From the barrier island, the route passes through Riviera Beach, Lake Park, and North Palm Beach, areas shaped by early twentieth-century land speculation, port development, and the expansion of resort living along the coast. These urban sections contrast sharply with the next phase of the ride, which turns west along major corridors leading away from the ocean. Along the way, the route skirts Palm Beach Gardens and the PGA National Golf Club, long associated with professional golf and large-scale planned development.
Beyond the last suburban neighborhoods, the landscape begins to open into pine flatwoods, canals, and wetlands connected to the Loxahatchee Slough, a northern extension of the Everglades system. Near Caloosa, a rural equestrian community, paved roads give way to dirt tracks, signaling entry into a far less developed environment.
One of the most unusual sections of the route passes near Apix, a Cold War–era ghost town created as a cover for secret government and aerospace research during the late 1950s. Although never a true civilian settlement, its grid of unpaved streets remains visible, hidden among forest and wetlands, marking a forgotten chapter of Florida’s role in military and technological experimentation.
The ride continues into the J.W. Corbett Wildlife Management Area, a vast protected region of cypress swamps, sawgrass prairies, and pine forests. This area, once known as Hungryland, holds deep archaeological and historical significance, having been inhabited by Indigenous cultures for centuries and later serving as a refuge for Seminole groups during the nineteenth-century conflicts. Wildlife is abundant throughout the reserve, including alligators, deer, wading birds, and numerous reptile and amphibian species.
After reaching the interior of the Corbett preserve, the route returns along the same path, completing a ride that combines coastal scenery, suburban expansion, Cold War history, and some of the most intact wetland ecosystems remaining in southeastern Florida. The full route and its historical context are part of Descubriendo la Florida – Volumen 3.
