Day Two-Hundred-Forty-Two, Escape From Okeechobee

Twelve score and two, an awfully long time.  I should have been done in two hundred.  But I've dragged my feet; I've laid up here and there.  These numbers are embarrassing me.  I remember the night I typed "Day Twenty."  I was awfully proud of myself.  Twenty whole days in the wilderness.  As many as I had fingers and toes.

And one or two more than I have now.  Walking do wear down your feet.  But I have no doubt that they'll grow back, stronger than ever before.  If less beautiful.  Mountain climbers lose toes all the time.  And when the get home they brag about it.  I'll never wear sandals again.

Not without socks.  That is a privilege that comes to us all in old age.  But small compensation for the sad fact that you are now falling apart.  I'm not quite sure how I got on this track.  It's not at all what I wanted to say.  But it doesn't hurt to let your mind wander.  It may come up poetry.

I got my eight hours, or not too much less.  I did well without a TV.  Or without a remote.  It was too much trouble to lean over and turn it on.  The beauty of TV is that it's effortless.  It makes no demands of you.  It is ruined if you have to do calisthenics before you can have your mind numbed.

I flipped it on in the morning.  Save me.  I was up at seven o'clock.  And still I sat there until check-out time, comfortable on my bed.  There was a pool but I didn't swim.  It did not look wholly clean.  Nor did the shower but I had three of those, the first two to wash off the stink.  And the third just because I could.  Appreciate what comforts you have.

It's nice to be rinsed.  My hair is clean.  Or was; it didn't last long.  Back out in the humidity I got all sticky again.  On a two-mile hike to the laudromat, rather a high-class place.  There are RV'ers here, sophisticated, but without their own washing machines.  So they keep the place cleaner and charge a bit more.  Few good things in life are free.

I finished up there in an hour or two.  I still did not go anywhere.  I hung around town until four o'clock, contemplating my future.  For this reason or that I hadn't been fed, not for some thirty-six hours.  And it had me just a little light-headed.  It was hard to make plans.  I left town on a thirty-mile hike without enough food or water.

Main Street, I think it's called Parrot Road, runs south straight out of town.  And stops when it hits Lake Okeechobee.  There you go left or right.  I went left, that's east, and a mile in at last had the wits to eat.

At a saloon.  I did not catch the name.  I made friends with some old people.  I wish I could have sat and drank beer with them but it was fast getting dark.  So I ate much too much, much too fast, and bolted back out to the road.  I wasn't sure how far I would have to go before I found a place for my tent.

Lake Okeechobee.  I wish I could describe it.  It's not words that fail me here.  I've not seen it myself.  The whole thing is hemmed in by a thirty-foot dike.  Around that runs a canal.  Then a hundred-yard width of trailer parks.  Then the road that I'm on now.  Then more trailer parks and, luckily, a gas station/sandwich shop.

So I'll have food tomorrow if I don't eat it now.  I am a little peckish.  But it may be all I have to sustain me until I get to Canal Point.  And a lot more than I thought I'd get.  I really could have done with more planning.  I've managed to survive at least this long.  I'm too quick to think I always will.

I was still among trailer parks when it got dark.  I wondered where I would sleep.  But that problem always seems to solve itself.  I was not too much concerned.  And sure enough, I found a road leading into the tall tall grass.  Twelve feet tall.  Seriously.  And you think your lawn is bad.

It was like a tunnel, spooky enough.  God knows what's living in there.  I spotted a length of coiled up hose and stopped so fast I almost snapped my neck.  But it eventually opened up.  I found a path leading me into the thick of it.  To an open patch, a boar's nest no doubt, where I set up my tent.

I hope the pigs don't come to evict me.  There are too sportsmen at large.  Who drive monster trucks with a flying bridge, designed just for killing hogs.  They've got a platform twelve feet off the ground.  They go deep into the grass.  And sit up there drinking beer until a pig happens by.  Then they shoot it dead.  My yellow tent makes me invisible back here.  That might be my bad luck.

Happy dreams.

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Day One-Hundred-Ninety-Seven, Stuck in the Middle

My campsite wasn't as good as I thought it was.  I did find it in the dark.  And it was awfully good, don't get me wrong.  Cozy and clever and safe.  My own tent-sized oasis, apart from the world.  Invisible to all mankind.  But it was not, as I thought, in the midst of a city.  It was in the middle of nowhere.

On a ridge overlooking Interstate 10 where it crosses my Highway 90.  And there was a gas station just up the road.  I do like to have my coffee.  But did not need it as much as I might.  I had slept until almost eight o'clock.  It is my custom to wake up with the rising sun.  The sun did not rise today.

Or not until mid-afternoon.  I would have preferred that it had.  Forget the palm-tree propaganda.  Florida can get awfully cold.

I breakfasted at that gas station.  It has its own Subway shop.  And their breakfast sandwiches are not in fact the very worst thing they produce.  Still I feel hypocritical.  I am against Subway in theory.  I resent what they've done to the American Sandwich,  They've driven more deserving shops out of business.  And orphaned a whole generation, who will never know just what a sandwich can be.

Sad.

I was back on the road at God knows what time.  No sun in the sky gave a clue.  And soon found myself on that same old road.  The one you see in every town.  This one took me north of Pensacola.  I hear that's a pretty big town.  But all I saw were muffler shops, fast food and carpet warehouses.  The odd Walmart, some auto parts stores.  One or two low-rent attorneys.  Used and new cars, video rentals.  Hardware and mini-malls.

It made for a physically easy walk.  I was on pavement most of the time.  Or on close-cropped grass or in parking lots.  It did get a bit hard on my nerves.  You have to keep your eyes open with that many cars about.  Three almost killed me.  Two were uniformed cops.

Now I like donuts as much as the next guy.  More, if the truth must be known.  And I know they're best fresh.  You want to get there before all the good ones are gone.
 
But at what cost.  The signal was mine.  They were taking illegal right turns.  If it gets to where you're murdering pedestrians, I tell you, you have a problem.  Scrape that monkey off your back.  Gnaw on some carrot sticks.  Do a sit-up or two and obey the laws you have sworn to uphold.

Seriously.  Shame on you, you miserable fried-dough junkies.  Do we really want to live in a world where the cops run people down?  Least of all blameless pedestrians.  I never hurt anyone.  I have a good heart.  I do mean well.  I am growing more humble by the day.

I gave them the finger.  It's my Constitutional right.  I did it subtly.  There was no need to burden these donut fiends with my deep need for self-expression.  We can review the First Amendment when they've mastered the traffic laws.

I was a man on a mission of sorts.  I had to hit the Verizon shop.  Good intentions and my own sad carelessness had cost me my charger cable.  Thirty bucks.  Plus tax.  For eighty-nine cents worth of plastic and three feet of wire.  I'm no opponent of capitalism.  But let us leave room for decency.  How much profit is enough.  Pirates.  Shame on them, too.  They're the Subway of equitable computer parts pricing.

While I was there I had them check on the replacement device I'm expecting.  "We have no record of that," said they.  I began that process anew.  And if all goes well I'll be back online by some time Tuesday.  Or so.

I was out of there by noon or so.  I had another bay to cross.  A swamp, really, where a number of rivers empty themselves into the gulf.  I worried there would be more bridges.  It was in fact mostly causeway.  And it had by then developed into a fairly beautiful day.

Windy, though.  Blowing right in my face.  It did not upset my mood.  It was pretty out there.  I kept fairly safe.  I maintained a very quick pace.  I was determined to get to Pace, Florida before meeting the Knightens again.

You may remember them as the religious fanatics who abducted me last weekend.  They gave me their gracious permission to have my new computer sent to them.  I had been hoping to pick it up.  Of course it has not arrived.  But they did not rescind their invitation to spend the weekend with them.  In fact they came and picked me up.  I am closer but it's still a drive.  And they stuffed me full of steak and beans and prayed for my damaged soul.

So here I am in a soft bed.  I'll likely stay Sunday night too.  Too enjoy their very good company and to avoid the Florida cold.  Then it's back on the road for a day or two.  Then I'll be back here again.  By which time they will likely be sick of me.  They've brought this bad luck on themselves.  You don't want to feed stray dogs and hobos.  You don't want to laugh at their jokes.  You'll have the damnedest time getting rid of them, despite their very best intentions.

SPEAKING OF CLOWNS, I passed a car full of Shriners dressed up in their Sunday best.  I smiled and waved; what else can you do.  They looked at me with contempt.  Dissed by clowns.  That's a new low.  Sometimes you just have to laugh.

CHANCIES, I think it was called.  "Chancy's

I PASSED A NUMBER of cyclists.  It's thin but it suggests warmer weather.  Stuck up jerks.  They still aren't saying hi.  It hurts less than it once did.  Let us pity those people with no Love for James.  I'm a good egg.  The loss is theirs.

CHEERS to the lovely Mrs. Marne Smith.  She made my teddy bear pants.  And pieced together the above photo.  Genius.  I almost cried.

"Wild hogs is more dangerous than gators, and they's a lot more of them.  They'll eat ya."