First Street South in St. Petersburg to I-275; 275 across the bay and through Tampa to I-4; I-4 to just past Lakeland, then get the hell off.  We don’t take I-4 through Orlando and home anymore from the Gulf coast.  We get off at state 33, a little two-laner, and take it into Polk City, and then through the Green Swamp to Groveland.  It’s a beautiful, relaxing ride, especially after the trauma of I-4, lots of farms, cows, goats, chickens, and usually a couple of sightings of Sand Hill Cranes.  Groveland, an old orange depot, when the whole area was covered with groves, (hence the name) is a quaint little old Florida town, with three stop lights now.  You try to beat the semis through by going down a back street instead of down the main drag.  From there you pick up state 19, (not to be confused with US 19, which goes up the Gulf coast from St. Pete,) and more country, but losing its orange grove character as more development occurs, on into Howey-in-the Hills, another tiny little place on Little Lake Harris.  We’ve never been able to figure what people do there for a living.  Across Little Lake Harris on a classic old low-slung concrete bridge, and into the Tavares, Mt. Dora, Eustis megalopolis, which grows more crowded and uglier each trip.  You pick up 441 there, then 41, another two-lane country road through eastern Lake County, to the St. Johns River and DeLand.  A couple of turns in DeLand, and you’re on US 92, AKA International Speedway Blvd., a 4-laner into Daytona.  We get off on LPGA Blvd., then pick up Granada, Hwy 40, and it a straight shot to the bridge across the Intracoastal and Skinny Island.  A left on A1A and we’re almost home.

This way adds at least a half-hour, all things being equal; or you can get hung up in Disney traffic going I-4, and add another hour or more.  To say nothing of the hassles and danger of that choice.   There aren’t many roads left like this in Florida, and I’ll do just about anything to avoid proximity to Disney.  More on that another time.

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Foggy, cool, and windy when we pulled up to the little hacienda.  Evidence of a good rain on the garden whilst we was gone.  Had to stake up the tomatoes, which had grown a good 4 inches, and found several tiny little yellow squashes showing.   Rain barrels full.  More on the way tomorrow and Thursday. Yay.

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