Home > Drives > Drive 2010 - Days 9 and 10

Drive 2010 - Days 9 and 10

article by Ben Lincoln

Day 9

I spent the morning of the ninth day visiting a few other parts of the Everglades.

The Everglades are really interesting, but if I were to go again, I would go in the early spring, and I'd bring a beekeeper-style helmet and face-net to keep the mosquitos and other insects off (especially when exploring the "hammock" islands-in-the-swamp).

Even though I wasn't going to be able to see Dry Tortugas National Park, I wanted to drive through the Florida Keys. The main image I had in my head of the Keys was from True Lies - a series of islands connected by what appeared to be a pair of parallel elevated interstate-style bridges. So why did my mapping software tell me it was going to take something like three hours each way to get from one end of the Keys to the other? It turns out that - surprise! - Hollywood's portrayal is misleading. While there are sections of the highway that have two parallel bridges, only one of them is used (the other is retired). In addition, this is a "highway" in the sense that where it runs through populated areas, the speed limit drops to 35 miles per hour or less. Of course, being limited real estate in a pleasant tropical area, essentially all of the Keys count as "populated areas". This is a fun drive, but don't plan on it being a quick one.

I ended up liking the Long Key State Park area the best. Most of the Keys are heavily-commercialized (although Key Largo especially so), so a state park in the middle is a nice touch. I did stop in Key Largo to ship a box of things I wouldn't need anymore home to myself. Via UPS, this ended up costing about US$50, which is essentially the same as it would have cost to take it on the plane (but without having to carry it myself).

Key West is surprisingly large, and has its own airport. If I'm ever able to make that visit to Dry Tortugas happen, flying to Key West seems like a good way to start out.

I got back to the mainland well after dark, even though I'd only stopped briefly in the Keys.

Day 10

The tenth day of this trip was mostly given over to driving up the coast of Florida to Cape Canaveral, but I stopped in Miami to visit the cemetery where my mother's cousin (the one who had the orange grove) and his wife are buried. The cemetery in question is so big that it has on-site staff with an office(!), which was extremely helpful because without them to look up directions, I would never have found what I was looking for.

Afterwards, I thought I'd try to find a car wash because my rental car was still covered in dried mud from Big Bend, and I didn't think I'd win any points returning it in that shape. Bizarrely, there don't seem to be any automated car washes in the Miami area - only the sort where people wash the car for you by hand. I don't mean "high school cheerleaders raising money for new uniforms", either. These are basically little garages where a team of guys does everything. I decided to pass, and see what I could find elsewhere.

I'm sure there are a lot of things to like about Miami, but driving is not one of them. I have never seen such a lawless wasteland of highway anarchy. The Chicago area is terrifying due to the high speed and constant tailgating, but at least the drivers there tend to obey all of the other laws. Miami drivers don't just scoff at the law - they punch the law in the face, call its mother a trollop, and then get enraged to the point of having a heart attack because traffic is so terrible, apparently without realizing that they are the reason it's that way.

I really, really wish I'd had a video camera with me during my drive through Miami, in order to provide proof of what I saw. Two examples in particular stand out:

• At a major surface-street intersection (see below), the traffic lights were out. In most cities, drivers realize that this means they should treat the intersection as a four-way stop. In Miami, this is a cue that everyone should try to drive through the intersection simultaneously, resulting in complete gridlock. I am not exaggerating here - I literally did not see any cars move through the intersection, because everyone refused to compromise. Eventually I gave up, did a U-turn, and looked for another way (again, see below).
• On most freeways, when a lane ends and has a "merge left" or "merge right" sign, most drivers will do the right thing and merge as soon as is possible without slowing down traffic. Inconsiderate jerks who think they understand traffic flow but actually don't may wait until the last possible second, but they'll still merge. In Miami, drivers will just keep driving on the hard shoulder until a lane materializes again further down the freeway. I am not referring to a handful of aggressive drivers - I saw a continuous line of cars doing this.

Compounding Miami's traffic problem is the layout of its streets. For some bizarre reason, Miami (or at least parts of it) is split up into neighbourhoods that are only connected by the major surface-streets. Minor streets end at the edge of the neighbourhood! So in a situation like I describe above, getting around a traffic snarl may involve going miles out of one's way. On a map, this is easiest to see near the Florida Turnpike. My working theory is that the people of Miami have given up on the idea that drivers might actually obey the law, and so are attempting to limit the mayhem to only a handful of intersections instead of every intersection.

Miami, perhaps even more than New Orleans, is a city that seems like it would require access to a high-rise, crane, or helicopter to get a good photo of. I was quite surprised to discover that Miami Vice was actually filmed on location instead of being spliced together from stock footage of the city combined with scenes shot in Los Angeles. It must have been extremely challenging for the crew.

Florida as a whole (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, the entire Gulf Coast) is almost unbelievably flat. I wonder if the lack of visible land in the distance gives people born there a different psychology than people born in areas with mountains? How likely is someone to be curious about other places if they can't see any evidence for the existence of anywhere else?

After leaving Miami, I kept driving until I reached Cocoa, where I would stay for the next two nights. After I checked in, I visited one of the beaches to see the Atlantic Ocean for the first time in person.

Date: 13 July 2010
Starting Mileage: 33372
Ending Mileage: 33730
Distance Travelled (Day): 358 miles / 577 kilometers
Distance Travelled (Trip to Date): 3541 miles / 5711 kilometers
Fuel Purchased (Day): 12.374 gallons / 46.841 liters
Fuel Purchased (Trip to Date): 120.955 gallons / 457.864 liters
Average Fuel Economy (Day): 28.9 miles per gallon / 8.1 liters per 100 kilometers / 12.3 kilometers per liter
Average Fuel Economy (Trip to Date): 29.3 miles per gallon / 8.0 liters per 100 kilometers / 12.5 kilometers per liter

Date: 14 July 2010
Starting Mileage: 33730
Ending Mileage: 34012
Distance Travelled (Day): 282 miles / 455 kilometers
Distance Travelled (Trip to Date): 3823 miles / 6166 kilometers
Fuel Purchased (Day): 9.555 gallons / 36.170 liters
Fuel Purchased (Trip to Date): 130.510 gallons / 494.034 liters
Average Fuel Economy (Day): 29.5 miles per gallon / 8.0 liters per 100 kilometers / 12.6 kilometers per liter
Average Fuel Economy (Trip to Date): 29.3 miles per gallon / 8.0 liters per 100 kilometers / 12.5 kilometers per liter

Related Articles:
Drive 2010 - Introduction and Day 1
Drive 2010 - Day 2
Drive 2010 - Day 3
Drive 2010 - Days 4 and 5
Drive 2010 - Day 6
Drive 2010 - Day 7
Drive 2010 - Day 8
Drive 2010 - Day 11
Drive 2010 - Day 12
Drive 2010 - Sidebar - The 2010 Ford Fusion
Image Naming Conventions

Last updated: 03 December 2011

You have Javascript disabled in your browser. This website will look a bit nicer if you turn it back on.

Copyright 2009-2011 Ben Lincoln, except where explicitly noted.

Copyright Information - Privacy Policy - Download Policy - Advertising Policy