I will defend South Florida as the best damn part of Florida any day of the week. Don’t tell me about how pretty the beaches are in Jax or how great Gasparilla is because, honestly, I don’t care. From West Palm to South Beach, everything about South Florida is just better. It is the beacon of the North in the South. It is a community of transplants from the Northeast and South America. It’s the perfect slice of pizza followed by a golden soft tres leches cake.
As much as I love my home, there are a few things about it that would make me swipe left. Our sports teams (except the Heat), Heat fans, the hallucinogenic humidity of the summer and the distance from UF. Yes, while you Lucky Bunches of Oats from Jacksonville, Tampa and Orlando all run home for an after school snack without batting an eyelash, the trip home for us is a grueling odyssey unsuitable for the faint of heart. The journey lasting between four to six hours (without traffic) is a feat insurmountable without weeks of mental preparation to mourn and accept the fact that an entire day will be spent sitting in the car.
To make the trip slightly more bearable, we stop. No, not on 75, those rest stops are essentially latrines with park benches. So we wait it out until we hit the Turnpike, where we get off at the large, newly renovated, shopping-mall looking buildings that still have that classic smell of rest stop.
Via: POI Factory
The Turnpike rest stop is the cesspool of everything that will make you ask “Wait… why? What?” The people there all seem to have just crawled out of the coal mine they’ve been trapped in since 1996. They walk around like mindless sheep, where they’re going is anyone’s guess, but it is guaranteed the men will miss the urinal and not wash their hands in the bathroom. The only source of sustenance is half a Dunkin’ Donuts or Wendy’s, and in all seriousness, when was the last time you were craving Wendy’s?
The situation is far from ideal. In the words of the late, great Billy Mayes (ugh, that douchebag lived in Tampa), “There’s got to be a better way!” Well, there is. Situated just a few football fields off the Turnpike is the Mall at the Millenia in Orlando. Every single time I drive to or from Gainesville from home, this is my one and only stop. Just take the Turnpike to I-4, follow the signs for Downtown Orlando and Conroy Rd, and you’ll be there before Taylor Swift can say “Starbucks lovers.”
I started stopping there as a joke, and it all started with, whom else? My mom.
Via: American Culture
Like all real housewives, my mom loves to shop. When we were moving me into my apartment my sophomore year, she had the brilliant idea of taking a shopping break. It was brilliant, however, because in the corner of the busy food court, across the ways from Chipotle, sat the illustrious Maoz Vegetarian. All my Boca Ratonis will know exactly what I’m talking about, but it is the most perfect falafel you will ever find on Yeezus’s green Earth. My obsession with the fried green nuggets is a few notches below psychotic, so when I took that first bite of the exact sandwich I only associated with home, I said to my family, “I’m stopping here every time.”
And the rest is history.
Stopping at a mall is miles better than any rest stop. You can eat food you actually like, there’s not one, but two Starbucks (for Taylor Swift’s friends I guess), and you can actually walk around and not look like a mental-ward escapee walking in circles. You can take your time, look at clothes you’ll never buy, take selfies on the products in the Apple Store, sit on Santa’s lap, poop in Neiman Marcus and do whatever else you choose to pass your time.
Stop at Millenia. It’s worth the extra couple of minutes out of your way (it really is not a big deal at all. Maybe five extra minutes) and however long it takes you to get out of there. Stretch your legs, get a falafel, get a coffee and get back on the road. See ya there.
Feature photo courtesy of: BCD Travel Blog
