Travelogue

the road - ea - Wednesday, May 10th, 2006 : goo

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the sun sets on both sides

floridian ridiculosity

duval st day

duval st night

"if there's lightning, don't go out for your bike ride"

dusk tag at dawn

gas station encounters can offer a fascinating glimpse into localized demography. the stuff of stereotypes and standouts.

virginia:
(squints at licence plate) oregon. is that in canada?
ea: nope. it's between washington and california on the west coast
o ya! california! they must have nice weather there, huh?
ea: I'm actually from oregon.
there are too many states. I stopped looking at maps after a while.

knoxville:
(barefoot old woman, smoking and browsing do-dads in the gas station minimart)
'it's amazin! theez li'l stores'll have rill neet stuf inm sometahms'

and people in general...they are interesting.

calling in a change of address:
north carolina...is that "CA"?
ea: no, that would be california.
I learned all that in grade school.
ea: uh huh.

but it's easy to make friends anywhere. like micah at bonnie's corner, or the truck driver in georgia with oregon plates, the girl at the dc crosswalk with an osu sweatshirt, three old men in a montana diner who unsuccessfully took a stab at interpreting wiper blade installation instructions for me.

florida, I thought. now there's a place I'm not particularly inclined to visit. sounds perfect! even more perfect would be two days of uninterrupted driving, which is really just an excuse to listen to music and hunt for water tower photo opportunities. so I left early, and by the time I crossed the south carolina border (throwing up the horns at the 'Welcome To' sign, as has been my m.o. at 15 lines the past month), spring had lost its resistance. in a place where forests are made of leafing trees, young ones leave winter's destruction behind in blinding green optimism. wisteria climbing longleaf pines, the temperature climbing steadily with every mile south. I looked up to the sky and saw a reflection of my books on the seat next to me.

exactly how many people can reside in a single-wide? this is a mystery I have yet to uncover, but so far it looks like: a lot.

on down, on down
succumb to highway caresses
footsteps heartbeats fifth gear passes
I bet that when I reach the end there will be no more greener grasses
propulsion into Something Else. Something You Haven't Seen Yet.
miles and miles of telephone poles, growth creeps up over highway divides. the limbs. they want to engulf the road, consume carnivorous these entomological vehicles. I will be gone, and they will remain.

as I neared Miami, I noticed the earth changing. it bent away on either side, as if I were orbiting along the apex in a grand fisheye lens. not as much "wetland" as simply plains of water. out...out...gripping steadfastly to gravity itself with nothing overhead to contain it. unless you count the sunset, and it's colors need a place to stop.

kim said, "the tallest hill in this state is made of garbage. there's nowhere to bury waste, so it ends up in piles under sod." I was told to keep an eye out for the flocks of parrots that had escaped capture and proliferated some time ago and now spread their vibrancy around fort lauderdale neighborhoods. lizards as long as 7 feet, the air a texture so influential that its citizenship really can't be overlooked. it makes people... do things! or so kim and I speculated. they honk here. we waited in a drive-up teller line while a guy screamed at the clerk for not letting him withdraw over $1000 cash without an i.d. in grocery store parking lots, wherever. we ventured through areas of million dollar retreats along man-made canals adjacent to the main strip with its maserati and saks fifth. what do people do here?! I wondered. mostly real estate. everything is for sale, yet nothing deflates. a rental will sit defiantly overpriced, empty for over a year, until someone with no better choice breaks. strange too, though oil barges and drilling are visible along the horizon so close, that gas still costs over $3 a gallon. and people don't tend to be from here, but rather new jersey, quebec.

lounging on a beach near miami, even a 15' dredged replica of a beach, seemed a most emptying experience. I searched the inside of my eyelids for traces of my life, but all was gone save for fleeting remnants of Almost.

I volunteered one morning at the sea turtle hospital in the keys. kim had been saying, "they're so cute! I cant wait for you to meet them!" and I'd thought, cute? is that the word? but sure enough! what endearing creatures. even with their shark bitten, boat propeller damaged shells, graceful. 44 en total, the largest 300 lbs with a 36" shell diameter, the smallest only a few inches. his name was houdini, and he wiggled and scowled something fierce. that didn't prevent me from picking him up with two fingers, though, and taking numerous, likely humiliating photographs.

keeey wessst. written out so because it is just so. slow. with its humidity a very. saturated. 85 degrees. the kind where you can feel your shins sweat. banyan trees, groping palms, tropical flowers in blinkingly bright color. tourist population and shops sporting such must-have tshirt slogans as "went on vacation, left on probation." the seafoam green crayola must have originated here. I absolutely had to find the Hemingway House. pacing up and down antiquated bourbon-like streets felt more like swimming. in a hot tub. suddenly from behind I heard "o my god the most beautiful woman I've ever seen!" and the ding ding of a bell. glanced back to see a juice vendor grinning after me. I bet he says that to all the girls.

the Hemingway's wife that lived there was a Vogue fashion editor and possessed a grandiose chandelier collection. removed, in fact, all ceiling fans from the residence to better display their fantastical boasts. interesting decision. at any given point there are around 50 cats that meander about the place. he named them for their traits: dillinger, friendless... I heard stories of his life and lost loves. what a cad. but I can't stop loving him.

back out on the street, geriatrics rode by on scooters with their pasty legs and black socks, tshirts reading "just do me", bikini'd-tatoo'd and absurdly tanned specimens.
beer, that's what I want right now.

"o my god the most beautiful woman I've ever seen!"
ding ding
ea: twice in one day? aren't you lucky
"I'll keep saying it till you believe I mean it"

sigh...this looked like a good enough spot: Green Parrot Bar (No Snivelling Since 1890)
I took to writing things down, content enough under a breeze that did more to stir than cool. the bartenders were two aged women sporting Parrot Troopers tshirts 2 sizes too big and short shorts 2 sizes too small. (who is responsible for tshirts up in here?! we need to have a conversation.) under a cacophony of banners and "ban country music" bumper stickers, they offer up conventional wisdom through missing teeth and a smirk. one leaned over me to check my drink level and investigate my task. "that's the tiniest handwriting! can I see your book?" shrunken by her gravelly heckle, I handed it over and she told me a story...

the only time I've ever seen handwriting this small was the time I was on vacation and saw a woman who just sat by the pool for hours and wrote pages of unintelligible tiny scribble. occasionally she'd look up and stare furtively off into space deep in contemplation. my friend and I were dying of curiosity! what was she doing?! was she in the midst of a personal tragedy? writing a book? we had to know! after she took several trips to the bathroom, we snuck over to inspect, but couldn't discern a thing. we ultimately asked the innkeeper, who said it really was a book of nonsense. she was crazy! even though I can't read this book either, you look okay though. need a refill?

in west palm beach you can get away with wearing almost anything. (almost nothing, too). my friend and I had an hour to kill before her flight, and we discovered that some west palm beach was way better than none. and how! I was so overwhelmed by the deco decadence that I lost incentive to do anything but walk slowly forward and not gawk, trying not to look ridiculous. I was counting on being able to find a taschen book to supplement my lapse...woeful assumption. seriously. un.be.leeeevable architecture. an exclusive collection viewable nowhere else. The Best (I mean other than passing an open air bar and seeing a dude in only a bright yellow thong acting like it ain't no thing) was a latin woman we passed on the street. she held a sloshing plastic cup of red wine, 3 or 4 children milling around her ankles. as we pushed through the crowd, we heard through her broken english the unmistakable refrain "do you like pina coladas..."

we said goodbye at the gate. glancing down to grab her bag, she startled
"I still have sand all over my feet!"
don't you dare brush that off, I said.
"never."

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