Somewhere along the road

This past couple of years I’ve been spending a lot of time driving between Gainesville and Melbourne to visit my 92-year-old mother.

And being an off-the-beaten-path kind of a guy, I tend to spend as little time as possible on the interstate and as much time as practicable on back roads.

Hence my preferred route: GNV to Melrose, to Palatka, to Bunnel, to Ormond Beach to Melbourne.

On a lonely stretch of SR 100 between San Mateo and Bimini I keep passing this long abandoned motel and wonder about its story.

I read somewhere that it was a mom-and-pop kind of establishment. But then there was a fire.

Now it’s literally a skeleton of its former self.

Really, it’s just a flash through the windshield and a fleeting image in my rear view mirror.

But there is a story there. Probably lots of stories.

Which is why every time I pass it, familiar lyrics from Jimmy Buffet’s “The Stories We Could Tell” flash through my mind.

Honeymooners on their way to St. Augustine? Migrant workers between jobs? Traveling salesmen? Afternoon assignations?

We can’t know now. And never will I suppose.

Because time has passed it by. And now it is just a roadside oddity.

An image in my rear view mirror.

This is Ron’s Florida.