As I’ve noted, I am a bit time and space challenged. It has become legendary among my friends that I under estimate both, only to be continually surprised at how long something takes or how far it is away.
When I was getting married in Vegas, my then fiance and I wanted to explore the strip. We were staying down at the Imperial Palace, across the street from where we had planned to get married, Treasure Island. The wedding wasn’t until the afternoon so we had some time to kill. I suggested we start off on foot.
As we were landing in Vegas, I had seen the MGM Grand and the Luxor at the far end of the strip. That was our intended destination. As we headed out of the hotel, I could see the Luxor down the way. Piece of cake, I thought. We’ll get to the far end and then work our way back.
We walked and walked and walked. We continued to walk. And then walked some more. The Luxor wasn’t getting any closer. What I didn’t seem to understand was that the Luxor is a huge ass hotel. So you think it is a lot closer than it is.
Thankfully, it was a fairly cool day, this being January. At least we didn’t have to battle the heat. We did, however, have to battle fatigue as we marched on down the road. We finally made it to our intended destination. It was then that my ex strongly suggested we taxi it back to the hotel, since she didn’t want to be falling asleep from exhaustion at the wedding. I took her advice.
Now, living in a state like Florida is a lot different than living in almost any other state, expect California. Both are really long and not extremely wide. In Florida, it takes just under 14 hours to drive from Pensacola to Key West. It only takes 2 1/2 hours to drive west to east. That’s a big difference.
It definitely is when you come from a rectangular state. In Washington, where I am from, you can get from the further west, Neay Bay to the Idaho border in 8 1/2 hours. It’s just 4 hours and change from Bellingham to Vancouver. Being in Seattle, you even get a better deal since it takes you roughly the same amount of time to go from Seattle to Vancouver B.C. as it does to go to Vancouver, WA.
In Florida, everything takes a long time. In fact, where I live, it takes about a half hour to just get from the island to the freeway ramp.
Even though Florida is by nature a big state, everyone there seems to gripe about having to drive an hour somewhere here. “Oh, you live an hour a way from me. That is such a long drive.”
This is all relative, of course. In Florida everything is a long drive. You can virtually drive all day and never make it out of the state. If you drive that same hour in Rhode Island, however, you can go from one end of the state to the other and have three minutes to spare.
In Washington State, people don’t gripe about driving an hour. In fact, that’s an average weekday commute around the Seattle area. About half of that time is sitting in traffic, the rest moving right along
I used to think the traffic there was horrible. But it still has its cycles of high and low. In the morning, northbound backs up on I-5 and westbound backs up on I-90. At night, it reverses. In between these times, you can still easily jet from the south side to the north side in about a half an hour. That’s how long it took me to go from Sea Tac to Ballard. Amazing. In Florida, I would have barely made it to the freeway ramp.
Now, I’m not being completely fair here. Florida is a vast expanse and isn’t connected by interstates the way Washington is. It’s very tough to go from the east to the west where I live. It’s a mostly two lane highway through the middle of nowhere.
But still, it sticks in my mind that although Seattle people bitch about their transit times, they aren’t that bad at all. And after being away for seven years, it hasn’t seemed to have gotten any worse.
I, however, do have a big advantage when driving in Washington. Being born and raised here, I know every single back street and alternate route. I can find my way without even thinking about it. In Florida, I don’t know any of the back roads. Hell, I barely know the main ones. So I am at a continual disadvantage when it comes to getting around a roadblock, such as an accident. I just have to knuckle under and go with the flow, or more precisely, with the lack of flow.
I think that everyone who lives in Washington who thinks their travel time sucks should come to the Florida for a while. Or better, yet, drive I-4 through Orlando any time of the day or night. It is always a nightmare, even though it has many more lanes than I-5.
As for me, I think I have finally whipped the time and distance problem in my life. Even though I live 3,000 miles from the homeland, I feel closer to it than I ever have.
Out on the Emerald Coast, 30 long minutes from the freeway but only 15 to a bar on the beach,
– Robb