Driving the eighteen mile stretch

The explainer

No End in Sight
Driving the eighteen mile stretch
By Cindy Cruciger


I call it the bunny trial. From mile marker 104 at Black water Sound, to Florida City. Monday through Friday, at whatever weird hour I manage to get up and get going, the eighteen mile stretch is waiting.

Here's the first big decision of the morning, caffeine. This breaks up into two splinters. Do I need gas? Yes? Shell station at mile marker 100. No? I sweat it out until the end of the stretch and hit the McDonalds drive through in Florida City. I didn't need gas yesterday and as I saw the signs for Gilbert's "Bikers Welcome" my hands tightened on the wheel a bit because the guy who runs the draw bridge there over Jewfish Creek is certifiable.

The game seems to be played like this - if he's sitting on the bench outside the door to the cage, you're safe. If he's not in plain sight, anything goes. I've seen him drop the gate in 5 seconds flat, smacking the back end of a car full of tourists from where-ever. He got me one morning. I was zoning, no diet coke to start the day, and wham. I saw the gate free-falling and went into a slide. As the bridge went up inches from my front bumper, I was a cell phone lunatic, dialing *fhp and finding out just what a waste of time it is to try to report anything to the Highway Patrol in Florida. If they want you, they'll find you. It never works in reverse. As for the Jewfish creek bridge-man, if you can't see the whites of his eyes on approach, consider yourself fair game.

There's a sign in that same area that amuses me endlessly - Crocodiles next 8 miles. There are always people swimming up and down that eight mile section of road. Not locals of course, they know better. I read somewhere that there are only 200 or so saltwater crocodiles left in South Florida and most of them hang out at the power plant. A few are probably holing out in that eight mile section of salt swamp water. And, while there are numerous nuts willing to wrestle with the alligators, no one is stupid enough to play with a crocodile. Except the tourists and mainlanders. No one ever stops them from swimming there. They ignore No Parking signs and roll out the living room furniture. They light open fires, even though the Keys are a tender-box, and cook god-knows-what. Someone has even placed garbage cans along that section. A nice touch, but you know that anyone who can park in front of a No Parking sign, is not going to be impressed by a No Littering sign. I'm rooting for the crocodiles.

There are two passing zones between Key Largo and Florida City. They are a waste of whatever money it took to pave the extra width in the road. It's a cruel little section of asphalt that even an amateur understands is for torturing the guy behind him. On most days the person in front of you speeds up like Madmax. Their shoulders hunch as they lay on the accelerator. Suddenly that under-powered truck, hauling a boat, dragging it's propeller, is throwing sparks, trying to keep you from passing. The tourists who were busy looking at everything but the road transform into speed demons and will even ride the middle line if their rental car isn't fast enough to stay ahead of you. Crazed. And, if they don't accelerate, it's because the speed patrol is sitting there waiting for you to pass.

So I count marsh bunnies..

The first passing zone is usually littered with cute little bunnies, doing what ever it is bunnies do by the side of the road. What I can't figure out, is that I've seen almost every creature imaginable smushed on that stretch, except bunnies. Something isn't right with that, but I'm not going to camp out and do a study in the swamp to find out what.

Which brings us to the pedestrian traffic on the stretch. Three or four times a week I catch sight of the real residents of the upper keys. The swamp people. Now and again you'll see them walking to Key Largo, stick in hand, looking for all the world like they haven't bathed or shaved in several years. And chances are good they haven't.

They've made camp in the Everglades bridge between civilization and the Conch Republic for almost a century. It's a great place to hide. Very few people are going to come hiking by their little enclave and if they do, no one will ever miss them. And I mean that. The kind of person, non-native, who would stop a car on the stretch and hike into the places where the swamp dwellers go is not a well-adjusted, well-liked individual. Chances are he's pissed off everyone back home because he lacks any kind of sense or he is an outlaw, too desperate to notice the noxious smell, the man-eating mosquitoes and the muck. If they ever make it back from their little jaunt in the swamp, their car has been vandalized by the other swamp residents and ticketed by the elusive Florida Highway Patrol.

Heading south from Florida City to Key largo is also an endless source of fascinating sights. Your first clue that nothing but tourists and lunatic locals drive south to the keys is the tourists in the rental cars, stopped at the top of the stretch. They have a map! There is only one road into and out of the keys once you've passed the turn off for Card Sound. How complex can the map possibly be? Yet, there they sit, arms waving music blaring.

I have a theory. I think the sign at the top of the stretch is confusing. I think that the Card Sound road sign needs to be more specific. If you are not a native, please pay the dollar and take Card Sound road.

Just don't give them a choice. Because as soon as they've passed the turn off and see the first cracks in the stretch and the mud slides on all sides leading into the glades, visions of Deliverance start flashing in their brains and one or the other occupants of the car must stop and take stock.

Is this the road? Should we have turned off?

I don't see anything up ahead. No buildings.

Well. I think you should have turned at that sign.

You didn't SAY anything as we were passing it.

What the hell does that map say anyway? Is this the road?

Then they see the swamp dweller making his monthly trek to Key Largo.