The Saturday Morning Post - 50 States in 52 Weeks- Florida

 

Ah, Florida, the Sunshine State.  Florida played a major role in my life. My family first took me to Florida when I was 3 or 4 years old. We went back the year Walt Disney World opened, then a couple of winters later started spending winters in Florida.  My grandparents were on the west coast, north of Tampa about 60 miles.  The first winter we lived in Spring Hill.  After that we went to the east coast, across the intercoastal waterway from the space center.  I moved there after high school.  I lived in Titusville for about three years, then moved to Orlando. I lived in Orlando from 1980 to 1995. The last decade of that about three miles directly north of Orlando International Airport, step out the back yard and count the tires on the landing jumbo jets. 

I earned my first University degree at Rollins College in Winter Park. I built myself three homes. I sold and built over 250 houses over fifteen years (I didn't keep track of how many.) I had dark times, and good times.  I grew a lot, while I lived there. 

I met my sweet bear, and we moved when he had a great job opportunity, and the move opened the door for me to go back to school and earn a doctorate in my field. I was ready for a change, and moving was the surest way of assuring change. 

When people think of Florida, they think of sandy beaches and Walt Disney World. There is so much more to it. Central Florida is a complex landscape of pine and palmetto scrub.  There are thousands of freshwater lakes. There is rhythm to the four seasons in Florida that is subtle, and unique. It took me a decade of living there to really understand the seasons, the landscape, the place.  

Florida is crowded. Traffic is terrible due to poor planning and lack of infrastructure.  I can't explain the rise of far right politics. And hurricanes were an annual concern. 

I have to list Florida as a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there again.