The Florida exchanger who wouldn't tell us her where her home was located insisted on meeting us at a coffee shop along the highway. That meant we had to drive behind her for an hour to get to her home. It was nice of her to take the time out from her workday to orient us, and despite our preferences she insisted on orienting us, but I hate driving behind anyone.
It's dangerous to focus on keeping up with someone's car when I could be watching the road and listening for turn-by-turn directions from my GPS. And the home exchanger drove 85 miles per hour on highways that had a posted speed limit which was already high -- 75.
With my two toddlers and their speed-averse grandfather in the car I finally decided to lose the exchanger. We knew the name of the town that was within 10 miles of her home. We decided to drive there and check in with her via cell phone.
We caught up with the swapper in a mall near her home and followed her the rest of the way to her house. As I turned into her driveway I pushed the GPS button that would record the exact location of the exchange home. The GPS dutifully intoned the address, which WAS in its database.
Why had this home exchanger claimed that her address was not yet part of any mapping data base? It looked to us like an over-eager developer had bought a few acres of land right off the only highway on this particular Florida island. Though the exchange house was a few dozen feet from this highway, someone had decided it should have a different street address.
The exchanger had described her house as in "a gated community". She was half-right. It was gated, but one house does not a "community" make. She also said it was secluded, which was somewhat accurate as well. The public pier, river full of fishermen, and the busy highway, each about 20 feet from her door. To get to a market or decent restaurant required spending an hour in the car round-trip, but the feeling at the house was definitely not one of privacy.
The development in which the house was located was really weird in that it wasn't developed. They had built just the exchanger's home before running out of money or steam or buyers. A small street ran past her house parallel to the highway for two blocks in either direction. That small street ended in a cul-de-sac. It looked like there should be five or ten more houses lining the street, but the exchanger's home was the only thing standing. No ground had been broken on any other home.
We wouldn't have the luxuries that go with most new home developments in Florida. No club house, fitness center, tennis courts or pool. The exchanger's home had its own pool, but it was about twice the size of a jacuzzi tub. We wouldn't be getting a workout on this vacation, unless we started digging the foundations of the missing homes, or joined the boaters who kept floating past the living room, almost close enough to grab a beer from the swapper's fridge.
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