Jan 29 2009
It Never Rains in Florida…
If you have never had the pleasure of driving in a true Florida rain storm, count your blessings!
I grew up in Colorado, and it does occasionally rain there. I even thought it rained hard there once in awhile. But I realize now, that I had never experienced rain until we moved to Florida.
I had never seen a mass exodus from an Interstate highway until I made my first trip here. I would have got out of the truck and kissed the ground if I had only had gills.
Rooster tails of water from passing trucks reminded me of speed boats throwing walls of water and those wonderful mud gripping tires on my four wheel drive hydroplaned like I was in an ice rink.
There were a few hardy individuals still driving, no doubt they were late to an all night mass murdering or some such festive occasion.
That is also when I found out that you can pull off in the grass of the side of the road here and not need a tow truck to get you back out after a zillion inches of rain fall.
You cannot see the painted lines in the road, or the road for that matter, so be sure you are as far from it as possible when you stop, preferably in a rest area or another country.
Rain cannot come close to describing what happens here. Having the gulf turned upside down overhead would come much closer to the reality of it.
Back in western Colorado a “wet” yearly total could not fill a daily quota here and even without a hurricane to fuel it, raining for a single day can drop up to twelve inches at will.
Thomas H. Forthe
