I drove George to Naples [1] which is on the west coast of Florida, so she could visit her parents. It's not a bad drive, about 85 miles, of which 78 are along Alligator Alley. [2] Now it's I-75 and four lanes wide, [3] but when I moved down here in 1979 it was a two lane road with a high death rate on it (78 miles with no exits and a huge truck doing 50 in front of you the tempation to pass is all too great … do you see where this is going?). It still has its share of accidents but they're not nearly as bad. And there are actually two exits now between the endpoints. Woo hoo!
The drive over took a little over an hour (Speed limit on Alligator Alley: 70 mph (Miles Per Hour)) so it wasn't that bad (it takes an hour to go from West Palm Beach to Miami and both are considered local towns here in South Florida). And dispite the please from George's parents, I could not stay for dinner as I had to drive back across the state to pick up Spring [4] from work.
[1] http://www.naples-online.com/
[2] http://www.naples.net/history/aalley.htm