This trip served these purposes:

• Visit two friends that I also visited in early 2014
• See for the first time Miami, Key West, St. Petersburg, Tampa and Ft. Myers
• Visit at least three national parks: DeSoto Natl Monument, Everglades and Big Cypress

FLORIDA: This is my fifth trip to Florida since 1977. However, I had never been in any of the southern part of the state. This trip remedied that plus I got my visits of Miami and Tampa which goes towards my goal of visiting the top 100 largest cities in the US.
It was also a good chance to reconnect with some friends, one I have known since junior high and the other was a co-worker for several years

MISSED VISITING:
-- Ft. Matanzas (south of St. Augustine): thanks to both Delta Airline and Enterprize Car Rental delaying me an hour and a half, I had to skip this fort. To see it, one must take the ferry ride to the island.
-- Downtown Sarasota
-- Pine Island (Ft. Myers): between the rain and seeing over 20 (no exaggeration!) school busses full of kids heading towards
-- Naples Botanical Gardens

OBSERVATIONS: Some observations made while traveling in this area:

• Going in, I had low expectations of Miami and expected Key West to be a very laidback place
• Like the country has Amber Alerts for missing children, Florida seems to often have Silver Alerts for missing seniors
• Even in early February, there are countless places of highway construction on-going
• The state is dominated by vehicles pulling boats (often times HUGE boats) or monster-sized RV's
• It was nice this trip (compared to last year) driving from Orlando to Jacksonville and not have heavy fog, so I got to see the terrain
• The Florida terrain, everything south of Gainesville, seems rather monotonous. Once north of Gainesville, there are a variety of trees, and color. I saw countless trees with small red buds on them
• Florida drivers are all over the map from thos who drive 20 mph below the speed limit to thos going up to 20 mph over the speed limit. Makes traffic flow tricky,
• Tampa drivers seem to not be able to handle construction zones. There was a four mile back up leading into downtown. Despite three lanes being open, it was stop-and-go the whole way. I assumed accident but never saw one so guessed construction.
• The ferry ride (with the vehicle) across the St. John's River to see Kingsley Plantation was fun. HUGE birds hand around it.
• In Sarasota, at the point where Main St. meets highway 41, the place is really fancy. It would be fun to look around there more. It was somewhat dark (before sunrise on a totally cloudy morning0 when I drive through.
• It is amazing how in some parts of the country the huge fancy mansions are on the ocean/gulf edge and in Florida the homes there are dumpy trailer homes.

The Bests:

1. Sunsets of the GUlf of Mexico
2. Seeing my friends in both Jacksonville and Orlando
3. Hampton Inn in Jacksonville, very nice
4. Driving across the Sunshine Skyway Bridge across the entrance from the Gulf of Mexico
5. See alligators in their natural habitat in the Big Cypress National Park
6. Seven-mile bridge to/from Key West is an engineering marvel when realizing what it takes to construct it. And it even has a separate walkers bridge.

The Worsts:

1. Quality Inn Hotel in Bradenton -- Yuck! And they are usually pretty good.
2. Florida drivers -- at least half (maybe the seniors) drive 10 - 15 mph under speed limits. And many highways are only two lanes.
3. Key West Tourists -- the walkers and bikers and narrow streets and no parking all play against car drivers
4. Overall, I could not be paid enough money to live in Florida. Not dealing with winter is simply not enough reason to put up with living here -- the heat, humidity, mosquitos, hurricanes and worst of all the driving conditions

The Totals:

• Miles Driven: 1250 (which is exactly what I estimated before the trip, that is a first to do that!)
• Driving: 29 hours in 6 days
• States: 1 -- Florida
• Major Universities: 1 -- University of Miami
• Pictures Taken: 591 (and deleted 64 of them)
• National Parks: 5 (Ft. Caroline, DeSoto National Monument, Big Cypress, Everglades and Biscayne)