Day 12 - Leaving the Lawyers Behind

Today the pattern changes a little bit as I am doing a lunch date with one person and staying somewhere else.  My Aunt Connie, the last living relative in that generation on my father’s side,  lives in Ocala which is a perfect distance to stop on the way from Tallahassee to Miami.  So it worked out beautifully that I was able to on short notice get her to go out to lunch with me in Ocala on my way down.  We had a nice lunch. I heard about my Aunt's friends who I have almost grown to know over my annual trips to Ocala.  Of course I also got all the news about my cousins Ralph and Suzanne and her grandkids.  We spent too much time together to get me to Miami at a reasonble time but it was worth it.

Floridians must not mind eating late as although I pulled in at my now usual 9:30 Peter had waited to go out for dinner and there were restaurants that were still open.  I chose Cuban food thinking that was the right choice for the area and in fact we had a good dinner with the expected fun observations about life that Peter is so adept at.

Driving in South Florida are at least as scary as Washington was and maybe more so.  The interstate has a wide range of drivers who drive at a wide range of speeds.  There are people in any lane going 40 and then there are some who do not want to drop below 90 so weave in and out of very tight openings to accomplish their goals.  It was pretty insane and I felt that Hobson could not really handle the unpredictable maneuvers I was seeing.  I may rename the car Spock as it drives always in a logical manner which makes the car actually unpredictable to the humans driving around us.  We humans can better predict the stupid things our fellow humans will do much better than computers and until we can make the computers understand that there will always be a gap in our understanding of each other.

Look at the back window of the Prius and tell me where this traffic jam is

Charging stops

Ocala FL - This was at a very nice outdoor mall with some eating establishments but as I was going to lunch with my Aunt I did not try any of them.  It is still not completely occupied yet.

Turkey Lake FL - This is in a rest area on Florida's turnpike.  Like Newark DE the rest stop is in the middle of the north and south lanes so picks up Teslas from both directions.  It also picked up an interested bystander who came over to ask about the car while he was taking a smoking break.  We talked about the Tesla and VW diesels and got along fine until he noticed the MA plates at which point he asked how I could stand living with all those liberals.  He explained that he left CA because they would not let him buy the guns he wanted.  At that point I decided to cut the charging session short and for the first time I remember the car refused to unhook.  I had to go and stop the charging with the touchscreen in the car.  Having to keep the conversation going as I had to walk past him I did point out that you cannot hunt with those kinds of guns and he responded that protection is important in this crazy world.  My thoughts ran in that direction too as I pulled away.

West Palm Beach FL  - Despite my hasty exit from Turkey Lake I did make it to West Palm Beach.  there were actually two other chargers I could have baled to but the West Palm charger was interesting.  It was attached to the service center so had a gazillion Teslas including two roadsters and one with a really odd paint job.  There was also a group chatting and one of them was asking a lot of questions as she had bought the car just two days before and was already doing an Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale road trip with here mother and 3 kids.  One brave women by my estimation.