When I hit I-95 in NC, I realized how, despite the fact that I was still at least 11 hours from the areas of FL in which I used to live, I felt very at home on 95.

When we moved to FL during Christmas break of '87/'88, we moved to a small town just starting out, named Coral Springs. (There were no springs -- just man-made canals, and there wasn't a whole lotta coral, either. But go figure.) Coral Springs is in the northwesternmost part of Broward County, FL (home of Ft. Lauderdale, and the county north of Dade County which houses Miami. Just to lend a little orientation to those not familiar with FL.) To the west of Coral Springs, as well as to the North, there are no roads because it's all swampland in the Everglades system. Beautiful place, lots of mosquitos. To the east, though, about 15 miles away, is the Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of Deerfield Beach and Pompano Beach. 95 runs right through these towns, and is the most convenient way to get almost anywhere in SouthEastern FL.

So for ten years, I lived with 95 being one of the biggest influences on my life as far as roads go.

And then I moved to CA. While I was there, my mother sold the house in Coral Springs and moved to Boca Raton. When I moved back in with her in Boca, we lived only about 1 mile from 95 and thus it really, really became the absolutely most common way to get anywhere other than right down the street.

So, since so much of my life, especially my formative years, revolved around this road and were spent on it during trips elsewhere, just the name 95 (few people call it I-95 unless they leave near another road named 95) really feels home-like to me. And being on the road during my trip south felt so nice.

For the first few hours.

On my return trip, the dreaded Jacksonville area (which, as anyone that's been through the 95 stretch in Jacksonville can tell you, is very, very, very long) and the so-close-to-home-but-I-can't-get-through-this-town stretch of Fayetteville were unpleasant encounters. And here's a little known fact: I-95 from about West Palm Beach to Miami (I think that's the official stretch) is known as the decapitation highway capitol of the world. See, the speed limit is something like 70 or 75 when there aren't too many construction areas (there were a LOT while I was down!) and all these trucks get on there with lots of odd cargo items that aren't secured very well, and then with the wind and everything, the items blow off the trucks and smash through windshields behind them and have often disembodied some poor souls along the way. (Often, of course, being a very relative term. This isn't a daily occurence or anything, but it does happen more often in that area than anywhere else.)

So anyway. That's 95. A home on the road, as it were.