More Southern Exposure–Three New National Parks
As many times as I have driven from my hometown in North Carolina to Florida State University in Tallahassee during my years as a music graduate student and then as a music cataloger for the university’s libraries, I thought I knew the route like the back of my hand, as they say. However, most of this drive from Atlanta to Tallytown reflected the creation of shorter, faster routes on interstates. I didn’t exit onto US-319 until just north of Tallahassee. It was much too late to catch former colleagues on campus when I arrived at nearly midnight, so I checked into a local motel with the plan to get an early enough start to hunt for the elusive parking spot near the music buildings. My start was later than I planned because an incident at the motel caused the electricity to be turned off. I didn’t learn what happened until…
Singin’ in the Right Keys
For unintended reasons, I continued to rise early and was on the road pretty early. I left Islamarada and headed west down the Overseas Highway. Fortunately, rush hour traffic wasn’t bad, so I made very good time, reaching Key West around 9 a.m. I didn’t have a specific destination in mind, only knew that I wanted to get out as far south and west as RB could take me. I soon saw a pair of cruise ships in port and by heading their way, happened upon Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park. Since I had nothing better planned at that point, I decided to see what there was to see inside the park. Past the fort just a short distance beyond the park entrance was a beautiful beach that I learned was bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the transitional waters of the Gulf of Mexico. An area…
The Trip… It Is a-Changin’
As I suspected, my plans for this trip have changed again. I received an email about The Overseas Highway and realized just how close I’m scheduled to be to it from Miami, so…. Even I recognize, however, that the addition to the trip would cause it to pass the 4,000-mile mark, yet I still have the same number of days to complete it. So, I’m going to take the Cincinnati stop–which would be far easier to schedule the next time I drive east–off the map and add Key West. (Wonder if it’s possible to do a one-day trip to Cuba? Better pack my passport, just in case. 😎) So, this is how things stand with those changes: Two points: this stop looks like it would take me to the southernmost point of the contiguous United States. This will also take me close enough to the Everglades National Park to…