Day One-Hundred-Ninety-Four, Jurassic Park

Find me at a Subway ( ! ) in Spanish Fort, Alabama, a few short miles from where I set up my tent.  It is well before nine, yet breakfast time, but it is best that I start typing now.  I no longer have the battery power to unleash it all in one spurt.

I woke up betimes after ten hours' sleep.  It was long overdue.  Indoor living was taking its toll.  I was of the Walking Dead.  I would not, in fact, have much minded another two or three hours.  But a boy's got to walk.  This ain't no disco.  This ain't no fooling around.

It did wind up raining last night.  There were unmistakable signs.  But I was not swept out to sea.  I didn't even get wet.  But it did enliven the sand at my feet and gritted up all of my gear.  And there was a robust wind which added some challenge to packing up my tent.  It came close to being swept out to sea.  I'd have missed it.  It's buggy here.

And not as warm as I wish it were.  Still I've suffered worse.  I was congratulating myself on a very fine spot for my tent.  My own little island between the sea and a swamp, inaccessible to modern man.

That is until I passed an alligator on my way back up to the road.  Rather startled me, he did, and he was thoroughly dead.  About four feet long with a malevolent grin.  I hadn't known there were gators here.  "Oh, there are hundreds," says the lady who made my breakfast.  Live and learn, what.

I think I could have taken him in a fair fight.  He might have chewed me up some.  But I'm hoping it will never come to that.  I am a Man of Peace.

I think I've left them behind for a while.  I made it across the bay.  And up a steep hill to Spanish Fort.  There are nice views up here.  But on the whole it's another fresh suburb.  It would not look out of place near Seattle.  I am thankful to be on dry land again.  I'm back to more familiar terrain.  Gators are just so much spice.  I'm told there are black bears too.

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Not nearly enough miles further up the road.  I had to stop and plug in my computer.  Certainly you could live without these reports, but I very much needed to check my map.  I got all kinds of turns on unnamed roads.  It would be easy to get lost back here.  But a good deal harder to find myself.  Follow the gator tracks.

I was nearly murdered by some ass in a Prius, gibbering on his phone.  I doubled back to find him at a light.  He was gone by the time I got there.  Which is better for both of us.  I was going to pound him to mush.

Which is not what you want from your Man of Peace.  I still think it's the Right Thing to Do.  To stop him before he runs someone down, or at least make him earn the right.

A Prius.  Damn.  You expect that behaviour from mini-vans and monster trucks.  But it's hard to be a Liberal in America today.  We must hold ourselves to a higher standard.  What kind of mileage do you think you'll get dragging me under your car?  Will you be able to speak for our noble cause if you're missing most of your teeth?  Would it make me feel at all better about myself, beating up some scrawny little dork?

Yes.  Yes, it would.  Murder me at your peril.

I had lunch not too long after breakfast.  Fried fish.  It was disgusting.  Long life in Japan has made me a fish snob.  They do it much better than us.  Their babies are cuter.  We're better at baseball.  But just barely.  We'd better look sharp.

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I've had time to cool.  I no longer want to pound that boy into mush.  I'd be content just to scare him a bit.  Maybe break his nose.

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I've never spent much time chatting on cell phones myself, but I know what you're talking about.  You'd have us believe you're trading stock or discussing philosophy.  Or putting in that all important call to the poison control center.  But we both know that isn't the case.  You're talking mindless shit.  You're an idiot and so's your friend on the other end of the phone.  Hang up and watch the goddamn road.

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Well today was a wasted day.  I did get some exercise.  Walking dozens of miles out of my way on the back roads of Alabama.  Google sent me on a goose chase or two.  To one road that didn't exist.  And to another shut up tight with a gate and a third where the bridge was out.  I was trying to steer wide around Pensacola.  That is not going to happen.  I walked all day in order to get about four miles from where I began.

Poop.

It is meant to be cold tonight.  It is going to freeze.  Which would not so very much bother me if it weren't for last Thursday night.  North of Mobile.  The experts all said it was going to be thirty-seven.  It bottomed out at minus thirteen.  I've never been so cold in my life.

If that happens again I'm going to be cranky.  It was not just that unhappy night.  There was too the awful morning and packing up a frozen tent.  Literally frozen.  I was afraid to fold it.  I was sure it was ging to crack.  Like a rose dipped in liquid nitrogen.  My toes were fragile as well.  As were my fingers and every bit that in any way protrudes.  If that happens again I'm going to hitchhike.  All the way to Belize.

And I must say this gator has me upset.  I've been complaining about them for weeks.  But it was for me an academic exercise.  I never thought I was going to see one.  This changes everything.  Remember the Seventies?  Back then the damned things were going extinct.  Who's bright idea was it to bring them back?  Prehistoric lizards running amok.  What a stupid idea.

Cold, nearly killed, a long wasted day, you might think my mood is sour.  Not really.  I've been worse off.  Lemme post this while I still can.

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