Florida, then and now

As usual, I didn’t get much (well, ANY) blogging done while on vacation in Florida for the last 7 days. So today with 90 minutes of time between Sarasota and JFK I WILL write about my drive (3 WEEKS ago) from Buffalo to Florida (Panama City Beach for Ironman Florida, I DID, at least, already write about the race and the day after). The free JetBlue wifi is a little slow, hopefully, it will have no problem with just saving simple text, photos, and links.

Once back in Buffalo, I’ll need to do a blog about the drive HOME from PCB (Panama City Beach), I did some cool touristy stuff on the way. Finally, I’ll be able to do a blog about my last 7 days in Florida (Siesta Key, Sarasota, Naples, Boca Raton, St. Petersburg). As a teaser here is the link to a 2-minute Relive App video of my 10-mile run this morning.

https://www.relive.cc/view/v1vjYyB7nJq

OK. Let’s get to work! The map says we just went over the Okefenokee swamp.

Oh, FYI, as our plane is called the California Blue, I HAD to listen to this album while writing 🙂

I had made my travel plans for Ironman Florida almost a year in advance, so it wasn’t until closer to race time that I realized I would be driving north from the Florida panhandle and through Alabama on election day. In the month before the election, Trump seemed so senile and deranged (and JD Vance such a mistake and liability) that a Kamala victory seemed certain. So I was concerned about driving home on the first days of the likely Civil War (through Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio with my NY license plates and my “liberal” plug-in hybrid Toyota). I totally tuned out of all political news a few weeks before the election and for my drive south (October 26-28) I listened to only music and audiobooks while driving and read on the Kindle or watched Apple TV and Yankees World Series games.

I could have easily made the drive from Buffalo to PCB in two long driving days.

But 2 days of 600 miles each seemed like a lot for someone trying to have a relaxing trip to an Ironman Race. I had chosen to drive as I REALLY did NOT like flying with my bike and all the other IM gear to Arizona 3 years ago. It all went fine on that trip but I didn’t want to push my luck again and be as stressed as I was then. Definitely, with a second person it would be an easy two-day drive, and with a third, we could have gone non-stop like Baltimore to Ft. Lauderdale when I was in college. I had some free Hilton nights and picked out a Hampton Inn near Cincinnati and Montgomery for my overnights.

I had originally planned to drive Scrat (my micro-camper) but then realized that my Toyota Rav4 Prime was plenty big as I had flown with all my gear to my last IM so with just me the small SUV was plenty large. The Toyota has a much nicer highway lane detector for brief hands-free driving, it is also quieter, gets much better gas mileage, and has a huge screen for Apple Carplay compared to the tiny one on the van.

October 26, 2024: Amherst to Cincinnati (Wilder, Kentucky actually, south of the Ohio River)

Wow, my car hasn’t even left home and I had to shut down the computer after we passed Baltimore. The flight landed on time and I barely had 45 minutes to write after eating a banana and some pretzels for “dinner” (and a caramel macchiato in a Holiday cup). Of course, the flight to Buffalo is at Jetblue’s gate 2. Gates 1-4 are the WORST at JFK’s Terminal 5. They are at the end and as not nearly enough seats, it is always a crowded mob scene. I was lucky to get a stool at the “outlet bar”.

Rainy and gray at JFK…..

The weekend before the trip I organized and packed ALL my race gear.

With the luxury of driving, I could take extra things without worrying about squeezing into a suitcase or bike bag/box and the associated weight limits.

I just needed a small carry-on suitcase and a laptop bag for the drive itself.

I got to enjoy some quality time with Fifa before leaving. I made sure to brush her fur and teeth a lot and we went on some extra-long walks. I am lucky to know that at the kennel she is well cared for and has a good time. Because she is good with other pups, she is allowed to hang out during the day with the doggie daycare pack. The young people who work there all know her by name and she likes them all.

Here is the video of them “dragging” her away from me at drop-off…….

So many friends for Fifa!

When the weather is nice they all play out back in the kiddie pools and sprinklers.

From the Kennel’s FB page.

I didn’t have to leave early since hotel check-in wasn’t until 3 pm anyway. I was on the road by 8 am. It was a perfect crisp, clear fall day. There were still some nice colors on the trees. I took the NYS Thruway (I90) West and South to Erie, PA.

Then there was a brief section westward in PA along the south shore of Lake Erie to the OH border.

I had a Garmin dash cam that took all these photos safely for me.

In Ohio, I reached the Eastern suburbs of Cleveland (we lived there in Beachwood for the year I did my cardiac anesthesia fellowship at the CCF) and then headed south.

After Columbus, it was very rural until Cincinnati.

In OHIO I listened to The Pretenders. Chrissie Hynde’s lyrics are soooo great. If you like her music at all, you should read her memoir “Reckless” (she doesn’t read for the audiobook for some reason). She was VERY “reckless” as a teen living with a hell’s angel boyfriend! It is a sad story as it took her a very long time to get any respect as a woman musician and when she finally got the Pretenders together it was only a few years later that 2 of the men died and that was it for the band. The TV mini-series “Pistol” about the sex pistols has her as one of the main characters, she taught Johnny Rotten to play guitar and almost was the guitarist for The Clash when it formed but… a man named Joe got the job instead.

I have never spent any time in Cincinnati but can’t hear its name without thinking of WKRP.

WKRP was on from 1978-82, the four years I was in H.S. It became even more popular in the decade that followed as it was heavily played in syndication.

Any fan of the show will remember my favorite line; “As god is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly”.

My hotel was in Kentucky just a few miles south of the Ohio River and a view of Cincinnati from my window. The trees here were in full fall foliage colors. My hotel did not have a charging station but the one next door did so I parked my car there for the afternoon and moved it back to my hotel after dinner. Free electricity!

I ordered some Ramen from Grubhub and watched the Yankees go down zero games to two, the Dodgers had the best record in 2024 and it showed.

October 27, 2024: Cincinnati, OH to Montgomery, AL

There were still 10 days until Ironman Florida so I had some scheduled one-hour run and bike workouts. In the morning I went to the small gym and it was a toasty 73 degrees. Usually, I turn the temperature all the way down in hotel gyms but I was glad to have a chance to start acclimating to heat. It was forecast to be in the 80s on race day.

After a quick shower and breakfast, I was on the road again.

In the lobby I was looking at a screen with interesting Ohio River tourist attractions and of course…. as it was Kentucky…. I don’t have the energy now but I do want to someday take the time to see how they explain Noah not letting the dinosaurs on the Ark.

I was surprised by the morning rush hour traffic as I was heading away from Cincinnati.

I quickly saw signs for the Kentucky Distillery Trail along the highway and for the individual brands.

Several of my medical school friends are serious whisky and bourbon drinkers, so I texted them (Siri/car play/safely) as I passed some and offered to be the designated driver if they wanted to go on a driving tour someday.

Pretty roses at a rest area. I saw lots of horse farms but the dash-cam didn’t get any good photos of them, it couldn’t miss this GIANT Trump sign though.

I lived in Jackson, TN from 1995 to 2000 after I finished training (when jobs in anesthesiology were hard to find). I liked the weather there and the job was very lucrative but West TN was a lot like Mississippi or Arkansas socially. Central and Eastern TN (Nashville, Chattanooga) are much nicer as I now know.

There was a lot of traffic approaching Nashville and I wondered if maybe there was a football game as it was a Sunday. After getting around the city the traffic thinned again. The trees here were very colorful.

Alabama was very pretty and I saw the signs for Huntsville soon after passing the border. I was in the middle of watching the 4 seasons of “For All Mankind”, an excellent series on Apple TV, and it made think of the fact that Wernher Von Braun lived there in the 50s and 60s while developing ICBMs and the Saturn rockets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

Great! I see that there will be a season 5 coming next year.

I passed over a very wide river near Decatur, Alabama and later realized it was the TN river which confused me until I looked at it’s meandering course. I swam in the VERY muddy water while volunteering at Ironman Chattanooga 8 years ago.

A little bit past Decatur I saw this sign!!!

I was SURE it said The Squirrel Cooking Museum! Having lived in TN I knew that Squirrel brains are an old-fashioned delicacy there. They also eat Raccoons but make a point of feeding them corn for a week after trapping to make them taste less “trashy”!

That night I had no luck finding a website for a Squirrel recipe museum, it turned out the billboard was for The Cook Museum of Natural History.

Birmingham was the last real city on my journey.

My hotel was in a suburb south of Montgomery. It had car chargers! I only get 42 miles of EV driving with my hybrid but….FREE.

It was a pleasant 70 degrees at 3 pm so I hung out by the pool with a new friend.

Places were starting to be in full Halloween decor. I saw this post on Instagram.

It was a travel day for the World Series with the Yankees down 0-2 so I probably watched a few episodes of For All Mankind and then read my Kindle.

October 28, 2024: Montgomery, AL to Panama City Beach, FL.

It was only a few hours to PCB so I had a non-rushed morning. I did an hour on the treadmill after cranking up the heat in the gym.

Southern Alabama started to feel like the REAL south. Shoney’s, Trailers, and Coca-Cola.

Definitely not an interstate highway anymore in the area approaching Florida. Florala is the town on the boarder.

It looked like the 1950s except for the modern cars.

I started looking for Gators but just south of the border it was mostly cattle ranches. And also a marker for the “highest point in FL”, elevation 300 feet.

Most of the panhandle seemed to be pine forests. I could tell I was getting close to civilization again when I saw a Dunkn Doughnuts and then a multi-lane road heading into PCB.