Another rerun.
Well, it took me about five seconds to answer that puzzler. There’s some advantages to being a Scrabble player, I guess.
Scrabbler
Without giving away what I think is the answer, let me just say this–the business about Key West and sport fishing seems like obfuscation. Because if its relevant I’m definitely wrong about the answer.
The “Key West” obfuscation worked great on me. I thought the answer was “ROUTE IA” which would have made it a very lame puzzler. Had I checked a map, I would have seen that California Route 1 stops well south of the Cascades and there is no Route 1a anywhere in California.
The fact that the numeral “1” isn’t the letter “i” didn’t bother you?
The use of the Roman numeral “I” bothered me enough to wrongly think that it was a lame puzzler. The NY Times crossword puzzle has been known to use that Roman numeral trick.
I was also bothered that “Route 1A” is not a “word.” I really am quite relieved that my answer is completely wrong.
I’ll rephrase: the fact that California and Florida don’t use Roman Numerals as highway designators didn’t bother you?