miami by sunrise (a flashback with a bonus bit before it!)

Author: sean M Published: September 10, 2026 0 comments

there’s an odd bit to this story involving the journey to that involves multiple members of the florida highway patrol that i omit from this for some reason?

perhaps due to exhaustion? or possible statute of limitation concerns? i figure over twenty-one years later we should be cool, right? so, i stop at a rest stop on i-95 just south of jacksonville, florida (the other end of the i-10) and when i walk out to my rental durango there’s an FHP crawler by it. “trucks from texas?”, the trooper asked, pointing at the plate. “so’s the driver”, i reply, and he asks where i’m heading. when he follows up with asking where i’m heading, and i reply, “miami”, he fires back, “you know how far you are, right?”. i reply in the affirmative, and state i’ll get there by sunup. “sit tight”, he retorts, and i do…he comes back with a post it note with a three digit number and a name on it.

“go to that exit, there will be a trooper there by that name – tell him you’re the ‘texas fella’ – he’s expecting you. he’ll get you the next digits…between here and there, just keep it between the stripes and under a hundred…”

and from there i was off. i passed cops going ninety-five on the ninety-five (about twenty miles over the speed limit back then, not sure what it is now) and they’d get behind me, see the texas plate, and disperse. at the exit on the post it i pulled over and pulled up to the trooper mobile – and the officer’s name was correct. he gave me another name and exit number and so it went down the whole trek…got me there a lot quicker, and the ephedrine laced diet pills i was taking to stay awake made me have to pee just enough that the stops were warranted for multiple reasons. made it to miam just before 5am, which brings us to…

11/08/2004: “subtle differences, part ii”

hey – don’t hassle me. george lucas took HOW long to make the star wars prequels?

so a week is acceptable, okay?

so, i arrive in miami after twenty hours on the road, countless energy drinks consumed, and only three hours of sleep. do i know how to party or what? after only about four more hours of sleep we were up and off. a little time at the beach, a LOT of time packing, and ten hours later i’m BACK on the damn road to tampa.

but it’s a lot more fun with the notorious h.l.g. by your side, let me tell you…

we got to tampa and crashed out around 11:00. to be honest, we didn’t really “do tampa”. we rode in on the outskirts on i75, and stayed there…stopping at the hotel, and then a bit further up the interstate at a waffle house.

drinking game idea – take a shot every time you see a waffle house from tampa to new orleans. you’ll end up passed out before you even get out of florida

on a map the panhandle of florida doesn’t look too long – but when you drive it? whole different story…

…and getting to it was an even bigger pain – because of the rolling road block. ever heard of such a thing? me either. but it seems that in this time of terror there is a certain spacial cushion they like around W when he travels – and he was campaigning the sunshine state as we were trying to leave it. so, traffic would all of a sudden grind to a halt, and you would sit for five or ten minutes. then it would slowly crawl back up only to grind to a halt again twenty minutes later. i noticed as we would pass major intersections traffic was WAY backed up and fhp (florida highway patrol) were blocking all on ramps as we went. he finally got off in gainesville to talk at a student rally, and we got to go off “parade mode” and travel at highway speeds again.

then it was off to alabama, mississippi, and finally new orleans – but we’ll deal with that last one next time. that’s where things got…um…interesting – as in that town, they typically do.

miami by sunrise (a flashback with a bonus bit before it!)

Our Visitor