Doing a radio show "on the road"

Along Interstate-75 work. But last fall, the part-time project became a priority. As August turned to September, Florida was hammered by hurricanes and urgent requests for our I-75 book poured in. Many Floridians evacuated northwards to Georgia...and realized that our book had all the gas, food and lodging information they needed. Sadly, a similar book did not exist for Florida's roads'so we decided to write it and get it to market as soon as possible.

Video on the roll

Kathy and I set out in January and drove the entire length of every Florida expressway – each interstate, toll route and limited access freeway – in both directions. We drove a surprising 7,911 km within the state and spent $66.40 on tolls. We were "on the road" for six weeks, stopping at a different place each night. As we travelled, we videoed the road ahead, dictated more than 37 hours of notes and visited many unusual places often missed by those who drive Florida's expressways each winter. We finally returned home in mid-February.

Cutting the corner - on the ferry across Lake George.

And then the best part of the project began. As an author, there is absolutely nothing more satisfying than immersing yourself in a new book. The pleasure of researching the unusual story "leads" gathered on the road and the enjoyment of crafting your thoughts into words and sentences, are difficult to describe.

We had returned home to an icy Canadian winter, but I never saw it. Working seven days a week in my windowless basement office, I was "in my element" researching, drawing maps and writing. Every day, I was "driving" in Florida. Spring came and turned into one of the hottest summers on record...but I was oblivious to it, for I was on one of the most fascinating journeys of discovery I have ever experienced. Let me share several of the little-known facts I found about this remarkable state.

At the bottom of the globe lay a super continent called Gondwana. Within it, South America's bulge nestled into the "bight" of Africa, with Florida's tiny and submerged bedrock platform sandwiched between (near modern Africa's Senegal). To the north of Gondwana lay the prehistoric Tethys Sea, and then another super continent called Laurasia – today's North America, Europe and parts of Asia.

Through time, the land masses slowly broke apart. South America separated from Africa; North America split from Europe and drifted northwest, taking the "orphaned" Florida platform bedrock with it. By the Pliocene Age (10 million years ago), the continents were just about where they are today. The Florida Platform, still submerged at the time, was acquiring layer upon layer of marine invertebrate skeletons which would eventually form Florida's distinctive "karst" limestone geology.

By the way, we are still moving and several million years from now, the continents will look quite different again – I'll have to get a new globe!

Nazi Spies Land in Florida

On the night of June 17, 1942, Kapitänleutnant Deeke guided his submarine, U-584, towards the Florida coast using the St. Augustine lighthouse as a landmark. The sea was calm and reflected the lights of the beach houses and occasionally, the voices of late-night revellers floated across the water. Hitler's Operation Pastorius had begun.

In range, Deeke turned U-584's dark silhouette to starboard and headed a little farther north to the dark and lonely beach of Ponte Vedra. The aft hatch opened and four Nazi saboteurspies quickly launched a rubber dinghy from the sea-washed deck. They rowed towards the sands with a cargo of high explosives. Once ashore, they discarded their uniforms and changed into "civvies." Using collapsible spades, they dug a hole close to some stone steps and buried their cache for later recovery.

They looked back at the dark, empty sea...for by now, Deeke had taken U- 584 back out and was at periscope depth while his men listened to their favourite entertainment, "American music" from St. Augustine radio station, WFOY – a real treat, since jazz was banned in Hitler's Germany. The saboteurs were alone in enemy territory.

But Pastorius was well planned and they knew what to do next. The spies walked to the old beach highway, stopping for a smoke before buying night bus tickets for Jacksonville at the local general store.

The mission had been personally ordered by Hitler and had taken two years to plan. His aim? Demonstrate to the Americans that they were not safe in their own homeland. Blow up and destroy power plants and canal locks. Plant explosives in public places and create panic and fear.

Four nights earlier, a similar landing operation had taken place at a lonely beach on Long Island. That night, U-202 landed four spies and crates of explosives, but things had not gone as planned. After burying their cargo, they ran into a suspicious Coast Guard officer who spread the alarm.

The spies ran, and their buried cache was quickly discovered, setting off a huge FBI manhunt. One of the men decided to give himself up in exchange for clemency, and his information led to the quick arrest of the others. After a closed Military Commission trial, six were sentenced to death by electric chair and two informers were imprisoned.

A footnote to history – the 1942 closed Military Commission was used as a legal precedent for indefinitely detaining suspected Al Qaeda terrorists in the post-9/11 days.