My nomination for worst rest area ever built....

Mile marker #162 I-10 Florida

Here is the google earth shot of this trap...

A word of warning, if you are returning to points west of Florida after a vacation in South Florida late at night, do yourself a favor... DO NOT EXIT AT THIS REST AREA!!!

At night it is very easy to miss the fact that you are crossing over the interstate you have just exited. The negative elevation of the interstate and the heavy forestation of the surrounding terrain very effectively conceals the reality of what is happening at that east bound exit. Therefore the odds are not in your favor of resuming your journey in the right direction.

The first of two easily missed signs from street view image shot in daylight of course...

Notice how far away from the pavement the idiots have place the sign!!!   Bear in mind that it is pitch black at night here!!! RIDICULOUS

It is so bad that even Google maps does not correctly track all the pavement...

Oddly, the street view overview DOES have all the pavement (and even some of the paved walks)....

Our Tom-tom (GPS) reported "unknown road" or something like that while we were in the parking area. I used dividers and the map scale and established it is approximately 1.5 miles from the point you exit WB I-10 to the parking area we stopped at, again, RIDICULOUS!!!! There are eight separate curves to negotiate before you can even see the facilities... very disorienting. It was sorta like an episode of the Twilight Zone after we realized we where going east again.

Most of it is not lighted at all and the parking is poorly designed... you have to walk great distances to get to the facilities. The signage is TERRIBLE. In our case we drove about 25 extra miles out of our way because the signs are INADEQUATE. There was a car off the pavement being attended to by emergency responders as we were trying to negotiate the resumption of travel which of course did not help. Hopefully the designer of this travesty is retired and no longer being paid to create more motorist traps like this mess.