October 31, 2023 Day 24 Key West Florida to Okeechobee Florida 270 miles
We had a rather disruptive sleep. The room alarm clock started playing music at 4 am. Then about the time we got back to sleep a beeping alarm went off. Rob just unplugged it that time. We got up for real about 7 am. The temperature outside is already 78 degrees. We aren’t moving too fast this morning. Our room is comfortable so neither of us is excited about leaving. We have a longer day today so we did finally get moving.
When you walk out the door its like walking into a blast furnace. The sun is out in full force today. We started out with the air conditioner open. (The air conditioner on the Woodie is having the front windshield partially open.) That is most unusual.
Lots of traffic on the road most of the day and we aren’t on the freeway. The policeman are out in full force again today. Maybe they are like this all the time.
As you drive from Key West you go across several bridges between islands. The islands have small towns. Mail boxes are along the street. Several have water life holding the mail box. We saw dolphins, walrus, flamingos and seahorses. Very fitting for the location.
One of the bridge stretches has a pedestrian bridge next to it. People are fishing off that bridge. At least they most likely don’t get seasick.
A cracker (Floridian cowboy) was riding his horse along the highway. This was after we were back on the main land. We have seen some cattle and horses in pastures along the way. Just surprised to see him riding there. Lots of bicycle and small two wheel scooters,
Another stretch of highway had electronic speed limit signs. The road was divided with two lanes each way. Speed limit signs were on both sides of the road. The left lane said 50 mph and the right said 55 mph. Guess it depends which lane you are in.
Lots more sugar cane today. One field looked like the harvesting equipment was there. We had seen some trucks that must have been carrying the cane to the processing plant. There were also fields that looked to have been burned. Well as it turns out this region of Florida is one of the few places in the world that still burn the sugar cane fields after harvesting.
We drove passed one house that had about six guinea hens. They were right by the road. Surprised they don’t get run over. We also saw lots of egrets, a couple of pelicans, and a vulture. The vulture was solid black and not as ugly as some others.
Well the GPS did it again. It took us to the wrong location. Two addresses were given by hotels.com and we entered the wrong one. Easily recovered just had to backtrack a few miles. When we got our room it is right next to the laundry machines. I thought I might do laundry until I saw it was $3.50 to wash and the same to dry. That is the highest we have seen. Hopefully in a couple of days it will be better.
Spoffords Travel 