Jacksonville isn't that great of a city. If you can skip it, do so. At least it was cheap. Reorganized my luggage in the morning to pack the hot weather gear towards the top, so I was a little slow getting on to the road. The drive south from jacksonville towards miami was pretty boring. It was hot and the roads were straight and flat (not fun to drive in comparison to north carolina). I stopped every 100 miles to douse my tee shirt in water to keep cool and it would be bone dry 40 minutes later. Works as a decent AC systems. Drove past giant multi-level motorcycle dealers in Daytona. Billboard said it was the largest Harley dealer, and was next to some equally large import dealers.
The turnpike is better then i-95, took it most of the way. Made the mistake of getting off it to see miami. Don't do this unless you actually plan on staying in miami. I crossed miami on i-95 in rush hour to us1 and it was excruciatingly slow. Stop and go for more then an hour in the blazing sun on a slab of concrete. Not all that fun. At least I had the skyline to look at.
Traffic completely disappeared as soon as I got on to card sound road (the alternate bridge into key largo). Coming over the bridge was great, hit the crest of the bridge an instantly felt a sense of relief. Gave a nice view of the area.
Cruised key largo front to back to see what was available and checked into the bayside inn. First tried atlantic bay resort but desk office was closed, and key largo lodge was full. The dude at the front desk of the bayside inn was really helpful and friendly and recommend some good options for dinner as well as coupons for whichever. Walked next door to a restaurant on the beach, overlooking the water facing the sunset. Fantastic view. Had some local yellowtail and key lime pie. Yellowtail was good, key lime pie was just okay, but I expected better than okay given my location...
Tomorrow I plan to take an easy cruise through the keys and stay in key west overnight.