I'm at work. On Friday after New Year's. Anyway... I ended up going to the Orlando area for New Year's. On this trip, I have found that the toll road system up there is MUCH nicer than here. I have been using a Sunpass for some time now, and love it. They are making improvements all the time as far as automated lanes for toll collections on the Turnpike. But I have to admit that the roads up in the Orlando area are far superior to what we have here. I did a little research, and it seems that the area was the forerunner of the prepaid toll system, with Epass, the forerunner of Sunpass. Not only were they first, but they are the furthest along in development. First of all, Epass and Sunpass are completely interchangeable. But the magic is in how they set up their system. I can only imagine that they have many more people using the system than we do (percentage-wise) since their roads are designed with this in mind. When going through the mainline toll of SR 417, there were three lanes of full-speed Epass lanes, and the toll plaza was kind of an exit off to the right, with 4 lanes for coins and cash. Nice. I have been wondering if they were ever going to expand on that in the Sunpass system. But then I started to wonder how the morons down here would deal with it. People are STILL confused as to which lane they are going in every day on the Turnpike's Golden Glades plaza! It makes me want to flee the area more and more...

Anyway, it was nice to see a more mature system than we have. But I believe it also has a lot to do with a more mature userbase. I love South Florida, but sometimes, I just have the desire to up and leave. I would miss it, but there is a lot more out there that I have only had little tastes of. Orlando was interesting, but it may be a little too touristy, and too big for me. Clearwater was a beautiful area as well - changing my mind about the Tampa Bay area (well, not really, since it is a different area itself). Gainesville is very nice, but boering. Great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to be stuck there. And the other area I have had the ability to spend a lot of time in is Raleigh, NC and it's surrounding areas. It is really nice up there. But I don't know how I would be able to cope with the cold.

I'm not making any plans or anything, just thinking out loud. It is nice to keep options open, and the mind informed about other things. That, and there's nothing better for me to be doing at the moment.