Fine, I'll just go listen to Tom Petty by myself!

I believe it was Plato who famously complained about the youths these days, and having been proven wrong over thousands of years it’s something I make a conscious effort to try not to say or believe even if deep down I sympathize.  Being in the college town of Gainesville, home to the University of Florida (yes, Tim Tebow’s alma matter, we’ll skip that commentary here) I figured it only made sense to CouchSurf with some college kids, so I broke my rule of not seeking out people more than 5 years my junior.  Oh I don’t regret it, we went to an Oregon Trail themed party and a rager house party with 50 people at a three bedroom house mainly spilling out onto the street.  There was even a dude with a mullet and a shirt that read GAINESVILLE FUCKING FLORIDA!

However, because this is the American south, the term we use in Canada called “student ghetto” still applies, but in a literal sense.  A transient kid population just looking for a cheap place to live begets slum lords, rundown properties and depressed values, which in turn causes actual riff raff to move in.  I didn’t really think much of some of the neighbours coming over and crashing the party, other than laughing that kids had the audacity to complain when there was blaring music and 40 people blocking the street at two in the morning.  Soon enough someone had ordered a Jimmy John sandwich, the delivery boy propped his bike on the side of the house when he went in to deliver it, then found it gone when he came back outside.  Quickly borrowing someone else’s bike to search for his own, after some minutes he angrily sped back towards the full crowd, someone stepped in his way and he totally wiped in front of all the cool kids and threw his helmet against the wall screaming he would shit in their sandwich if they ever ordered one to that house again.

***

“What’s espresso?”

For some reason this question from the person in front of me in line brought a beaming grin to my face, unlike the Tom Petty inquiry.  It was in response to the scripted sales pitch at McDonald’s for their new McCafe deal, and if it wasn’t for the piece of paper to answer, I’m pretty sure the cashier didn’t know either.  By this point in time I was in the absolute middle of nowhere in the Florida panhandle, returning from another adventure of camping in the middle of nowhere (best spot ever FYI, check the gallery).  It was the only McDonald’s for 50 miles in any direction, there probably wasn’t a Starbucks, or for that matter an espresso maker for at least 100, and I’m not sure why, but I like that, even though I like espresso, and Starbucks.

The Gulf

What I didn’t like was hearing the 6 year old kid in the booth next to me make reference to “the 51 states” and not be corrected by her mother.  I mean, maybe Puerto Rico counts because this is Florida, but these were white country folks in the panhandle.  Somehow miraculously diffusing the reaction growing in my mind was the fact I was drawn into it as the mother turned to me and asked while pointing to the parking lot “what state does that license plate say, New York?”  It was very far away, but I have fighter pilot vision and have been able to beat anyone reading the letters at a distance since I was a child, so after a brief squint I informed her “no ma’am, Michigan”.  Thank God Bessie was out of view so we didn’t have to get into which state Alberta was.

Vultures are fucking hippies.  Everyone else does all the work, they spend all their time high as the goddam sky swooping in for a freebie whenever they can, and I love them for it.

Acton, Florida

But the tick…upon finding the first ever in my life latched to my thigh, I plucked it while musing “I have fabricated the evolution of man from antiquity to modernity solely within my own mind, the internal combustion engine facilitating my journey of thousands of miles, only to be the vehicle for the greatest distance you will ever travel, from shrubbery bush to squashed fingertip residue.  At least I have the capacity to pretend I have hopes and a will of my own, and to perhaps falsely ascribe the same virtues to the vulture.  But you tick, are an automaton, feeding without knowing.”

***

Having done “civilization” for far too long, I decided to return to my western US roots by boondocking in the middle of nowhere in Florida’s Ocala National Forest.  Problem is, being an hour from Orlando and the ocean in Daytona Beach, this isn’t the middle of nowhere like, oh, all of New Mexico.

Lake Eaton

My sanctioned $8 a night campground hosts at Lake Eaton told me of a couple free places to park in the middle of the forest, but warned me to watch out for “rainbows”.  I had already come across what that meant in Florida-speak researching the area online, so proddingly asked “you mean gypsies?”  To which I got the amazing response “no, worse…hippies.”  Fucking hippies!

Funny thing is, they use that term pretty loosely, it really just means vagabonds with unwashed hair, and there’s a huge difference.  When I heard tales of bonfires, yelling and drinking until 1 AM, that sounded like something to seek out, not avoid.  Yet when I drove 3 miles down the highway and saw at least a half dozen people with dreadlocks, a pitbull and their thumbs stuck out on the side of the road, I realized this unsanctioned campsite may very well have been the mistake the 60 year olds made it out to be.

Scowls.  Scowls that I knew of their perch in the bush where the ranger only stopped by once a week to boot them out.  A scowl like I got giving an extremely (and accidentally) quizzical look to the man who walked into Burger King a week ago in Daytona Beach demanding free food with the unspoken threat that he would either start screaming uncontrollably or shit in the middle of the floor.  Oh he got his food, the manager even knew his name, but I know now that he was a rainbow, not a hippie…a tick, not a vulture.

Open the pod bay doors

FYI, I’ve been doing a belated Christmas with my parents the last 8 days after refusing to return home for the holidays.  It was alright then, but currently is -30 in Calgary, so I stand by my decision to not take the chance.  I’ll take the Kennedy Space Center, Sea World and fresh shrimp over ski hills, overpriced drinks and everyone pretending we don’t live in Siberia any day of the week.

Just to expand on a point I made in my last post (yeah, I know they’re getting less frequent, eat me), I do laugh at the international perception of Americans as jackasses the deeper I get into tourist locations.  I forget how much closer Disney World is than Disney Land to Europe, so the concentration of our friends from across the pond is dramatically higher in Florida than California.  And when you’re standing in a grocery store with a 6 deep line and a 13 year old kid with a thick Italian accent walks right up to the front when the cashier is ringing someone else through and yells “hey, hey, HEY!  How much this costs?!?!” it all becomes clear.  Yes, Americans are loud and obnoxious, and to some degree entitled.  But at that exact moment it made me realize that the type of American that is able to be a globetrotter (only 20% have passports) must have money, probably thinks they’re better than everyone and is an asshole, probably fitting the exact same demographic of Europeans coming here.

R.I.P. Yuri

Ummm, I have no point whatsoever here.  But I took a bunch of fun pictures of Cocoa Beach and Orlando, check them out in the gallery.

Now this is happenning, the Atlantic

So FYI, it’s not that difficult to drive all the way from coast to coast in America, even if it takes you 12 months.  And you’ll see a lot, and eat and drink just as much.  You might also find that camping under the stars in the middle of nowhere is just as rewarding as plopping down on a bar stool next to one of the 300 million people that live here.  They’re all very different depending on where you go, but football and beer some to be pretty common threads.

I lost track of where I was going anymore sometime around the middle of Texas.  Now I’m just a guy in a van.  A friend wondered this before I even began my journey, when I would become “guy in van”, and that happened at the exact same time in middle Texas.  In the beginning it was like “wheee, look at me go!”, but then it gave way to “where am I going?”  But the real distinguishing mark is I don’t remember what it was like to think this whole idea was new and fresh and explain it to people like some revelation, because it’s not, it just is.  Not that I wouldn’t highly recommend it, and Bessie will be for sale in maybe 2 years when I get sick of this, but for now the south is pretty fantastic.  I also highly recommend quitting your job and telling anyone who will listen to play a game of hide and go fuck themselves.

Ocean still got forests

It’s become painfully obvious that anyone who doesn’t stop and say hello crossing paths with you on a nature trail or a not overly crowded city street is most likely from Europe, and the fact they generally start speaking French, German or Italian immediately thereafter is telling.  But even if they spoke fluent English, they wouldn’t stop to say hello, and I don’t know why.  You’d think I would have some insight, having never done it myself back in Canada, but it’s something American I can’t explain, same as how I picked up saying “riiiiight” every time I agree with someone.

The Florida coast is somewhat similar to the California coast, but with less money, which equates to more charm if you aren’t rolling around with a few thousand in your pocket.  Jacksonville Beach, St. Augustine, sure there’s plenty of nice stuff, but you don’t have to be a millionaire to live there, and a bar with a $2 pint or a pornography super-warehouse are never too far.  Even Jekyll Island in Georgia where I took all these shots, I didn’t even clue in as to why there were 4 golf courses on a tiny island with a campground, then getting there to find a castle, marina and “Millionaire’s row”, well I was still able to camp in a lovely spot of $20 a night, and I’ll gladly spend that all the way down to the everglades.

New Years Resolution: Drink more of this!

My one saving grace was that not surprisingly, everyone was Canadian.  They all get too sick of the cold and make the 15 hour drive from Ontario to Georgia to spend the winter as campground hosts, it’s surprisingly not as far as you’d think, unless you move at my pace.  And as a note to future retired self, the campground (or golf course) host/volunteer gig is a pretty good one.  Stay as long as you want for free, golf for free every day all in turn for maybe 2 to 3 hours of light chores each day, such as spending 30 minutes touring young Canadian fellows like myself around in a golf cart when they arrive then maybe grabbing them a pile of wood or replacing a light bulb in the bathroom.

Dude was a slick dresser

The whole experience was almost frighteningly Canadian, actually.  Where at the Sardis Lake campground in Mississippi on Thanksgiving I tried talking to the locals next to me and they were so terrified of my long hair they didn’t even respond, at Little Ocmulgee I’d chatted about Belleville Ontario, the exchange rate and how cheap beer was down here for 15 minutes before I’d even selected a campsite.

To recap since Nashville, which was only a week ago, I’ve gone through Lynchburg Tennessee and the Jack Daniels Distillery, which wasn’t worth writing about because arriving at 2:30 got me a chance to take the tour at 4, although that was the last time I took the camera out so those are all the attached shots.  Then on to Chattanooga, where I still don’t understand the significance of the Choo Choo, but it’s a very upscale chic town with a great microbrewery called the Terminal Brewhouse.  Atlanta is too sprawling, horrifyingly large and easy to get in the wrong part of town that I just skipped through it, and then on to Macon, where the whole place is the wrong part of town, although I was able to work a karaoke crowd with another rousing rendition of Desperado, which I’ve determined is a hit down here because it’s sort of, kind of a country song.

Stay mellow in 2012, y'all

So here I am in Brunswick, Georgia, 10 minutes away from the Atlantic Ocean wanting to save it until tomorrow so I can fully savour the triumph of making it all the way across the continent.  I’m not planning on zig-zagging all the way back, and have nothing planned beyond a little Florida time next week, but I’m still pretty sure 2012 will have some big things in store for the Blimpster as I have no intention of stopping any time soon.

The hat repetoir grows

“I found it on the floor last night at an ugly sweater party at Blue Bar.  Frosty the snow man was DJing.”  I still think it has some potential to become a seasonal pimp hat (it’s more fuchsia than pink), but her quizzical eye wrinkle at the floor bit made me realize the line needs some refining.  Good thing I didn’t tell her about the forgotten soldier beer I randomly picked off the bar and drank later in the night, it was still three quarters full and coldish, so basically the deal of the night.

Rewinding, I have been in Nashville for over a week now, sorry I skipped over my post on Memphis.  I think that’s because the most poignant observations I had were the “6 block rule” that no matter how safe you are, walk six blocks and you aren’t, that Terrence Howard’s accent in Hustle and Flow was way off but Ludacris had it bang on and that 11 AM is a really busy time at the convenience store because there will be 4 people ahead of you buying 40s.  Crazy good weed though, nothing like rolling around with my 6’8” buddy Tre at 2 AM on a Friday rockin some “strawberry cough” reminiscing about his days playing college ball in Arkansas.

OK, the DJ wasn't country

Up here in Music City, I’ve been staying with one of the most talented keyboardists you’ve ever met, so far hitting up a few recording studios, the Hammond repair shop, meeting a wide variety of musicians and song-writers, watching my Calgary Flames lose because they actually have a hockey team here, and just being generally busy.  ‘tis the season I suppose.

I kinda feel bad having a whole gallery of phone camera shots, but I’ve been coming across all kinds of stuff.  Apparently the thing to do is build a recording studio in your own basement so you don’t have to book time and can overdub tracks in your underwear and still get paid, but watching someone putting 2-inch stops under the new door frame in their severely curved/sunken 130 year old home makes me laugh at a new adage I have heard about recording studios.  They’re like a boat, a lot more fun when you’ve got a buddy who owns one.