Tag: Florida Keys

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. Let’s leave the country for this edition, and check-out Bermuda. It’s located about 650 miles due east of North Carolina in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s often misidentified as “the island of Bermuda”, but it’s actually the composite of some 180 islands !

The islands are the tops of volcanos that rise above sea level – up to 260 feet. Thousands of other small islands surround Bermuda that are near sea level but under water.

Bermuda is known for its distinct pink sand beaches. Many of their postcards show off their beautiful pink beaches that lead-in to the crystal-clear blue waters.

I’ve been to Bermuda twice, but both times were 45 to 50 years ago as a little kid. Me and my parents went there twice within a few years during the mid-1970s. I remember that my Dad rented a scooter there, and I rode on the back of it with him. (Tourists aren’t allowed to drive cars there.) I also remember watching PBS kids programming on the hotel TV, and the TV would switch channels by itself – and I thought that was scary. (I think it was actually my Dad behind me switching the channels with an early remote control – before I knew what that was.)

I definitely want to visit Bermuda again. Due to its isolated location cruise ships visit there less often than all of the islands to the south in the Caribbean. It would be fun to take a cruise to Bermuda, but I’d rather spend several days there rather than several hours. I’d like to fly there, stay at a nice hotel, and just take public transportation up and down the islands visiting places. Ideally I’d want to visit during the late-Spring to early-Summer. It gets a bit chilly (50s and 60s) during the wintertime months as frequent cold fronts pass through. And then there’s hurricane season during the late-Summer to early-Autumn months. April, May, and June are the nicest months weatherwise.

American Airlines actually has one direct flight in both directions between Miami and Bermuda every day. (It’s about a 2-hour and 45-minute flight.) The flight to Bermuda arrives late at night. The flight to Miami arrives late in the morning. Right now a round-trip flight costs less than $500. Not too bad. I need to keep that in mind for 2023. I should probably start planning for such a trip now. I think maybe fly in late on a Monday night, and spend Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday there, and then return home on a Saturday morning. So 4 days and 5 nights. Yeah – let’s do it !

I’ll keep you updated here on #TravelThursday. Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. I hit a milestone on my car a couple of Tuesday mornings ago less than a mile away from my home. I hit 12,000 miles on my odometer, and I did so on my 607TH day of owning it. That’s right – it took me almost 20 months to drive 12,000 miles. The national average for driving here in the U.S. used to be 12,000 miles per year, but a recent study by the Federal Highway Administration states that the average American now drives 14,263 miles per year. They actually break it down by state. Here in Florida we drive an average of 14,557 miles per year, or just slightly above the national average.

I obviously help to bring our average down a little bit. Last year (2021) I drove 8,672 miles, and that was up from the 6,395 miles that I drove in 2020. Pre-COVID I drove an average of 10,244 miles per year from 2015 to 2019. My 12-year average from 2003 to 2015 was 9,854 miles per year.

How do I know all of this ? Well I have a spreadsheet that tracks it all.

Since 2015 my most-driven month is September (by far). I’ve driven to and from North Texas twice in September. My least-driven month is May – with August as a close-second. My most-driven day of the week is Friday, and least-driven – Wednesday.

Incidentally it took me 40 days to drive the 1,000 miles from 11,000 to 12,000 on my odometer. It took me 72 days to drive from 10,000 to 11,000. I think it will take (at least) 72 days to make it to 13,000.

We’ll see what happens between now and June. I’ll keep you updated here on #TravelThursday. Let’s keep traveling together.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp