A few weekends ago Ayesha and I flew to Florida for her cousin's wedding. This meant taking a red-eye Thursday night from Los Angeles, arriving in Miami at 5:30 in the morning, renting a car and then driving an hour and a half in the dark to Marco Island (located near Naples on the Gulf side). The trip marked my second "real" visit to Florida (I went to Orlando when I was nine or ten to see Disney World but that was pretty lame so I am not counting it). The many things we did over the four days included:

lounging on the beach,

playing some golf,

and, of course, dancing with some sweaty Pakis!

I have lived in Southern California for most of my life (Palm Springs and Los Angeles) and have had stints in the North East at several boarding schools (one in Deerfield, MA and the other in Exeter, NH) and in New York City when I attended NYU. I won't deny that Los Angeles or New York are normal. Los Angeles is fiercely divided geographically along socioeconomic grounds and its celebrity culture can be horribly wacko (basically watch any show on the Bravo Network these days to get an idea of how wildly insipid most of those people are). New York also has very strong class distinctions, but at least on the island it's not so geographic (if you live below the park I guess), an obnoxious Wall Street culture (which does not appeal to many these days) and, if you include the surrounding boroughs, is home to that most irksome creature known as the guido (see explanation here). But South Florida seems to take the cake in my book for being just plain weird. It is probably only supplanted in terms of creepiness by the Panhandle.

While Miami Beach has beautifully restored art deco hotels and shops lining Ocean Drive and most of South Florida's coasts have modern and expensive homes and condominium buildings, one only need venture a few miles inland to see that most of South Florida is a dump. It's the only place I've been where I can visit the dog track within minutes of leaving the airport. My wife's dad used to bet on dog races, in Ghana, in the 1960s! If it takes millions to own and race a horse, what does it take to own and race a greyhound? I am guessing a kennel carrier and a case of Alpo. To be fair, there is a race track located near the airport as well (so at least you have options).

Around Miami, there appears to be no concept of zoning regulations. I witnessed a rundown apartment building, next to a cement factory, next to a McDonald's. The only other place I have seen that is where my grandparents live, in India. The dog track, while not only being near the airport, is surrounded by houses on three sides and a Kmart (shocker) on the fourth. It's also bizarre to see all those canals. Some of them divide major roads, those big 4 lane ones, while some meander through various residential developments. The water is murky green and totally crawling with alligators. Some canals have sidewalks just so the alligators can poach unsuspecting joggers. They are also a great place to cultivate mosquitoes, if you are into that sort of thing.

Also, everything seems to be in a grid, hundreds of square miles of roads in a grid. It feels like you are stuck in Tron (fuck you Master Control). The only roads that have curves are the expressways and those on the coast (I am guessing because the coast curves, but they'd make it straight if they could). Our drive from Miami to Naples on Route 41 was so straight it had only two major curves, both heavily marked with signs and arrows in case you didn't see them. And our drive back on the 75, the Everglades Parkway, basically had none. Almost 80 miles of straight driving. The Parkway was also fenced on both sides with chain link for the entire 80 miles! Can you imagine putting up an 80 mile chain link fence in the middle of the everglades. That's one way to keep the alligators out or the humans in, depending on your perspective.

Let me also point out that the roads are enormous. Many around Miami and Naples were three to four lanes in each direction. That's more lanes than many freeways have in parts of Southern California. And yet with all those lanes I was constantly prevented from reaching my desired destination in any reasonable amount time. This was due to all the frightfully slow drivers. Imagine a Mexican roadblock 4 lanes deep. If was only after I noticed that I was always stuck behind either a Lincoln Town Car, Mercury Grand Marquis (as they say, "it's in a class by itself") or Buick Park Avenue that I remembered that Florida has lots of old people. Someone once told me that it's where Jews go to die. I didn't see any synagogues so I can't confirm that.

One thing that is clear (I saw this in Miami, Naples and Marco Island) is that Florida has lots and lots of land. When they need more, they just take some from the swamp (in Naples we saw 30-40 story condo buildings literally in the middle of nowhere surrounded by swamp, we learned the builder has gone bankrupt). And since there is so much land, everything is very spread out. In these post recession times, it's no surprise that Florida land prices are sinking faster than its abandoned yachts, there is simply so much supply. Speaking of recession, we saw numerous strip malls (it seems there are more around southern Florida than in southern California) that were almost totally empty. The only thing that was hopping was the Cracker Barrel (I reserve that description for another post).

To sum it up, South Florida is very big. It's full of old people who drive painfully slowly. It takes forever to get to where you want to go since you will probably be driving behind an old person. You won't need a high performance car since most of the roads are straight and you won't be driving very fast. Don't go near the canals because an alligator will eat you. And please don't buy any land as it won't be worth anything. Not even if it's in Glengarry Highlands and Ricky Roma is doing the selling.