Category: Driving

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Driving Humor Weather

Monday Night Countdown

This week on the ‘Countdown’ I’ve got the TOP 5 South Florida ‘Traffic & Weather Together’ lessons learned over the past 21½ years:

5.  ‘Partly Sunny’, ‘Partly Cloudy’, ‘Mostly Sunny’, ‘Mostly Cloudy’, and ‘Fair’ are all distinctly different, and if you have perhaps an hour of spare time over Dinner I can explain all of this to you. Just promise that you won’t fall asleep on me.

4.  Roughly 8 out of every 10 drivers on the road will blow through stop signs and red lights, and just sit there for at least 5 seconds after the light turns green. The protected green arrow light means absolutely nothing to the same 8 motorists.

3.  Just because there’s a flash flood with streets under a foot of water at home does not mean that a single drop of rain has fallen at work. Also if it’s pouring down rain but the sky nearby is sunny and clear then that’s pretty much normal.

2.  ALL traffic laws do not apply to Miami-Dade County school buses. They are allowed to drive as fast as they wish, and they may tailgate you at their discretion. They also have the right-of-way no matter what, so if they turn right in front of you then simply slam your brakes on to avoid dying in a firey collision and inferno.

1.  Every new hurricane season is going to be the worst one ever seen and recorded since the existence of mankind, but you should never ever panic. Just be warned that South Florida may be completely destroyed by every single tropical wave that forms off the west coast of Africa.

This Street Sign Would Not Work Here In America's Riviera
This Street Sign Would Not Work Here In America's Riviera

I hope that you enjoyed that. Be sure to check out my ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’ tomorrow night – same blog time – same blog station. Until then – keep it real homies.

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Animals Bugs Driving Shopping Travel

The Major’s Walk-A-Thon: Special On-Location Edition – Everglades National Park

– My ‘2009 Economic Stimulus Tour’ continues.
– For the 2ND Saturday morning in a row I went to Everglades National Park.
– But this time I went to the north part at Shark Valley off Tamiami Trail.
– Me and a buddy got there shortly after 11 AM.
– We took the 2-hour / 15-mile tram tour starting at 12 noon.
– Our tour guide was a crazy lady who was a child of the 1960s.
– She took us on a tour of her ‘office’ – The Everglades.
– She was good, as she definitely knew her stuff.
– She clearly demonstrated that she has an intense adoration for the ‘Glades.
– She was totally passionate about her ‘coworkers’ – the wildlife.
– She introduced us to all of her alligator friends.
– The gators were just chillin’ in the shallow water tryin’ to get some sun.
– Some showed off their teeth as if they were smiling.
– The gators are just like you and me !
– We saw a whole bunch of baby gators.
– It’s breeding season dude !
– If the gator is less than a foot long then it’s less than a year old.
– If the gator is between 5 and 6 feet long then it’s an adult.
– Most gators stop growing in length after that and start getting plumper.
– The gators are just like you and me !
– If you see a gator that’s 8 or 10 feet long then it’s well fed !
– Female gators never lose the ability to give birth to baby gators.
– In addition to the 15-mile tram tour we also did a whole lot of walking.
– I’m talkin’ several miles of walkin’ in the hot and dry Everglades.
– We hit up this tower:

shark-valley-tower

– The 18-mile panoramic view up top was really cool.
– That tower is about 27 miles due west of The Falls Shopping Center.
– I thought that I saw Macy’s from afar.
– The sound of the Everglades – incomparable to anything else in Miami-Dade.
– The smell of the Everglades – it’s pure nature – as natural as can be.
– Man has already destroyed much of what used to be the Everglades.
– But the Everglades is tough – so tough that several million acres still exist.
– I will respect the Everglades.
– I will also visit again sometime real soon.

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Driving Humor

Sunday Night Funnies

A friend sent this to me via E-Mail:

get-out-of-the-car

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Animals Bugs Driving Food Travel Weather

The Major’s Walk-A-Thon: Special On-Location Edition – Everglades National Park

TODAY I visited Everglades National Park for the first time in modern history.

Here are my takeaways in 15 words or less:

– My ‘2009 Economic Stimulus Tour’ (of tourist attractions) continues.
– I kicked it off with an 8:40 AM visit to the Starbucks in Florida City.
– The first sign I saw at the park – ‘EXTREME FIRE DANGER‘.
– I was hoping that I wouldn’t see any out-of-control wildfires.
– The National Park Service doesn’t spend a lot of money on road maintenance.
– The top layer of the main road is peeling off exposing the concrete below.
– It was a nice day at the park – sort of cloudy with a refreshing wind.
– There weren’t a lot of people at the park today.
– I was part of the very few that wore shorts.
– Dude it’s not mosquito season yet.
– The’re still hibernating / incubating.
– The skeeters need the water, and there wasn’t much of it out there.
– The ground was so dry that it was cracking like scorched earth.
– It was the dryest winter season ever recorded since mankind’s been tracking it.
– If there’s no water in the solution holes then we must be in a drought.
– That’s because those holes reach the water table.
– I spent the first 45 minutes of my visit at the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center.
– That’s a nice place, as I could have spent twice as long there.
– One sound you don’t hear inside the park – lawnmowers !
– It may not be mosquito season, but it certainly is bee season.
– They were buzzing (scaring) all around me in certain areas on the trails.
– None stung me, so that’s a good thing.
– I probably wouldn’t be here writing this if I had sustained a bee sting.
– If there’s a lot of people gathered then there must be a HUGE gator there.
– The gators were just chillin’ in the shallow end of the water.
– Some were tanning themselves on the shore with their mouths wide open.
– Gators are just like you and me !
– The Gumbo Limbo Trail reminded me of a place I played at as a kid.
– It was in the mid-1970s, and it was in the woods alongside my old ‘hood.
– Chuck and Keegan were two childhood friends of mine back then.
– They ran a territory on one side of the creek known as ‘Wolf Pack State’.
– I ran the territory on the other side of the creek.
– The Gumbo Limbo tree has peeling reddish bark.
– The Gumbo Limbo tree is just like you and me – a tourist with a sunburn !
– Everglades National Park formed out of Royal Palm State Park.
– It’s a vast wilderness – just like the U.S.A. once was.
– It smelled really good on the Mahogany Hammock Trail.
– The Everglades overall smelled really nice.
– It’s nature’s air freshener.
– Even the residue skunk smell was quite alright.
– You don’t know what nature sounds like until you visit the Everglades.
– All you need to do is sit down, keep quiet, and just listen.
– Noise pollution is not invited out there.
– Trees still provide abundant life to plants long after their death.
– Trees learned that from their Creator – Jesus – who does the same.
– It’s 60 miles on the dot from my home to Flamingo.
– I walked every half-mile trail from the park entrance to Florida Bay.
– This was the longest officially-sanctioned ‘Walk-A-Thon’ in history.
– I used no insect repellent at all.
– It wasn’t until the final trail in which I started to get bitten by bugs.
– It was also one of my favourite trails that I walked on.
– The bugs were alive and biting on the West Lake Boardwalk.
– I even saw a rare mosquito come close to my arm.
– A few ENORMOUS flies bit me.
– Now I feel like I really visited the Everglades !
– The bugs were there because the boardwalk went through a mangrove swamp.
– The ground was actually moist too.
– After that final trail I headed back to civilization / America’s Riviera.
– I made a pit stop at Mamma Mia.
– That’s right I ate there for the 2ND time in 7 days.
– It’s my new favourite sit-down restaurant in Homestead.
– I feel right at home there.
– I ate the mother of all MASSIVE meals big and small there this afternoon.
– That’s how I roll on a Saturday afternoon in late-April.
– My 111-mile round-trip excursion ended 7 hours after it started.
– I didn’t realize that I got a suntan / slight sunburn today.
– I realized it when I shaved after I got home.
– It stung a bit.
– It also didn’t help that I shaved directly over a few small insect bites.
– This day trip was so worth it.
– I’m visiting again next December or January.
– You can count on it !