It's 5:00am. I'm in the lobby of a strange little Microtel somewhere near the gulf coast of Florida. It makes me appreciate the diversity of the US. We're not all the same. This isn't my Northeast. Christian radio stations are preset In the rental car radio. We are amused by this. We are cynics. Everything is a joke to us. The fast food chains, the friendly people, the southern accents. Who the hell do we think we are? Is New York the center of the world? My family is pleasantly surprised that everything is less expensive. Back home you can't even find a Cracker Barrel. Forget Steak 'n Shake. New Yorkers know Florida well. When we get old we migrate to this elephant's graveyard because we can afford to live and die here on our little social security checks. We still mock the state and the people: Flori - duh. We're smug in our little gated communities with the man made lakes. We pretend we hate Cracker Barrel and Chili's. We're better than the locals and the Midwest snowbirds. We are worldly sophisticates. We tell ourselves this as we check the clock. We don't want to miss the early bird special.