Hey, where are all you people going?

If you're from the northern sector of the midwest where winter strips the color out of the landscape, then dumps a heap of snow just to up the aggravation factor, Florida in March is just what the weatherman ordered. Show me a palm tree and I'm happy -- mentally flashing back to 5-year-old me, in the back seat of my parents' car with my nose pressed against the window, seeing Florida for the first time. It was love at first sight with those graceful palm trees. Mix in the sound of pounding surf and the smell of salt air and I'm hooked.

But, and this is important, so pay attention (actually, you may want to get paper and pen and write this down): Whatever you do, do not depart Florida on March 31.

If you choose to ignore this sage advice, be prepared to come flying up the entrance ramp to whatever northbound expressway you're about to merge onto, hit the brakes, squeeze in among the other parked cars, and commence to read a good book while enjoying a picnic lunch you were hopefully wise enough to pack for this trudge home.

The ensuing weekend being Easter was certainly a complicating factor, but the real culprits were the expiring rental leases on March 31. Yes, sure, many choose to stay through May and a few heat-seeking missiles will refuse to pull up stakes until mid-June, but if you'd been on the I-75 crawl with me from Ft. Myers to Sarasota, you'd swear someone had opened a window and yelled, "It's March 31! All you snowbirds -- get out!"

No accidents. No construction. Just an endless parade of campers and Cadillacs and big 4-door sedans.

I'd had a great, albeit too short stay in Naples and then my cousin drove me to the Ft. Myers airport where I met Jeff's customers who boarded an airplane as I started driving their car back to Chicago. My intended route was I-75 to I-4, where I'd veer off the beaten path and spend the day and night with our good friends in Eustis, FL, then depart before dawn the next morning for the business part of the trip.

I called Jeff, who had taken an early morning flight to Phoenix and was in a PHX airport restaurant, having breakfast and waiting until his customer arrived. I told him the mile marker I was crawling past and begged him to consult his road atlas and find an alternate route that would take me east and then northeast to connect with I-4. "Get me out of here. I'm not a celebrity, but I've had enough fun on I-75."

Jeff did a good job. He routed me through a rural area with no traffic and no stops. It wasn't exactly a short cut, but it was beautiful -- forested in some areas -- and, best of all, I was cruising, not crawling. Did you know there are a lot of beekeepers in the middle of Florida? Neither did I until I got off the expressway and did the two-lane road scenic tour.

So, while the snowbirds were doing the leaving-Florida crawl on I-75, and probably vowing, after the miserable winter weather they had experienced in Florida this year, never to return, I, on the other hand, was freebird, zipping through the back roads and backwoods of Florida.

I highly recommend it. But not on March 31. You've been warned.