Out of the Loop

The last two miles of the eastern Loop Road skirts along a Micco-sukee Indian residential area. Many of the cookie-cutter HUD-designed homes carry a definite Miami Dolphin/ Miami Hurricane football team flair. Team colors-green and orange-and team jersey numbers are everywhere; one access road is even named Ricky Williams Drive after the popular Dolphins running back. Long garfish gigs poke out the backs of pickups. The casino responsible for all of this is a few miles east, its rooftop visible in the far distance, over the stunning, endless, river of grass view visible from most of their back windows.

This area is heavily patrolled by Miccosukee Indian Police, who operate a well-known speed trap here. Though it is a county road (C. R. 94), the Miccosukees often pull over drivers-mostly at night-and interrogate them for security reasons. Some members of the tribe say they believe the Loop Road presents an opportunity for terrorists to set up surface-to-air missile launchers aimed toward jets approaching Miami International Airport and they are doing their part for homeland security.

Locals, including residents who live on the Loop Road, are often detained on their way home from the store. Most, like Eric Kimmel, consider the Miccosukee actions harassment and a civil-rights violation. Kimmel has complained to Miami-Dade Police, the park service, the state attorney general, commissioners, representatives, congressmen.all to no avail.

"I know of no other police department in Florida allowed to practice these tactics. Much like the 'no African-Americans in town after dark' laws of the past, this is extremely prejudicial and wrong. This is America. I believe that we are supposed to be free to travel on any public road without being subject to unreasonable stops and interrogation regardless of race, creed or culture," he says.

The Indians don't care. Along with their Seminole cousins to the north, these people never signed a peace treaty. They have expensive lawyers and do not hesitate to use them in defense of their sovereignty. Govern-ment is wary of spending a lot of money to soothe the irritations of a few Loop Roaders.

Conflict. The operative word in the taming of South Florida. Man versus nature. Nature versus nature. Man versus man. The grading of a road. The end of an era.

A nonstop Loop Road trip will take you about a leisurely hour. On the east end, you will emerge at Fortymile Bend, where the Tamiami Trail takes a near 90-degree turn directly east, about four miles west of Everglades National Park's Shark Valley Visitor Center.

Just try to make it out by dark.