Florida 60 and US 17

I-4, with its construction and high-growth towns clinging to it rock candy, proved to be slow going on the way to Disney World, so we decided on an alternative to the Kennedy Space Center: Florida 60, then US 17, then the Bee Line Expressway. I wasn’t worried about the Bee Line, a.k.a. Florida 528, which is in fact a straight-east beeline from greater Orlando to a point near Cape Canaveral, because population centers don’t cling to it so much. In fact, there are few exits and much undeveloped land along the way.

The same can’t be said for Florida 60 and US 17. Though there were agricultural stretches—we saw orange groves, and migrants too—there were plenty of industrial facilities, shops and dwellings, many of which came in the form of tornado-baiting manufactured housing, but we spied gated communities as well. People live near these roads, and the traffic and road construction reflected it, so I doubt we saved any time compared with the Interstate. Still, it was good to pass through just a little of workaday, instead of tourist, Florida.

The route we took passed through Brandon, Mulberry and Bartow; then Winter Haven, Lake Alfred, Haines City, Davenport, Loughman and the curiously named Intercession City. The final large node of humanity before Orlando is Kissimmee, which from US 17 looks more or less like any North American suburb—all the usual retail suspects are represented.

I did note recently while watching Channel 26 here in the Chicago area that Kissimmee is advertising itself as a vacation destination for you and your whelps. We didn’t stop, however, and I’m a little sorry I missed this (from The Rough Guide to Florida): “In shabby downtown Kissimmee, talk a walk around the 50-foot obelisk called Kissimmee Monument of States. Comprising garishly painted concrete blocks adorned with pieces of stone and fossil representing all the American states and 20 foreign countries, this funky monument was erected in 1943 to honor the former president of the All-States Tourist Club.”