I had to drive from our home to the Fort Lauderdale airport yesterday to pick up my niece and her daughter.
It should have been a fairly quick 3 hour drive on I-75. But as I was leaving Port Charlotte I happened to pull up the route on Google maps and discovered that Alligator Alley (I-75 through the Everglades) was closed. No problem though, Google knew how to get me there snaking around on secondary roads through south central Florida. That route was only about 15 minutes longer, and possibly more scenic. And I had plenty of time.
However, just after turning onto Hwy 27 south from Hwy 29, somewhere west of Lake Okeechobee, there was a traffic emergency sign and all traffic was turned around back onto Hwy 27 north. No suggestions about a detour. I drove a mile or two and was able to pull into an ancient tourist trap called Gatorama to see how Google Maps might reroute me. The roads are so sparse in that area of Florida that even Google didn’t have any suggestions! Thank goodness I had a trusty paper map of Florida in my car.
I probably ended up going about 30 miles out of my way, and went through a pretty little town called LaBelle that I would have missed otherwise, but I finally got to the airport. The flight was delayed nearly two hours, and we arrived at our hotel after midnight.
The good news is I did get a leisurely tour of several out of the way areas of my new home state of Florida. It was a great adventure. And I would NEVER have known about Gatorama if not for all the road closed rigamarole. As Yakov Smirnoff always says….”What a Country!”
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