"Drive south, keep driving until you can't drive south anymore, then turn around and drive home!" That was the rough plan I had when I concocted this crazy trip. Today I did just that, I drove south until I got to the southern most point of the United States in Key West. It didn't quite go according to plan. My GPS had it estimated at a little over 4 hours from Palm Beach so I was hoping to leave around 6:30am, get there at 11am at the latest and then have enough time to walk around and explore. While I was eating breakfast, I saw on the news that a there was a major trailer accident on I-95 south of me right in my path and only one lane was open. Needless to say, it took more than 4 hours to get there after rerouting...it was closer to 6 hours.
Enjoying the slow crawl 100 miles on the Overseas Highway to Key West - 11/11/2015
1475.8 miles later we arrive at the Southermost point of the USA in Key West - 11/11/2015
By this time I was really hot and sweaty (so easy to forget how miserably humid Florida can get) and starving. I had a pretty funny moment. I got out, looked back at Lupa and the first image in my head was Forrest Gump looking back at all the people following him after he did all his random running and decided to just go home haha.
Yep, this was pretty much me after I got there today
Since I lost so much time and I had already been to Key West before anyway, I figured I'd just take a break and eat. I ended up eating at the Banana Cafe right around the corner since I had already found a nice spot to park Lupa. Assuming the worst, that I might hit similar traffic heading back to the the hotel, I opted to start driving back north right after eating. I had already made plans to meet Henry (s2k2knyc on s2ki.com) for dinner for some good Cuban food and to catch up and I was looking forward to that more than just randomly killing time in Key West.
S2000 long distance micro meet with Henry - 11/11/2015
The slow cruise to Key West was one of the most tiring but inspiring parts of this trip so far. Since we were going at such slow speed and I was surrounded by incredible scenery, I had a chance to just get lost in my thoughts and listen to music. I will say that driving by the water in the the tropical heat reminded me very much of Hawaii and how I have to go back. Florida is nice and all that but yea, Hawaii takes the cake for me in terms of pure tropical bliss. Well today ended my southern journey as I ran out of land mass to continue driving so it's back up north I go and frankly I'm excited to be back to cooler conditions. I now understand why so many Floridians own convertibles but leave the top up all the time. The sticky heat is just nasty and I'll take hoodie weather top down driving in the fall in the NorthEast over this any time.
