking the road was going to show civilization but it did not. The 14 miles didn’t end in a turn. It was a bridge and then another 10 miles. And then another ten. Finally we seemed to be getting close to a turn. We got to a gate that was closed and double padlocked. A steel bar prevented us from getting any further. It was a horrible horrible feeling. We weren’t going to see my family. We were stuck and the road had ended. The best possible scenario was us finding a lip to turn around on and drive all the way back.
The way back was less tense and scary and there was much less yelling. We saw thousands of birds. Kingfishers, Storks, Herons, Egrets, Eagles, Hawks, Falcons. It was incredible actually! Maybe 35 alligators on the bank. We saw 3 deer which is basically are basically an anomaly in Florida. I know other places have them like rats but here this far south, they’re special.
We didn’t get to see my family that day but we drove back that way the next day. And seeing them was very special. They didn’t tease me as much as I thought they would about making the wrong turn but I have had to tell this story about 100 times so there’s that. Haha oh well. It was a really awesome trip looking back and a great adventure. And a ton of time spent with my mom and dad.
The next day some remarkable things were getting there alive and on time, seeing my aunt and uncle, leaving before the rest of their family got in, driving back, getting stuck in traffic, and stopping at this amazing Argentine steak place called Malbec Grill in Parkland Florida. I highly recommend you go there. No plug, it’s just that good.