Sarasota to Tallahassee, Florida.
The weather did remain cold much of the morning, and was in the upper 30s when I woke, and around 42 when I headed out for the day, although it warmed up into the mid-50s by early afternoon. Quite a contrast to the usual Florida weather, where it averages high-70s, dropping to high 50s in January and upper 80s around August, and where the Atlantic and Gulf waters range between 70 and mid-upper 80s (much warmer than the waters off the coastline in southern California). By the time I got to Sarasota, it was again 39 degrees.
This was a nice day for me again, but a long day of driving, covering about 336 miles, but taking me almost 9 hours. That’s because I definitely did not want to take the interstate (I-75), which would taken 5 hours or less. But, those interstates are boring, dull, mind numbing, and tiring. I feel much more tired after a long drive on an interstate (with a few exceptions, like the breath-taking I-70 passing through Colorado).
Instead, I not only stayed off the interstate, but when I could I got off of highway 41 as well, which was beautiful when passing through the Everglades but the rest of the time is another strip road, passing through many small towns, with many, many traffic lights, and traffic that’s often moving slow. I certainly prefer that to the interstate, where there’s little of interest to see after a while, unless the surrounding scenery changes, as on local roads like 41 at least there’s stuff to see as you pass through towns and the stuff along the way and in between towns and villages. But, the price to pay for taking a local road is frequent slow downs and often a significantly longer drive. That’s okay though, as I want to see that stuff.
But what I really wanted was to hug the west coast if I could, and take a route of my choosing, which online maps like Google Maps and Apple Maps won’t do, even if you tell them to avoid highways, and you have to instead plug in the names of small towns along the route you want to take, and even then those online maps still want to take you back to the faster roads in between stops. You have to outsmart the map. So I constantly changed my route as I drove, figuring it out as I went until eventually forcing Google Maps to get me onto state route 19, which led all the way to Tallahassee.
Route 19 is about the closest thing to hugging the coast, but even then it’s inland, and much of the way is not so different than highway 41, and is itself a bit of a strip as it nears and passes through towns, although there was less of that strip quality as I went further north. Actually, it seems that there is no coast road that connects various small communities along the west coast and on the Gulf of Mexico. To get to towns and beaches along the coast, you have to come off route 19, and take small country roads to the town you want to visit and then return to route 19, until getting off and heading for the next town you want to visit. It was so much simpler to not visit the coast (or take highway 41, or even I-75), but that’s not what I wanted. That’s why the drive took so long.
The day was long, but I like driving and didn’t mind, but there wasn’t too much of special interest along the way, so I took few photographs. But first I started off with a short driving tour of Sarasota, a medium size small city of about 56,000, and looking very much like a city. I didn’t find it especially interesting, although it’s nice enough, and after driving through the downtown area and visiting the nice looking historic district, I decided it was time to get going on my long journey ahead. I’m sorry I didn’t visit the waterfront, as Sarasota is right on the Gulf, but hoped and half-expected I’d see it on my way out – but I didn’t.
Not much more to say about the day, which I enjoyed and despite the slow moving local roads much of the way and its length, I enjoyed the day. I visited Hudson, Homosassa, and Steinhatchee along the way, all coast towns, but these are very small towns and really off the beaten path with no road connecting them directly. It was off route 19 to each town, and then back to route 19 until the next town. So no tour of the coast, but I did enjoy seeing these small communities, and very much enjoyed the tree-lined roads leading to each of them.
A few closing thoughts. Getting on for two years since Bev passed (two years in February), I think about Bev every day, and especially on these trips where I have loads of time to think while driving, and this trip has had fairly lengthy drives almost every day, where I think of Bev multiple times during the day, triggered by many different things. I think of the funny and lovely Bev, and her stories and how she handled and presented herself, and how lucky I was to have a partner like the one and only Bev, but I also find myself, probably more often than not, thinking about the indignity of what Bev went through and what she suffered and had to endure, and what she lost. I also think about what I did wrong, and what I wish I had done differently, and how sorry I am for some of my choices I made, especially relatively early on in Bev’s decline. I don’t beat myself up, but I do think about those things and what I could have, and in hindsight, should have done (and not done). Those thoughts and regrets don’t drive me crazy, but I think will stay with me for a long time.
On driving, as I’ve gone on several times about driving interstates, if my only recourse for traveling was taking interstates, which you simply have to in some cases, but if that was all I could drive, then I think I wouldn’t take these trips. But, happily that’s not the case. I find myself traveling away from the things that seem too routine now, and everyday life itself, which seems empty. I feel a sort of breath of fresh air and exhilaration when traveling, which I don’t feel at home, and having the ability (to some degree) to decide where I’m going, and how and when and for how long. It’s an escape to a different life, and for me “returning to form,” as someone said last year about that long trip I took. The call of travel and the highway has long been with me, since I was a teenager, and much of my life before Bev was about travel, which is why and how I came to the United States, with no thoughts of remaining here, and now again after Bev. That seems fitting. I thought about this yesterday when listening to James Taylor singing Carolina on My Mind , and this particular line, “Dark and silent late last night, I think I might have heard the highway call.”
Okay, tomorrow is another day. I haven’t yet figured it out yet, but will before I go to bed (or maybe in the morning as it’s 11:30 now, and I’m tired). As always, I hope to dream of Bev because in those dreams it’s like actually being with and interacting with Bev, and she’s just as she was.
Goodnight.