A view of the afterlife

The Florida western coastline was my home last week. Hubby and I stayed with a good friend who retired to Florida five years ago, and abides in a comfy place on several acres. With a lovely salt-water pool, a yard full of colorful flowers and lush vegetation, the chirping of birds and tranquil Zen areas with relaxing lounge chairs, it almost feels like heaven amid thoughts of my own retirement.

It was a pleasant week as long as we stayed within the comfort zone of our little retreat. Once outside the gates, all hell broke loose!

It appears that most elderly drivers in Florida have forgotten everything they learned in driving school. Although these lessons were taught 50 plus years ago, the rules have been basically the same. They do not include driving slow in the high-speed lane, a staple tactic of most transplanted Floridians. The worst part is some more educated people DO drive in the slower lane, causing a blockage that can last from Tampa to Miami.

An unusual tactic is used to address speeding in more residential areas; an abundant amount of local police cars parked by the side of the road. Hubby’s foot would ease up on the gas whenever he saw one of their marked cars, so this scheme was very effective for him. It took us several days of closely examining the car through tinted windows to realize that the vehicle was empty! There was no one inside! I laughed to myself when I realized it, and the thought crossed my mind that they might not even be drivable vehicles, just tin replicas of the real thing.

One amazing feature of housing communities in Florida is that so many of them are built around lakes and ponds. Living on a pond in Warwick myself, I can appreciate having a serene body of water in my backyard. It took me a while to realize that these bodies of water were man made, dug in the center of the community prior to building the houses around it. Clever! We visited a cousin of Hubby’s and sat in his lovely back yard admiring his many flowers in colorful ceramic containers, bird bath and bird feeder teeming with a variety of birds, and lovely climbing vines enveloping his trees. They have a variety of visiting creatures, including a pair of huge, bright blue herons that were accompanied by their offspring, squirrels chasing each other and a cute, little bunny that hopped underneath Hubby’s chair. His cousin remarked that it was unusual to see bunnies because the alligator in the lake usually devours them. Yes, there was an alligator in the lake, its long snout clearly visible in the water. Connected by a series of ducts, the alligators swim from body of water to body of water. They are prolific in this area, making swimming and cooling off in the inviting water impossible. It also makes it mandatory to keep all pets behind alligator proof gates lest a puppy become food for this neighborhood resident.

The heat in Florida during the summer is oppressive, just like the heat we have been experiencing this week; skin melting, sweat inducing, head spinning, eye tearing, scorching heat. Although Hubby was anxious to get to the beach, this was not a trek that interested me. He also liked to get out each day to go shopping or out to lunch. This would entail parking the car in a tree-less lot where it would bake under the sun to a soaring 122 degrees. Getting back into it was an oven-like experience; my skin would burn and my eyes would roll in the back of my head, with things going black as I plopped down onto the burning seat. The rest of the ride would be pure torture as we drove past the empty police cars behind someone driving slow in the high-speed lane. How I missed the speedy drivers in Rhode Island!

The temperatures in Rhode Island this week have induced PTSD in me. I had been hoping, some day, to retire to Florida, but I have had a view of the afterlife … hot and stifling and a miserable temperature. It is not so inviting anymore.