and so to home...with some after thoughts

38 days in Florida comes to an end.

38 days in which I saw two days of rain.

It did get marginally cooler throughout the month but for all intents and purposes every day was the same. Cool morning, clear skies, warm to very warm afternoons and mild evenings.

It was all conducive to flying and plenty of it.

Thoughts?

There are plenty and here is a brief synopsis.

Naples is an 'unreal' town. It is flat.Most of the residents have migrated from the midwest or upper east coast and you would be hard pressed to find anyone that has resided there longer than 10 years. It is a town of very old money and very very large and somewhat ostentatious houses. It is a town whose airport lays host to a tremendous amount of private jets.It is a town of gated communities of which there is an abundance. There are few to no African-Americans in the town.There are plenty of Baptists. It is spread out and lacking in any meaningful infrastructure. The result of which is that everyone drives everywhere. There are no nightclubs or any visible form of vice. Its town council is ultra conservative. Its biggest tourist attraction is its Zoo. Its second biggest tourist attraction is its pier. I found its most attractive asset to be its beach and in particular its beach at sunset. Ending the day with a beer in hand (wrapped in a brown paper bag), gazing westward across the Gulf of Mexico facing a setting sun was something I did often and thoroughly enjoyed. Would I go back? Only to visit a good friend and his wife. I could never live there.

The flying school I used was disorganised and lacked structure or any meaningful schedule. This despite a pre-course sit down discussion with one of the owners where we outlined my goals and the timeframe I had to work within. Given what happened 9 years ago (9/11) I was astounded at the lack of attention to detail and more so security. Especially in regards to accessing the tarmac.The only time the owners (who were also the senior management and therefore responsible for the day to day running of the operation) interacted with the pupils was to ask for more cash. All the students there had the same gripes and very few if none said they would use them again. That said. You couldn't fault the location to learn to fly. It was top shelf.

Florida itself seems caught in a time warp and I wasn't surprised to discover it has one of the poorer performing state economies with one of the highest rates of unemployment in the USA. It is ignorant to paint the entire country with the same brushstroke dipped from the easel of one solitary state but I saw plenty that goes a long way towards explaining why the US faces the challenges it does today and in a broader sense some of these points illustrate why the western world is struggling.

1. There are too many big cars, either SUV's or saloons guzzling way too much fuel.

2. There is no visible, reliable public transport infrastructure in any of the towns or cities I visited and this even applies to Miami where I was shocked at what little was on offer

3. Waste. There is an absolute abundance of it at every turn. Supermarkets continue to bag everything once or twice over in plastic. But where the word waste reared its head largest was in restaurants. The amount of food served and not eaten is simply mind boggling. Portions are beyond ridiculously large in size. The amount not eaten and binned even more so. Gardens and public parks were watered at the height of midday(admittedly with bore water) and there seem to be no conscious effort made whatsoever to preserve any form of energy or natural resource.It got me thinking that surely there is an opportunity to re-distribute the food waste to the poor and homeless. There just wouldn't be any money in it.

4. The state of public highways and particularly bridges is very poor.

5. There was an overzealous local highway patrol in Naples as there was in Key West as there was in Miami. I saw more people pulled over by police in my 5 weeks than I have in my last 45 years.Despite this everyone seems to drink drive quite regularly and the highway speed limit of 70mph is treated as advisory only. (In the state of Florida you can buy a clean licence if you rack up too many demerit points)

6. The incentive for good service (ie: the lure of a good tip) is fast disappearing. Many of the restaurants now add a 18.5 % service tip to your bill. The bit I love most (not) is that it works like this. Your food and wine bill is say 100 USD. You then get lumped with state taxes and it goes to 111.00 USD. They then add 18.5% service charge (ie;tip) on top of the 111.00 USD. But the best bit? They still leave the ''tip'' column empty for any unsuspecting person to add even more. I asked several people about this and was told they do it for two reasons. It allows restaurants to now control the amount staff get for tips and many use it to subsidise the minimum wage they are expected to pay the staff who are now worse off. Furthermore the IRS now can tax on tips earned by the staff as it is all documented. There goes your incentive for good service. If a waiter knows they are in for 18.5% regardless of how they treat you then your concerns are not theirs anymore.

7. Homelessness and mentally ill destitutes is a very real and sad issue. There weren't that many examples in Naples but aplenty in Kew West and more in Miami where the gulf between the haves and have nots was eye opening.

The irony of it

8. Bank owned houses and businesses are too many to count. I'm told that most banks will now accept anywhere between 20 and 30 cents to the dollar on the houses and buildings they now find themselves owning as a result of the massive amount of defaulted loans over the last 3 years.

9. Mexican migrant labour does all the menial jobs.

10. English is not the first and most widespread language spoken in southern Florida. Spanish is. If you wanted to operate any business in this part of the world you would need to know how to speak Spanish if you were to give yourself a realistic chance of being successful.

11. Ever restaurant has at least one TV.

12. The best place to get a breakfast is still the ubiquitous ''American Diner''

13. The weather is truly great and the people very friendly 

All that said its a good state to visit. Key West in particular was a highlight. Laid back, liberal, small enough to be quaint but large enough to be interesting and it is somewhere I would definitely go back to. I'm told June is the best month.

Not sure where I go to with my flying next but am leaning towards firstly my instrument rating and multi engine ratings, then see where that leads me.

Am off to Oz on Tuesday the 21st and may even blog from there.

Take care y'all and have pleasant xmas.