2024 Spring Exploring Florida

[DonnaR57]

Day 11: North via Lake Okeechobee

Being a weekday, we had debated how to head north to the Space Coast. We have friends there from our days in California, and we'd planned to spend the weekend visiting them. After our trip on Sunday, down FL-997, we decided to try the Florida Turnpike. Wisely, though, we waited until way after "rush hour" to depart our lodging.

I mentioned earlier that we had bought the SunPass Pro before we left home, by mail. The Pro is the type that you can transfer between vehicles. During most of the trip, it stayed in the glove compartment, but that morning, it got taken out.

We took the Florida Turnpike out of Homestead/Florida City, all the way up to I-75 (non-tolled section). Then got off of it again at US-27, before 75 turned toll again. The turnpike and 75 were both busy but not obnoxious. Later, we found out that we'd only used $2.09 of the money we'd prepaid. That's okay, we have trips on the Kansas Turnpike planned for later, and Kansas is going to all-electronic tolling in July.

US-27 took us over swamplands, but at South Bay we turned off onto US-98/441. This is labeled "scenic", and at Pahokee, was also to be right on the edge of Lake Okeechobee. Yeah, we were all right, but there was a big berm in the way of any views of the Lake. Finally, about halfway up the east side of the Lake, we found a pull out that appeared to have Lake access. Parked, my husband's phone rang -- it was the BW from the previous night, "you forgot your pillows." Oh, dang. Either we drive back to Homestead/Florida City (gas, tolls, time) or we just say, "OK, sorry," and buy new pillows and pillowcases. On to the sightseeing.

View to the land from the top of the berm:
IMG_8458

Lake view:
IMG_8459

Dike view: (There was a dike but no boat loading zone.)
IMG_8460

The Herbert Hoover Dike:
IMG_8463

With US-98/441 labeled as scenic, and seemingly on the shore of Lake Okeechobee, we were disappointed. Was it "scenic"? Frankly, we've seen a lot more "scenic" interstates in Missouri. Lesson learned.

At the town of Okeechobee, we turned east on FL-70 toward the coast. Trying to get on I-95 in what was now turning into Friday afternoon rush hour, was more of an issue.We probably ticked off some commuters by being in the wrong lane, accidentally. Sorry, commuters. Read the license plate and mutter. (We do when at home.). Finally made it onto I-95. We'd already decided what to do about the pillow situation, while driving on FL-70.

We couldn't stay at our friends home, for several reasons, so I'd made some reservations at one of the closest lodging to their home. They live way out in the countryside. That same exit for our lodging place had a Walmart down the street, so we went there FIRST. Bought 2 new pillows and maroon pillowcases. We surmised that it was too easy to miss our old ones when we did a check-out room scan, because they had cream-colored pillowcases. Maroon would remind us to pick them up.

We spent the evening visiting with our friends. Long story short, they'd moved from CA to MO to FL due to job changes and/or transfers. We got to MO after they'd already moved to FL. So we hadn't seen them in 10+ years.